Welcome!

This site displays information about the upcoming Lavender Languages & Linguistics Conference (February 12–14, 2010) and archives conference agendas and abstracts from previous conferences.

The first Lav Lgs Conference was held at the American University in 1993, in conjunction with the 1993 National March on Washington DC for Lesbian and Gay Rights. Presentations during the earliest years of the conference documented lgbtq language use, more than they theorized the significance of significance of these linguistic practices. In recent years, conference discussions have expanded to ensure that linguistic practices are now examined within social, political, and historic contexts, and not as performative curiosities. In some cases, the broader focus exposes the claims to privilege that underlie lavender linguistic practices. In others, the broader focus underscores the difficult politics  associated with “speaking” as a “sexual subject,” when subject formation is already being shaped by  racial, ethnic, class, age, mobility, and other inscriptions of difference.

Unlike the case at the larger professional meetings, the Lav Lgs conference  is organized to facilitate face-to-face conversation. This discussion unfolds  continuously throughout the three-day conference period and  participants work hard each year to maintain a non-attitude environment at all conference events. Part of the fun of the conference lies in being part of discussions between established scholars and those just beginning to explore lavender language interests, and between academics, public intellectuals and community activists. Conflicting points of view about language, gender and sexuality often arise during these discussions, but conference participants are not demeaned or devalued when these exchanges unfold.

Lav Lgs is now the longest running lgbtq studies conference in North America. Please consider this your personal invitation to join us  in Washington DC, February 12-14, 2010, so you can be part of this ongoing exchange.

With best wishes,
Bill Leap
Lav Lgs Conference Coordinator