Creating Change Policies
Jump to:
Radical Welcome
Practicing Radical Welcome
Welcoming Transgender, Gender Nonconforming, and Non-Binary Community Members
Public Health
Policies
You and Your Badge
Creating a Positive Environment
Protest Policy
Accessibility
Radical Welcome
We are excited to be in Louisville, Kentucky for Creating Change 2027!
We invite you to join a truly extraordinary Creating Change tradition; the Radical Welcome! This experience is rooted in love, curiosity, and respect for each other and our LGBTQ family. Each year Creating Change welcomes a diverse mix of community members all showing up with varying political opinions, strategic focus, and experiences.
Our collective capacity to hold this vastness begins with our own individual commitments to principled struggle. For many attendees, Creating Change is an entry point into movement work, arriving with excitement, urgency, curiosity, and a desire to help shape the future of LGBTQ liberation. Alongside emerging leaders are longtime organizers, advocates, and movementelders whose wisdom has been built through decades of organizing, struggle, survival, and care.
Creating Change’s Radical Welcome is the Task Force inviting you, to find joy in and focus on the values that unite us. Our shared commitment to justice, liberation, and collective power. We invite you to gather across experiences and perspectives because our movement is strongest when people learn from one another, engage complexity with care, and make space for the full humanity of where we each are in our journey for change.
As we gather this year to learn, connect, and persist, we feel enormously proud to host you, our beautiful, diverse LGBTQ and allied community! Creating Change is your movement space where vibrant differences in race, socio-economic class, geography, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression are radically welcome. The Task Force works hard to create an engaged, inclusive, and safe space for all of our attendees. Thank you for helping us make the magic!
Practicing Radical Welcome at Creating Change
A core value of the National LGBTQ Task Force is Radical Welcome. Thank you for your help in ensuring that Creating Change is an environment where all participants feel welcome, comfortable, and celebrated as members of the Creating Change family. We are committed to being a welcoming space for the LGBTQ community and our allies. We want everyone to learn a lot, meet fabulous new people from all over the country, and experience full and authentic connections to build a stronger, more inclusive LGBTQ movement. You are welcome here: This is a place filled with new people and movement veterans, and we want you to contribute to what makes this community special. Please join us in creating a warm and friendly space for all. Catch up with dear old friends and make some new ones. Know that you are free to introduce yourself, share your pronouns, and be curious about who you meet. Be radical by being you!
Access: Please be mindful of how physically accessible public spaces are and join us in supporting our friends who may need wider space to pass. Additionally, work with us and each other to support language justice in our workshops and plenaries. It really helps when we all slow down.
Intentional about Power and Privilege: Be intentional about your privilege and show up for folks who may be vulnerable. Recognize how much space you are taking up (either with words, actions or your stuff) and think about how to create space for others.
Consent: Many attendees create and build social and sexual relationships while at Creating Change. We flirt! We celebrate! Please be mindful that consent is essential.
Practice Wellness: This should be a place to create change, not create flu. Be mindful of how others may be put at risk by catching a cold or flu; wash your hands, cover your mouth when you cough, and respect others who do not wish to share food or drinks.
Sharing Space with Diverse Lived Experience: Some attendees may not be accustomed to being in spaces where people speak openly about living with HIV, surviving violence, practicing sobriety, navigating immigration systems, exploring gender identity, or holding deep religious or spiritual beliefs. We ask everyone to approach these conversations and experiences with respect, curiosity, care, and compassion. If these moments become challenging, our Care Bear team is here to support you.
18+ Age Requirement: Creating Change is a learning environment intended for participants who are 18 years of age or older at the time of participation.
To help ensure the safety, privacy, and comfort of all participants, individuals under the age of 18 may not register for or attend Creating Change, including conference workshops, caucuses, plenaries, exhibits, receptions, and affiliated events.
Government-issued identification may be requested at registration or at any point during the conference to verify age and identity.
The National LGBTQ Task Force reserves the right to deny or revoke registration without refund for individuals who do not meet the age requirement or who provide false information regarding their age.
Welcoming Transgender, Gender Nonconforming, and Non-Binary Community Members!
To create radical welcome for our transgender, gender nonconforming, non-binary, and genderqueer members of our movement, please remember that a person’s purposeful gender expression or external appearance may not match their internal gender identity.
About pronouns:
- At Creating Change, we do not make assumptions about anyone’s gender identity based on the way they look, sound or behave.
- Ask “What pronouns do you use?”
- When in doubt, use a person’s name or gender-neutral pronouns.
- Please call people what they ask you to call them and use the pronouns that people ask you to use.
- Remind yourself that some people may be expressing gender differently than the last time you encountered them.
- When you make a mistake about someone’s pronoun, make the correction and move on.
About gender inclusive bathrooms:
- One way that the Creating Change supports trans and genderqueer people’s needs is to designate restrooms gender-inclusive.
- Transgender and gender nonconforming people have often experienced a great deal of unwanted attention in the bathroom. In many of our states and institutions, there are political debates about access to public accommodations like hotel bathrooms. Gender Inclusive bathrooms support an environment where everyone can use the bathroom without being policed regarding their gender expression.
- Regardless of what bathroom you are in, please let everyone visit the bathroom in peace. Each of us can decide for ourselves in which bathroom we belong.
Showing up:
- Respect people’s privacy and boundaries and do not ask questions that you wouldn’t ask of anyone else.
Our Health at Creating Change
COVID-19
The Task Force recognizes that COVID-19 remains an ongoing public health concern, and we are committed to complying with all local and federal regulations. We are also mindful of the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on those who are immunocompromised, managing pre-existing conditions, and/or caring for loved ones at home.
During our time together at Creating Change 2027 in Louisville, KY, the Task Force will strongly encourage all participants to wear a mask, if able, in public areas and to test/self-isolate when experiencing possible COVID-19 symptoms. Any additional public health policies (including mask and/or vaccine requirements) will be adopted and enforced at the Task Force’s discretion. Prior to arriving in Louisville, KY, all Creating Change registrants will receive information regarding CC27 policies and on-site health resources (masks, testing, local medical services, etc.).
Sensory Considerations
We understand that our atmosphere of constant activity, challenging topics, loud sounds, and event lighting may be overwhelming or triggering for some individuals. We encourage all attendees to familiarize themselves with our Community Care resources and spaces available at the Creating Change. Please take advantage of these quieter, lower-stim spaces and resources, and take breaks as needed to manage sensory stimulation. Your well-being is important to us, and we are committed to supporting a comfortable and safe experience for all attendees.
Creating Change Policies
You and Your Badge
We are so happy that you are part of our family at Creating Change 2027! We ask you to visibly display your registration name badge when attending plenary sessions, workshops, caucuses, and evening events; your badge is your “ticket.” Wearing your badge is a friendly thing to do because it makes it easier for folks to call you by name. Also, the well-being of all of us is a top priority: your name badge means you are part of our Creating Change family. Please wear your badge. Creating Change registrants without badges will be asked to retrieve them, or to purchase a new badge at Registration for an administrative fee of $5. Save yourself the inconvenience. Wear your badge. Thank you!
Badge & Lanyard Colors
Your Creating Change name badge is your credential for participating in all convening activities. For the safety of everyone in our community, all registered attendees are expected to wear their official Creating Change name badge, so it must be clearly visible throughout the event space. Visible badges help staff, volunteers, presenters and our safety team recognize registered participants and respond quickly when assistance is needed. Attendees who are not wearing a badge may be asked to retrieve it or purchase a replacement badge before continuing to participate.
Creating Change also uses colored lanyards to help communicate attendees’ photography and recording preferences. A green lanyard indicates that an attendee is generally comfortable appearing in photos or videos. An orange lanyard indicates that the attendee prefers not to be photographed or recorded for public use whenever reasonably possible. Communications staff; photographers, videographers, exhibitors, presenters, and fellow attendees are asked to respect these preferences and avoid intentionally photographing or recording individuals wearing orange lanyards.
While we make every reasonable effort to honor these preferences, wearing an orange lanyard does not guarantee that an attendee will never appear in photographs or recordings. Creating Change is a large public gathering, and attendees may be captured incidentally in crowd scenes, event documentation, livestreams, or by other participants. When reviewing images for publication, the Task Force will make reasonable efforts to crop, edit, blur, or refrain from using images that prominently feature attendees wearing orange lanyards whenever practicable.
Photography, Recording & Media Release
Creating Change is documented through photography, video, livestreams, and audio recordings by the National LGBTQ Task Force, the National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund, authorized contractors, media partners, and credentialed members of the press. By registering for and attending Creating Change, you acknowledge that you may be photographed, filmed, recorded, or otherwise documented while participating in convening activities and authorize the National LGBTQ Task Force, the National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund, and their respective employees, contractors, licensees, and partners to use your name, image, voice, and likeness without additional notice, approval, or compensation.
This authorization includes the perpetual, worldwide right to edit, reproduce, publish, distribute, display, and otherwise use these materials in print, digital, video, audio, social media, advertising, educational, advocacy, archival, marketing, fundraising, and promotional materials. Your image or likeness may appear in communications related to Creating Change or in future campaigns, publications, observance celebrations, movement storytelling, fundraising initiatives, and other programs conducted by the National LGBTQ Task Force or the National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund, regardless of whether those materials are directly connected to Creating Change.
The Task Force understands that some attendees may have personal, professional, immigration-related, employment, or safety concerns about public visibility. Our lanyard color system is one of several tools used to communicate those preferences and guide our communications staff when selecting images for publication. However, because Creating Change is a public event attended by thousands of participants, members of the media, exhibitors, and fellow attendees, the Task Force cannot guarantee that individuals will never appear in photographs, recordings, or social media content created by others. By registering, you acknowledge these limitations while also recognizing the Task Force’s commitment to making reasonable efforts to respect attendee privacy preferences whenever possible.
Creating a Positive Environment
Creating Change is committed to creating a positive environment for the LGBTQ community and our allies. We want everyone here to learn a lot, meet fabulous new people from all over the country, and feel good about talking and connecting with each other as we build a stronger movement.
To that end, we want to remind everyone of our guiding principles that are essential to maintaining a respectful and positive space for each other.
There are two fundamental principles to the Creating Change: human rights and solidarity. Sexual harassment and other forms of violence strike at the heart of both. Harassment, violence, bullying, and bigotry create feelings of fear, uneasiness, trauma, humiliation, and discomfort. They are expressions of perceived power and superiority by the harasser over another person. Sometimes, even when our actions are not intentionally hurtful, what we say and do can hurt others or make them feel uncomfortable.
Sexual Harassment
Sexual harassment is a form of discrimination and potential violence and refers to any unwanted attention of a sexual nature, including:
- Unwanted flirtations or advances
- Offensive written or visual depictions like graffiti or degrading pictures
- Touching someone without their permission (groping, grabbing, hugging, petting, biting)
- Unwanted sexual demands, pressure, propositions, or requests for sexual activities
- Graphic or degrading comments about an individual’s body or dress
- Verbal abuse, including sexual insults and name-calling
- Stalking, intimidation, or targeted harassment
- Sharing sexual images or recordings without consent
- Rewards for granting sexual favors or the withholding of rewards for refusing to grant sexual favors
- Pressuring someone into sexual activity, social interaction, substance use, or physical contact
- Retaliation against someone who sets boundaries or reports harm
- Sexual assault, rape, and sexual violence
Many attendees create and build social and sexual relationships while at the Creating Change. We want to remind you that, if you are thinking about hooking up, consent is essential. Please be sure that all involved have similar expectations. And please play safe!
Creating Change is proud to host a beautiful and diverse LGBTQ and allied community where vibrant diversity in sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression is welcome. It is all our responsibility to ensure that each member of our LGBTQ and ally family feels welcome and affirmed.
Safety is a communal act. Thank you for your efforts in ensuring that Creating Change is an environment where all participants feel safe, comfortable, and celebrated as members of the Creating Change family. If you experience sexual harassment or violence or feel threatened, please ask to speak with our Care Bear team and/or We Keep Us Safe team. feel threatened, please ask to speak with the Creating Change Director.
Hate Speech is Not Welcome at Creating Change
The Task Force supports free speech. Hate speech will not be tolerated at Creating Change. With all of the hate speech directed at others in politics, society, and communities across the country, we seek a Creating Change experience in which we are not expressing hate speech towards each other. Hate speech is defined as abusive or threatening speech or writing that expresses prejudice against a particular group. This includes words, phrases, and chants that target specific groups and are widely recognized as racist, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, transphobic, bi-phobic, homophobic, ableist, ageist, classist, sexist, and misogynist, or attacks a person or a group on the basis of other protected attributes.
The Task Force reserves the right to address instances of hate speech that may occur at Creating Change in ways it deems appropriate, including asking people to not participate in some or all the programming. If you have experienced hate speech at the Creating Change, please ask to speak with the with our Care Bear team and/or We Keep Us Safe team.
No Guns at Creating Change!
The National LGBTQ Task Force joins with the millions of people working to end gun violence. We ask, in the interest of everyone’s comfort and well-being, that no guns be brought into our spaces, sessions, events, and gatherings. We do not want guns or other deadly/dangerous weapons at Creating Change! If any attendee is observed carrying a gun while participating in the Creating Change hotel or event spaces, you will be asked to remove it from the premises.
Digital Safety and Privacy: Be mindful of the digital safety of others. Do not post photos, videos, livestreams, or location information of attendees without consent, especially in workshops, caucuses, healing spaces, or other sensitive environments. Avoid tagging people, sharing hotel locations or room numbers, or posting identifying details that could place someone at risk. Doxxing, targeted online harassment, or sharing private information about attendees, staff, speakers, or organizers causes real harm. Help us build a movement space rooted in consent, care, and collective safety both offline and online.
Creating Change’s Commitment to Nonviolence and Lawful Protest
The National LGBTQ Task Force is committed to nonviolence and the rule of law. We ask that all attendees agree to conduct themselves in a way that reflects these core values, in order to protect our mission and to protect each other. There is a zero-tolerance policy for violence of any kind at Creating Change.
As noted above, we have been working closely with hotel security and other resources to ensure the safety and security of our guests. In the unlikely event that law enforcement is present at Creating Change, we ask that attendees allow these teams to take the lead on handling the situation and not take steps to interfere with or obstruct law enforcement activities.
National LGBTQ Task Force Values
All participants at Creating Change are expected to uphold the values of the National LGBTQ Task Force.
These are some of our values:
- Justice and Liberation
- Diversity and Inclusion
- Intersectionality
- Love, Commitment and Compassion
- Grassroots Power
- Innovation
- Centrality of Sex and Sexuality
We also oppose:
- Ableism
- Ageism
- Anti-Blackness
- Anti-Semitism
- Classism
- Fatphobia
- Heterosexism
- Homophobia, Bi-phobia, Transphobia
- Islamophobia
- Racism
- Sexism and misogyny
- Xenophobia
- Hatred or prejudice of any kind, including hate speech
Protest Policy
Political expression is an essential principle of democracy and in our LGBTQ+ movement for freedom, justice, and equality. We welcome debate and dialogue as key elements of Creating Change.
While some participants may want to engage in nonviolent protest, the Task Force discourages the disruption of sessions, plenary sessions, meetings or exhibits that result in attendees not being able to fully participate in learning and educational opportunities available at Creating Change. We ask that this core principle of free exchange of ideas be respected as essential to the mission and spirit of Creating Change.
Protests that occur on the plenary stage may not exceed 5 minutes. Anything longer than that is disrespectful to those we’ve invited as plenary speakers, whose voices are often the most marginalized and silenced in society.
Protests within the hotel must be nonviolent “moving protests,” that is proceeding in a walking formation to avoid violations of Fire Code regulations regarding impeding the movements of others through the hotel and blocking doorways to meeting rooms.
Hotels are not public spaces. The host hotel can report any protest to local law enforcement at their discretion.
The National LGBTQ Task Force reserves the right to determine whether a demonstration is disruptive and/or detrimental to the programs at Creating Change and to act accordingly. We seek to provide avenues for political expression while also balancing this with the needs of attendees, presenters, and exhibitors.
For those who may be organizing protests within the host hotel during Creating Change, we ask you to inform the Creating Change Director and designate a contact person for your protest.
For those who may be organizing protests within the host hotel during Creating Change, we ask you to inform the Creating Change Director and designate a contact person for your protest.
Policy Violations
Anyone who violates these policies may be asked to leave Creating Change 2026 and may not be allowed to participate in future convening.
