Call for Proposals

Below are general guidelines for submitting a workshop proposal.

Each proposal will be reviewed by a committee, and the committee will select sessions that include and reflect the perspectives, needs, and priorities of our multi-racial, multi-gender, multi-abled, and multi-aged communities and the human rights movement for sexual rights.  Your session should include a concrete takeaway

Not sure how to tie your idea to a human rights framework? Here’s an example of a workshop proposal on Lube demonstrated the human rights framework perfectly.

“This session will discuss how lubricants and sex education around lubricant use have unknowingly endangered folks in the efforts to prevent the spread of HIV and other STIs. This presentation directly addresses the rights to sexuality education, freedom of thought, opinion and expression, the right to decide whether or not, and when, to have children, and pursue a satisfying, safe and pleasurable sexual life. Lubricant use is taught in a misleading way by most sex educators currently, and many lubricants promised to decrease STI transmission actually do the opposite. Lubricant use has effects of fertility and conception, which is affected greatly by inadequate or misleading regulation and labeling on personal lubricants. These same regulations impede freedom of thought and opinion, as well as the freedoms manufacturers, should have in the U.S. to refrain from animal testing or create products for anal penetrative intercourse. Lastly, lube can be essential to pleasure for many bodies, and correct, accurate, knowledgeable education and referrals to personal lubricants, with the currently available selection in the U.S., is sorely lacking, if not altogether invisible. All of these topics are interwoven into the content of the presentation.” From Sarah Mueller’s presentation at #SFS15 Lube: An In-Depth Look at Personal Lubricants.

Not sure how to address diversity in this presentation, with a focus on the inclusion of people of color and people with disabilities?  Send us an email (summit@woodhullfoundation.org) and we’ll be happy to chat with you about your ideas and how to make your proposal inclusive. 

90 Minute Workshop – Prepared presentations or trainings with stated and specific learning objectives. Workshops are teaching/learning sessions in which attendees gain useful information, advice, and technical assistance about a specific topic.

This year, in addition to general workshops, we will also be offering 4 Tracks for our programming. The Tracks are:

Making Sexual Freedom More Accessible

Discussions of sexual freedom are often riddled with ableist, ageist, and classist assumptions about what people can do. Racism and white supremacy also restrict the accessibility of discussions and our organizations. Workshops in this track will draw specific attention to making our sexual freedom movement one that truly addresses the needs and desires of all human beings.

Pleasure

Every human being has a right to sexual pleasure. But, as with many rights, there’s no guarantee that we have the tools to enjoy that right. Let’s change that with this track. Be sexy, be informative, be creative, and let’s share some pleasures!

Skill Sharing

Ever wondered how to write a fundraising plan? Lobby your congresspeople? Begin a grassroots organizing campaign? Want to know how to grow your audience online or become an adult sexuality educator? The workshops in this track will provide hands-on skill-building instruction in a wide range of areas. What can you teach people how to do?

Voicing Barriers Facing the TGNC Community

Workshops in this track aim to center the voices and experiences of the TGNC (Trans/Gender non-conforming) community, including but not limited to: healthcare, education, public policy, legal barriers and advances, immigration, activism, racial justice, access to services and institutions, as well as institutional and interpersonal violence and stigmatization. This track will educate and mobilize advocates on how to better understand issues facing TGNC folks, while providing strategies to better support these communities.

For the past 10 years, Woodhull’s Sexual Freedom Summit has brought together a community with a larger purpose: to shift the national dialogue to one that reflects and embraces our fundamental human right to sexual freedom.

What is the message you want attendees to take out of these rooms and into the larger population – those who are not yet convinced of our sexual rights?  We are challenging you and ourselves to focus on creating change and really disrupting the norm rather than just talking to one another about what needs to change.

Topic Areas for Woodhull’s Sexual Freedom Summit Session Proposals

• Aging and Ageism
• Anti-violence, including sexual assault and intimate partner violence
• Classism
• Disability and Accessibility
• Family
• Gender issues, expression, identity, and freedom
• HIV/AIDS, STIs
• LGBTQ rights
• Men’s Sexual Health and Pleasure
• Size Acceptance
• Racial and economic justice
• Relationships
• Reproductive justice
• Research and Policy Analysis
• Sex and religion
• Sex work
• Sex, politics, and the law
• Sexual expression
• Sexual health
• Sexuality & Aging
• Sexuality education
• Transgender Community & Issues
• Women’s rights
• Youth Issues

All proposals will be reviewed by a committee of Woodhull board, advisory council, staff, and outside experts in the topic area being proposed. Considerations for selection include depth of content; presenter qualifications/experience with the topic; number of presenters on a panel (three including the facilitator is ideal); overall strength of the submission; and proposals that reflect Woodhull’s commitment to human rights and race/gender/class/age/disability representation. Woodhull reserves to right to reject any proposal.

Woodhull will not review proposals for sessions that primarily promote or sell commercial products or to promote or sell the work or product of an individual presenter.

You will be notified of the status of your proposal beginning on or after April 15, 2019.

We strongly recommend that you have a draft of your proposal prepared before going online to submit your proposal.  To submit a proposal, click here.