Free-Up Yuhself: Care as an Act of Resistance
Date and Time: Wednesday, December 13, 2023, from 6 pm - 9 pm
Location: The Pride Center, Schubert Building Main Hall at Equality Park: 2040 North Dixie Highway, Wilton Manors, FL 33305
After Party: Hamburger Mary's Fort Lauderdale: 2426 Wilton Drive Wilton Manors, FL 33305
Free-Up Yuhself, 2022.
Join Caribbean Equality Project and ViiV Healthcare/Accelerate on Wednesday, December 13, 2023, at 6 pm for "FREE-UP YUHSELF: Care as an Act of Resistance," featuring a panel discussion, storytelling, performances, music, and food at The Pride Center, Schubert Building Main Hall at Equality Park (2040 North Dixie Highway, Wilton Manors, Florida 33305). The second iteration of “Free-Up Yuhself” focuses on the intersections of safety, care, activism, political education, and well-being.
The event features a Keynote address by Jeff Delmay, a first-generation Caribbean American who runs a hospitality business and lives in Hollywood, Florida, with his husband Todd and their 13-year-old son Blake. In 2014, Jeff and his husband were one of the six plaintiff couples, along with Equality Florida, who sued for the right to marry in the State of Florida and won! The event also includes remarks from immigrant rights activist Mohamed Q. Amin, Founder and Executive Director of the Caribbean Equality Project.
The conversation will center on Caribbean LGBTQ+ futurism, joy, mobilization, safety, and advocacy to protect queer and trans people as we collectively navigate the ongoing political climate of erasure. Speakers will share their personal stories of resilience and resistance to police violence, body positivity, accessing immigration resources, affirming healthcare, addressing anti-blackness, and cross-racial solidarity and healing. The program centers on the complex and intersectional realities of migration, racism, and anti-LGBTQ+ legislation on our communities' mental health, particularly access to immigration services, economic stability, education, and public safety.
The event will highlight how discrimination contributes to migration struggles, how lived experiences of violence in the United States, and the continued persecution of LGBTQ+ communities in the Caribbean and its diaspora produce ongoing family separation and dislocation, including amplifying cross-racial solidarity and celebrating cultural diversity in a climate of resurging anti-LGBTQ bills and movements.
speakers and performers
