I was going through my computer, and found this slide from the keynote speech at Alternatives 2006 conference, an annual gathering of mental health client/consumer self-advocates and allies funded by Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, a branch of the federal government (with its baggage–read “Anatomy of an Epidemic” author Robert Whitaker’s experience of being invited, dis-invited, and then re-invited by the conference organizers due to his politics).
It was at this conference my bio simply stated that I was “an advocate” without specifically mentioning what sort of advocacy I do, because words like “intersex,” “transgender,” “queer,” “sex worker,” and others were unacceptable to SAMHSA (at least under Bush administration). Anyway, here’s the slide I used for my talk, which is pretty straightforward…
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