KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:
Keith Boykin & Kate Bornstein

• Opening Address

  Keith O. Boykin is one of the nation's leading commentators on issues of race and sexual orientation. A frequent presence on television, he is an award-winning adjunct professor of government at American University, former special assistant to President Clinton, Harvard Law School graduate, popular lecturer, online columnist and published author of several books and articles.

  Boykin is author of the Lambda Literary Award-winning book, "Respecting the Soul: Daily Reflections for Black Lesbians and Gays" and "One More River to Cross: Black & Gay in America", which was also a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award.

  As Special Assistant to the President of the United States, Boykin was the highest-ranking openly gay person in the Clinton White House, where he helped to organize and participated in the nation's first meeting between gay and lesbian leaders and a U.S. President.

  Boykin served for two and a half years as the Executive Director of the National Black Lesbian and Gay Leadership Forum, a nationwide nonprofit organization that advocates for the interests of black lesbians and gays.

  He has appeared on numerous television and radio programs, including "CNN News," Fox News Channel, National Public Radio, Pacifica Radio, Monitor Radio, BET's "Our Voices with Bev Smith," CNBC's "America's Talking," and "This Is America with Dennis Wholey," and he has appeared frequently on "BET Talk" with Tavis Smiley. He has also been featured or quoted in articles in "The New York Times," "Washington Post," "USA Today," "Boston Globe," "Atlanta Journal-Constitution," "St. Louis Post Dispatch," "Tampa Tribune," "St. Petersburg Times," "Venus" magazine, and "JET magazine."

  A graduate of Harvard Law School, Boykin was a general editor of the "Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review." He served as a spokesperson for the Harvard Coalition for Civil Rights, and was one of 11 named plaintiffs in a groundbreaking discrimination lawsuit against Harvard University, where he personally argued a portion of the case in Massachusetts Superior Court. Boykin received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Dartmouth College, where he was editor-in-chief of "The Dartmouth" daily newspaper, the oldest college newspaper in America, and served as president of the corporation that owned the newspaper.

  (Adapted from the American Program Bureau. Copyright 2001 American Program Bureau, Inc.)

• Closing Address

  Kate Bornstein is an author and performance artist whose published works include the books Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us; My Gender Workbook; and the cyber-romance-action novel, Nearly Roadkill with co-author Caitlin Sullivan.  Additionally, her plays and performance pieces include Hidden: A Gender, The Opposite Sex Is Neither, Virtually Yours, Cut'n'Paste, and y2kate: gender virus 2000.  Bornstein’s books are taught in over 120 colleges and universities around the world; and she has performed her work live on college campuses, and in theaters and performance spaces across the United States and the world.  Bornstein identifies herself as neither a man nor a woman, but rather as a transsexual person, meaning she was assigned one gender at birth, and she now lives her life as something else entirely.  A true gender warrior, Bornstein has lived in queer communities in Seattle, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and New York, and she promises to bring gender insight to conference attendees.