No Perfect Victims: At the Intersection of Gender Violence & Criminalization

The convening will engage with participants on how to pro-actively support and advocate for survivors who live at the intersection of gender violence and criminalization. Participants will explore what services, resources and strategies are necessary to support those who have been criminalized for survival (including self-defense). Organizers will stress the importance of intersections of race, sexuality, and gender identification within the work of supporting victims/survivors of violence and the enduring damage caused when those intersections are ignored. Through a panel discussion, a viewing and discussion of “Perfect Victim”, a special keynote address and debriefing of the events during the day, participants will unpack traditional service providers’ reliance on tropes such as “perfect victims” and “recognizable victims”. The convening will highlight the experiences of grassroots organizations and defense committees in supporting those who don’t fall into the “perfect victim” narrative.

We are excited to welcome Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha to Chicago as our keynote speaker.Leah is a queer disabled femme writer, performance artist and educator of Burgher/Tamil Sri Lankan and Irish/Roma ascent. The author of the Lambda Award-winning Love Cake, Dirty River, Bodymap and Consensual Genocide and co-editor with Ching-In Chen and Jai Dulani of The Revolution Starts At Home: Confronting Intimate Violence in Activist Communities, her writings on femme of color and Sri Lankan identities, survivorhood, and healing, disability and transformative justice have been widely anthologized. She is the co-founder of Mangos With Chili, North America's touring queer and trans people of color cabaret, a lead artist with the disability justice incubator Sins Invalid and co-founder of Toronto's Asian Arts Freedom School.

Light breakfast will be provided starting at 9 am but BRING YOUR OWN COFFEE.

Lunch will be provided.

This event is at no cost to participants HOWEVER everyone MUST PRE-REGISTER as capacity is very limited.

This event is particularly relevant to advocates in the domestic violence and sexual assault fields. We hope you can join us.

CEU's will be available for ICVDP, LCSW, and LCPC professionals.

This event is co-organized by Love & Protect and Project NIA. It is co-sponsored by the Chicago Taskforce on Violence against Girls and Young Women, Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women's Network (CMBWN), The UIC Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy, UIC Women’s Leadership and Resource Center, UIC Campus Advocacy Network, The Women’s Center/DePaul University, Women’s and Gender Studies Department/DePaul University