For many queer people, coming out is an act of liberation and self-preservation as well as a model of truth-telling as an essential mechanism in creating an authentic life. Sometimes painful and fraught with contradictions, honesty, can be difficult to achieve and demands, often, that we transcend internal and external constraints created by shame and fear. In this workshop we will explore telling our truths as an activity that facilitates physical, mental and spiritual flourishing as individuals in our public and private lives.

Many of our lives have been shaped by ongoing struggles with the domination of white heterosexual men. Those struggles are complicated by our own embrace of the masculine aspects of our beings and the extent to which our changing individual practices of masculinity defy and are undermined by the dominant stereotype. In this workshop we will explore the intersectional  relationships of race, gender, economics, ethnicity, ability and religion on the construction of our authentic, forgiving, thriving and rich masculine selves.