Tammye Nash  |  Managing Editor
nash@dallasvoice.com

It’s been more than 13 years since the last statewide conference for lesbians was held in Texas. A small group of North Texas women are ending that drought with Lez Talk: A Women’s Empowerment Conference, being held this weekend at Resource Center, 5750 Cedar Springs Road in Dallas.

And the fact that tickets to the three-day event sold out well in advance suggests that the women of Texas are ready for just such an event.

Organizer Stacey Stevenson said Lez Talk grew out of conversations that she had her wife, Cheralyn Stevenson, had with another couple “about a lack of conferences like this for lesbians. We have children and our friends have a child, and we used each other as resources, asking each other questions and for advice.”

In doing so, she continued, “we realized that there was nothing out there, no event like this for us to attend where we could meet and talk to other people like us. At least, there was nothing in our area. So we decided, if we can’t find it, we should create it.

“I believe we need to provide opportunities like this for lesbians, for women who love women,” Stacey Stevenson said, so she and her wife and the other couple set about doing just that.

The first order of business, she said, was to determine a venue. They approached Cece Cox, CEO of Resource Center, and worked with her to book the center, at 5750 Cedar Springs Road, as their venue. That was about a year ago, Stacey Stevenson said. Since then, she and the other organizers have been working to create a plan for the conference content.

“We used ourselves and the challenges we’ve dealt with in our own lives to come up with a plan. We looked up all the information we could find on what areas are most critical to lesbian women, and we determined the subject matter from there,” she said.

They started with three specific areas to address: Love, Learn and Link. And under each heading, Stacey Stevenson said, they developed a number of “modules” for discussion, all on Saturday.

For example, under the heading of Love, there will be a panel discussion on self love — “lesbians learning to love themselves and lesbians being comfortable loving themselves,” she explained, led by life coach Sonya Parker Goode, the Rev. Erin Wyma and family therapist Dr. Elyse Deleski.

There will also be a panel for couples, “from those who have been together for three years, to those who have been together 39 years.” Therapist Melanie Maine will moderate.

In the second segment, under the heading of Learn, panels include a discussion on legal documents every lesbian needs to have in place, led by attorney Rebecca Covell, and a panel with health and wellness professional Traci Stonum-Parker on unique health issues facing the lesbian community.

The last three panels of the day, under the Link heading, include one on family moderated by family therapist Candy Marcum, one on leading an authentic life in the workplace with Carol Meyer, Ellen Farrell, Kimberly Davis and the Dallas Police Department’s LGBT liaison, Officer Amber Roman. The last panel of the day will be a social and political forum led by Justice of the Peace Sara Martinez and Texas state Rep. Victoria Neave.

The weekend also include a Welcome Reception from 4:30-7 p.m. on Friday and the Lez Walk event on the Katy Trail, sponsored by BodyXtreme Fitness from 8-10 a.m. Sunday.

Stacey Stevenson said organizers expect about 200 women total to attend, including panelists, vendors and other participants, and that their intent is for “any woman who loves a woman feel comfortable and feel included.” To help make the conference a safe space for all women, she said, there is a strict policy in place restricting all photography and videography to a designated area at the conference, and no press will be allowed.

“There may be people attending who are not out, and we do not want to violate anyone’s privacy,” she said.

Although the conference is sold out, Stevenson said there is a waiting list, and if any spaces become available, additional tickets will be released. But anyone who isn’t able to attend this year should start making plans for next year, she said, because “we absolutely want to make this an annual event. We’ve already started talking about what 2019 will look like.”  █

For more information visit LezTalkDallas.com.