Socialism 2026: Full Schedule

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10:00am CDT

Fighting for Trans Liberation in the Midwest: Organizing Under Hostile State Governments

Sunday September 6, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT

As Midwestern states escalate attacks on transgender people, organizers are building networks of resistance and care. This panel explores strategies for fighting back in hostile political environments—through coalition building, local organizing, and community infrastructure—and asks what it will take to win real liberation.

Speakers

Dr. Emerson Cram

Dr. Emerson Cram is a public educator & community storyteller located in Iowa City, Iowa. Their research, teaching, and advocacy focus on historical linkages between disability, sexuality, and race in environmental planning, and how stories of the past get in the way of cultural... Read More →

V Fixmer-Oraiz

V is the first transgender County Supervisor in Iowa. While they built their first campaign around inclusive economic development, V has found themselves working to advance human rights and better protect LGBTQ+ indivuals while championing racial and social justice.

Rev. Sean McRoberts

Sean is an interfaith leader in Iowa who withdrew from their denomination in 2018 due to the tension of being a trans person and religous leader in a homophobic denomination. They are now the Director of Operations and Development at Sacred Collective, "a place of belonging for spiritual... Read More →

Mandi Remington

Mandi Remington is a Johnson County Supervisor and organizer in Iowa working on trans rights and reproductive justice. A former Medicaid recipient and parent of transgender youth, she also organizes around healthcare and basic needs while working to expand community-based public safety... Read More →

Sunday September 6, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
TBA

Gender-Sexuality-Liberation

12:00pm CDT

Unsafe: The Carceral Roots of the Anti-Trans Backlash

Sunday September 6, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT

TBA

The 21st century “gender wars” have been driven by a powerful and seductive narrative: that safety can be secured through exclusion, surveillance, and the policing of difference. These punitive logics have gained momentum across the political spectrum, fueling an anti-trans backlash and distorting the meaning of safety itself. Join S. Lamble and Sophie Lewis as they challenge the toxic ideas at the heart of this backlash, and put forward a vision of safety built on collective care and radical solidarity.

Speakers

S. Lamble

Lamble is a community organizer and Professor of Criminology and Queer Theory at Birkbeck, University of London, and the author of Unsafe: The Carceral Roots of the Anti-Trans Backlash. Their work explores questions of gender, sexuality, and justice with a focus on feminist and abolitionist... Read More →

Sophie Lewis

Sophie Lewis is a writer, utopian, feminist, and ex-academic scholar based in Philadelphia, hailing originally from the UK, France, and Germany. She is the author of Femmephilia, Enemy Feminisms, Abolish the Family, and Full Surrogacy Now. Lewis’s essays and articles appear routinely... Read More →

Sunday September 6, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
TBA

Gender-Sexuality-Liberation

3:00pm CDT

Bodies, Bodies, Bodies

Sunday September 6, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT

TBA

In the last five years we’ve seen the rise of a right-wing vision of body modification, from looksmaxxing with peptides, extreme diets, and jaw breaking to the rise of so-called “Mar-a-Lago face.” These trends are entwined with the MAHA movement, substituting the perfection of the self for universal care. An increasingly medicalized cosmetics industry pushes invasive procedures as nearly mandatory for cis women. Meanwhile, the same people who engage in extensive body modification in the name of preserving traditional gender ideals are keen to deny surgery and hormones to trans people, and anyone seeking a non-normative gender presentation. What can we make of this contradiction, and what can we learn from the ways that fascist politics play out on the body itself?

Speakers

Asya Sağnak

TBD

Sponsors

Lux

Sunday September 6, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
TBA

Gender-Sexuality-Liberation

5:00pm CDT

We Are Each Other's Liberation: Black and Asian Feminist Solidarities

Sunday September 6, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT

TBA

Drawing out lessons from the revolutionary work of movement forebearers—including the Combahee River Collective, Claudia Jones, Grace Lee Boggs, Yuri Kochiyama, and Third World Women’s Alliance as well as struggles today—this session will help us envision a cross-racial and internationalist politics that explicitly addresses solidarity between Black and Asian feminists.

Speakers

Socialism 2026

10:00am CDT

Dr. Emerson Cram

V Fixmer-Oraiz

Rev. Sean McRoberts

Mandi Remington

12:00pm CDT

S. Lamble

Sophie Lewis

3:00pm CDT

Asya Sağnak

TBD

Lux

5:00pm CDT

Moya Bailey

Rachel Kuo

TBD

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