Applications remain open for a final spots. If interested please submit your application ASAP.

It is with great excitement that we invite you to participate in the 2024 Jam!

The Jam is a powerful gathering of 20-30 dynamic and diverse individuals from LGBTQ+ communities. We will dive into deep listening, sharing, self-discovery, systemic inquiry and community-building together, all in a beautiful retreat space in nature.

For 32 years, YES! has brought together change-makers from around the world. This year, YES! facilitators from LGBTQ+ communities are offering our 6th-ever Queer Jam, focused on the strengths, struggles and possibilities in our communities.

We’ll come together to share our challenges and breakthroughs, nurture ourselves, support and inspire each other, explore our identities, find intersections for future collaborations, and build more resilient communities and networks. In the midst of all that’s happening in the world right now, there is an ever-deeper calling and need for community and connection, and we are rising to the occasion, remembering that we are the ones we’ve been waiting for. 

The in-person Queer Jam will take place at the Ahimsa Collective Healing & Justice Center in the redwood forest near Santa Cruz, CA, from Wednesday, June 19th until Sunday, June 23rd, 2024. 

What is a Jam?

In music, a jam is a creative, live gathering of musicians who, together, spontaneously create a new sound. Similar to that, YES! Jams are places where diverse leaders and visionaries bring together their passions, openness, and unique perspectives. In spontaneous connection, we weave layers of experience, wisdom, heart, and spirit to create real magic. The Jam asks that all the players are present and ready to listen deeply to each other, and together, we create something greater than we as individuals can create alone. 

A lot of movement trainings are about strategy, but leave out how to build healthy relationships. Other retreats focus on personal transformation but leave out systemic change. Some trainings work on leadership and power dynamics, but forget our souls.  

YES! brings all three together – we give change-makers tools to build open-hearted, healthy communities where people can be real with each other. The Jam is not a conference, seminar or typical meeting – it is something unique. It’s dedicated time to think and feel deeply about transformation in our world, in our communities, and in ourselves. There are in-depth conversations and there is a lot of fun, art, and creativity. There is dancing and embodiment, group explorations, and co-creations, as well as solo time and internal reflection.

The Jam works on 3 levels: 

On the personal level, the Jam is a place to share and reflect on your life journey and work in the world. It is a time to replenish, recharge and renew, and to gain specific and practical tools for self-care and personal sustainability. It is also an opportunity to grow in self-knowledge, to ask meaningful questions, to unlearn our fears and blocks, and to co-create new possibilities together.  

On the interpersonal level, we come together to share our backgrounds, our stories and our struggles, to deepen in our understanding of each other and of ourselves. During the Jam, we hope to discover our commonalities and celebrate our differences.  The intention is to build trust and friendship, in a meaningful way. This means challenging stereotypes, being present with each other, speaking truth, working through tough places and being open to giving and receiving support. We feel that the more authentic our relationships are, the stronger our foundations will be for developing new collaborations and synergies within our movements and communities.

On the systemic level, the Jams give us time to become clearer about our vision and work in the world. We get a chance to link issues that aren’t commonly linked, to notice crucial intersection points, and get a clearer picture of the whole. We come together to learn from each other: about what is working, what mistakes we have made, where we need help. We have a chance to share tools and ideas to support one another. In turn, we hope this helps us to generate a body of collective wisdom for change. We also hope it will enable each participant to feel deepened in their capacity to affect meaningful positive change and carry their dreams forward.

The facilitation team has collectively co-organized and co-facilitated many different Jams around the world. We will be fully participating in the Jam, bringing our questions too. We don’t have all the answers (or maybe any of them!). What we do offer is a variety of ways for each of us to arrive at our own answers – and new questions. We’ll use a number of processes and tools and experiment with different ways of being together, all aimed at strengthening our self-awareness, our ability to communicate and work through conflicts, and our ability to vision and put these pieces together. We see the Jam as a co-learning journey of the collective experiences, questions, powers, and differences of everyone who attends.

What do we mean by Queer? 

We use the word Queer to represent those of us who are LGBTQI+: lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, questioning, intersex, and all others whose gender identities, gender expressions, and/or sexualities exist outside of the “mainstream” – at least in most societies. Both the word Queer and the acronym LGBTQI+ are incomplete, imperfect, and always evolving. We use them interchangeably to include the ever changing multiplicities of who we are individually and collectively. We, as a team, are partial to the word Queer because we love the healing energy behind this word: from a pathologizing and shaming term to one that many of us in the community have reclaimed and find beautiful, empowering, and liberatory. If you do not identify with these words, or if you have your own complex relationship to them, please feel free to share that in your application, and certainly to bring it to the Jam itself. 

Why a Queer Jam?

The Jam will be time to indulge in the multi-faceted representation of queer experiences and people – a room full of people interested in exploring our identities, how we relate to each other across our similarities and differences, and what we can bring to the world from our rich traditions of social change.

We want to explore the questions, visions and challenges in our communities and movements:  

• What is alive for my queer identity, given my other social identities and my geographic place in the world? How can we create truly supportive global queer communities in a non-western centric sense?
• How do the complexities of our identities shape, empower, and complicate our inner worlds, our relationships, and our work in the world? How can we create spaces where the complexity of queerness is appreciated and serves as a doorway for personal growth and understanding?  How does my queerness intersect with my privileged identities?
• What are the connections and common ground within and amongst LGBTQI+ communities and movements?  Where do we struggle and feel divided, and how can we build bridges in those places?
• How can I go deeper into and be with the complexity of the multiplicity of gender expressions and identities? How are they understood across different cultural contexts and geographies?
• How do we integrate healing for all Queer and Trans people into our worlds?
• What do we even mean by ‘community’? What does Beloved Community look like, with all of its power and healing?  What do we do with experiences of exclusion and inclusion? How can we build connections in this time of isolation?
• What can different generations of queer and trans folks learn from each other?
• What magic do we as queer folks have for this world, at this moment in history? What changes do we want to see in the world?
• How do I navigate my queerness within my family’s expectations and assumptions?
• How do I share my ever-changing experiences and feelings as a queer person, both within queer communities and beyond? How can I continue to grow and support the fluidity and spaciousness for my evolving self? 
• How am I celebrating and appreciating queer community in my life? What are the models of queer parenting that I can look towards for inspiration? Feeling into my own early childhood experiences, what does transformation and healing look like?

 Most importantly — What are your questions and ideas? What are you mobilized by, thinking about, daunted by? Your questions are ALL welcome. 

Who is this Jam for?

This Jam is focused on people who identify somewhere within the LGBTQI+ spectrum of identities – including all identities that aren’t included in the acronym (non-binary, gender-fluid, asexual, agender, Two-Spirit, pansexual, demisexual, and so many more). 

YES! also welcomes many other kinds of diversity. We are looking for people who represent a range of:

• Work in the world – from artists and activists to scientists, funders, healers, behind-the-sceners, teachers, entrepreneurs, volunteers, cooks, parents… people change the world in many ways.
• Years of experience or levels of “outness” – from just newly exploring your identity, to out before Stonewall!
• Race, ethnicity, and national origin
• Age – from youth to elders. The broader the range, the richer the dialogs.
• Class
• Religion and spirituality
• Ability

Logistical information

Dates and location: The Jam will be held from 2pm on Wednesday, June 19th, until the morning of Sunday, June 23rd, 2024. It will be held in the Redwoods of California at a beautiful venue set in nature. Once you arrive in the Bay area (San José, San Francisco or Oakland airports), we will do our best to arrange ride-shares to the venue itself.  

Cost: The total cost to attend the LGBTQI+ Jam is $1,200 USD. This covers your entire stay and experience at the Jam, including lodging, meals, and all Jammy programming. The only thing it doesn’t include is your flight or transport to and from the Bay area, California. 

We are working hard to make this event as accessible as possible to people who are interested in attending. If you feel like money might be a barrier to your applying for this Jam, please reach out to us. We have limited partial scholarships available at the following levels, on a first-come, first-serve basis: 

• 25% scholarship (for a tuition cost of $900)
• 50% scholarship (for a tuition cost of $600)
• 66% scholarship (for a tuition cost of $400)

We can also arrange flexible monthly payment plans, regardless of your tuition total. 

If you have access to more resources and/or you have the financial backing of an organization or institution, please consider contributing above the tuition of $1,200 USD, as an act of class solidarity and so that others can pay less. 

Childcare: We welcome your children! Childcare can be made available at the Jam as needed, just let us know in your application.

Apply today! Our priority application deadline is March 30, 2024 and our final application deadline is April 20, 2024.

If you have any questions, please reach out to us at  LGBTQJam@gmail.com. 

Who is organizing the Jam?