The Gender and Sexuality Equity Center hosted its second annual transgender conference titled “The Trans* Agenda” on Saturday.

The conference, which took place in the Bell Memorial Union auditorium, consisted of a keynote address, two breakout sessions, a workshop and a panel of five speakers to close the event.

Keynote speaker Pat Cordova-Goff, who prefers a female pronoun, spoke about feminism and the many misperceptions people have regarding it. She stressed the importance in learning to include transgender and gender nonconforming people as part of the feminist movement.

“If the people in my audience are trans, I hope that they just realize that their stories are valid and valuable,” Cordova-Goff said. “If my audience members are cisgendered, I would like for them to just have a different perspective. My biggest message is that your life is valuable. In general, I think this conference is a great thing for Chico, and I think it should definitely be continued.”

In a workshop titled “The Ins and Outs of Sex: A Radical and Inclusive Sex Ed,” audience members were taught how to put a condom on using their mouth by guest presenter Dylan Pugh. Pugh and fellow presenter Sebastian Ochoa-Kaup talked about the basics of sex education, sexually transmitted infections, HIV, orgasms, masturbation and safe sex materials.

Art De La Torre is an intern at GSEC and is also a part of the LGBTQ+ program and helped invite speakers and plan for the conference.

“We just wanted bring that to the trans community in Chico just to bring awareness that we shouldn’t forget the T in LGBTQ+ — that was the main thing,” De La Torre said. “We wanted to address their issues and also celebrate them. I came into it thinking that I knew a lot, and I actually had no idea about how bad the issues were that trans people face.”

Kristina Martinez can be reached at newseditor@theorion or @theorion_news on Twitter.