This symposium will bring together scholars and activists who work on queer and transgender issues to discuss what effective transnational activism might look like. How can action be taken to address LGBTQ needs across borders without engaging in what Teju Cole has called the ‘white-savior industrial complex,’ and without exacerbating the very questions of sovereignty that have made LGBTQ rights in the global South such a politicized contemporary issue? What new connections and modes of intellectual and strategic exchange might be established between activists and scholars that could invigorate transnational projects and make LGBTQ lives better? What should ‘internet activism’ become in an era of both instant virtual connectedness and radical inequality? What about the borders of class, race, and gender within the U.S.? This forum for re-thinking global queer politics at the intersection of activism and academia is aimed at shifting the public conversation, and engaging with students and the wider local community. The follow-up conversation on Saturday will be a more informal discussion focused on queer youth activism here in Miami and the intersections between the local and the transnational.