The preparation for and participation in the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, in addition to the post-conference implementation of the conference outcome document, was a watershed moment for the work of gender and development globally. For us in the Anglophone Caribbean, it was no different. The lead-up to and participation in the Conference are usually captured in one word: Beijing. This reflective piece provides insight into the historical moment that is Beijing, and the resulting policymaking process through the lens of a practitioner, located in the then Women’s Affairs Division of the Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago (GORTT). Utilising an auto-ethnographic, intergenerational approach, this research allows for a contextual reading of the unfolding of events in the development of public policy, the local and global conversations, and the constraints within which practitioners operate. Of significance to the essay, is its framing of the politics of policymaking, and the mapping of an understanding of the evolving role of the practitioner in that Beijing moment, betwixt and between “women” and “gender”.