Watching When We Rise on ABC

I've been watching When We Rise, the four part miniseries on ABC about the birth and development of the LGBT movement in America and the parts played in the movement by Cleve Jones, Roma Guy and Ken Jones in San Francisco over the years.  I'm sure there is some criticism of it from various places but it's been entertaining and educational.  Last night was poignant and heartbreaking in it's portrayal of the AIDS epidemic and how much it was ignored by the government at first simply because it was considered a gay disease. 

Last night, they showed the AIDS quilt spread out on the Mall in Washington and it made me remember something.  The first year I attended Southern Comfort Conference, a large transgender conference held then in Atlanta, the Atlanta Gay Men’s Chorus entertained at dinner on Saturday night.  One of the songs they did, and I don’t remember the name of it, was about two boys who grew up together and were best friends.  As adults, they lost touch with each other and one day one of them receives a letter from the other’s father.  The letter tells him if he would like to see his friend again to be at a certain spot on the Mall on a certain day.  Then as the song is ending, you realize that his friend is not really there, that his name is on a panel of the AIDS Quilt.  There wasn’t a dry eye in the house then and, even now almost 20 years later having lost friends to AIDS, I still tear up thinking about it.

If you've missed part of this, I'm sure ABC has some online areas where you can watch it.  It is well worth the time.

An Interesting Day

I attended a panel discussion called Striking A Balance - A conversation on balancing civil rights and religious freedom.  It was held at the Center for Civil and Human Rights sponsored by their LGBT Institute.  A couple of the speakers were Wade Henderson, CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights along with Richard Cohen CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center.  There was a discussion on the fact that many of the bills in the Georgia Legislature are supposedly about religious rights and the fact that some of these bills if they became law would protect the KKK because it claims it's a Christian organization.  Mr. Cohen pointed out that the most danger though was not from hate groups like the KKK, it was from the haters in business suits in the legislature.  The second panel consisted of state leaders including Jerry Gonzalez of Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, Monica Simpson of Sister Song, Stephanie Cho of Asian Americans Advancing Justice and Francys Johnson, the state president of the GA chapter of the NAACP.  Probably the most significant remarks came from Mr. Johnson that combining interests of many groups helps fight bigotry more than opposing as individual groups.  As he said, "We were never interested in saving just one room in the house.  We are interested in saving the whole house."

I was privileged to meet three local transwomen, a local transman with HRC and of course my friend Rev. Dr. Erin was there.  It was a great day.

Reconnecting With the Transgender Community

Several years ago, I was pretty well known nationwide and in a few instances, worldwide in the transgender community.  Oh not because I was an activist or anything.  I was a staff member of one of the largest transgender conferences in the world and I dealt with newcomers to the conference.  It was my job to help make sure they had a good time and if they needed assistance, they had a Big Brother or Sister to guide them.  Then my mother started developing dementia and I put everything on hold to become her caregiver.  For over eight years, I did nothing but care for her and my disabled brother.  In eight years, I had basically about two or maybe as much as three weeks of time off.  Total!  Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining because I feel good that I kept her out off a nursing home for that time.  After my brother and my mom passed away, I just more or less decompressed for a couple of years.  However during all those years, I pretty much lost contact with everyone I had known in the community except for a couple of people. 

Several years ago I established a Facebook account but I did very little with it up until November when I started posting on it regularly.  One thing it has helped me do is establish contact with a lot of the people I knew back then.  People who were really close friends until I more or less disappeared on them.  And that's allowed me to find some e-mail addresses of other people who aren't on FB. I was wondering if any of them would even remember me and I've been surprised.  So many of them have expressed happiness at reconnecting with me.  I also reconnected with someone who was one of my newcomers quite a few years ago and is now one of the best known transgender advocates in the country.  I'm very proud of her and I guess I kind of know how a proud mom feels when one of her kids becomes someone famous.

Transgender Day of Remembrance

My wife and I attended a TDoR service last night.  If you don't know what that is, it's a service held on Nov. 20 of each year to remember those who have died from violence simply because they are transgender.  In the U.S. 22 trans women died this past year, almost double the number from the three previous years.  But here is a really cruel statistic.  In Brazil, 66 trans people were killed this past year that are known about.  Including a 16 year old, and a 24 year old and a woman of unknown age who were all stoned to death!  Including an 18 year old in Sao Paulo beaten to death by police. Including a 15 year old who was shot, a 13 year old who was beaten and stabbed multiple times.  This is in a country that is promoting itself lately on how progressive it is.  A country hosting the 2016 Olympics.  So, want to do some activism?  See if you can energize your local GLBT community to write to both NBC or at least your local affiliate to demand their news section point out the murder rate in Brazil.  Sure people will say that won't work but we never know until we try.