#37 (aka: Another workshop, another blurb)

On Wednesday, my school's Gay-Straight Alliance and I are leading a workshop about how to combat homophobia in public schools at a conference being held at a local middle school. For this workshop, I elected to be one of our group's three or four student speakers so that I could tell my own story and do my part by spreading the word not only about discrimination happening inside academic locations, but also in the world at large. This isn't exactly the assignment given to me by the GSA members and advisors, but it's what I came up with.

Hi, I’m Elliot. I’m eighteen, and I’m a high school senior. Like most other people in my class, I’m making preparations to go to college next year, I fight almost daily with my younger sibling, and I’m in a romantic relationship. The only real difference is that I am a transgender man.

Being a member of a minority group within a minority group, and with so many people being unsure of what being transgender means, you might think, Man, I bet he gets a lot of backlash for just being himself, but I actually haven’t. No; I’ve never been more violently harassed than being called names, or being told that I was wrong for expressing this part of my identity. Not even from some of my less than open-minded classmates. Instead, I hear about discrimination not while it’s happening, but afterward. Afterward, when all I can do is write down how the news makes me feel, or talk about it with friends and cry on their shoulders because the pain felt by victims of hate crimes is not only felt by them, but by everyone who hears about it and knows they could be next. Afterward, when I pray “it” doesn’t ever happen to me. Afterward, when I am warned that my furious passion is going to get me in trouble someday, and I am told to calm down. Afterward, when I refuse to just stand back and watch and not do anything.

That is why I am here. I’m here today to try my hardest to prevent another situation like that of Gwen Araujo, a transgender woman, who was only seventeen when she was murdered by three guys her age who were supposed to be her friends. I’m here to stop another Logan Smith incident before it happens, because the police definitely won’t – those officers of the law kicked him so hard in the abdomen that they punctured his bladder, which lead to his death, due to septic shock.

I’m here for my lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, two spirited, same-gender-loving, third sex, pansexual brothers and sisters who cannot be, either because they’re too scared to “come out”, or because they’ve been physically, emotionally or mentally hurt so badly that they can’t stand up for themselves, or because they’re no longer alive.

The great lesbian poet Audre Lorde once said, “When I dare to be powerful; to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid”. As I stand before you today, and tell you all of this, I am afraid. But today, I also dare to be powerful, so with each passing second, my fear is conquered by my mission to make our world, starting with our schools, safer for us all.

Wish us luck! With this being the first workshop being led at a conference for most of my fellow group members, I think we'll need all the well-wishes we can get.

#18 (aka: Busy E)

I am going to be one busy Transguy this next week. Today, at 11:30, I am meeting with a student from Yale University School of Nursing to have an interview with her about Transgender Health Care (or, lack thereof). And I'm getting paid for it... that's always a plus. ;-D

Moving right along, there's church tomorrow and then school, and next Friday a few of my fellow Chorus members and I are singing an arrangement of the Beatles song "Golden Slumbers" at our instructor's birthday party in a church at Smith College in Northampton. The next day, the 10th, I'm going to be back in Northampton to a) meet up with my new Transdude friend Bet and b) to attend what is being called a Transgender Town Hall Meeting, where we'll be discussing the new anti-discrimination law for people of gender-variance in Massachusetts, which our brilliant (and Democratic and liberal) new governor Deval Patrick has stated he wants to pass. There are supposedly going to be some representatives from the legislature there to answer our questions and such, and those of us who want to will be able to speak on behalf of ourselves and our Trans friends, who really want this act to be signed into law, as well. It's time for us Transgender folk to make change not only in our individual communities, but all throughout the state. And I feel privileged to be alive to see this change happening.

But, all the hustle and bustle does not stop at the end of this week. On the weekend of February 23, there's a small chance that I may be performing with Athens Boys Choir. ABC (in case you forgot, or haven't seen my post about him on Little Bits) is a spoken word poet out of Georgia whom I met over the summer, and who helped me out when I sent him some interview questions for my senior project. In short, he's a pretty cool Trannyboy.

In the second week of March (if my school's principal doesn't give me a hard time about it) a couple of my Transbrothers (and one of their girlfriends) are going to come speak with me in a presentation for my senior project in English class. The three of them are going to be staying for 2 or 3 days at my mom's house, so that should be fun. I don't get to see them a lot (well, they do live in Georgia, after all), and "a lot" is an understatement because I haven't seen either of them in almost a year (since the True Colors Conference last year), and I've never met the girlfriend, but I've heard wonderful things about her.

And speaking of True Colors... the week after my T-bros come from Georgia to speak with me, TCC 2007 happens. Which reminds me, I need to figure out exactly what I'm going to say. (Peterson, we really do need to talk about this. Your man Elliot here needs some serious mentoring on the subject).

So, if I'm not able to post long entries like this for a while, I'm sorry. But at least you'll know why!