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The Right to Be Free -- by Kate Womack

9/13/2018

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As a kid the song “The Star Spangled Banner” used to mean so much to me. That song always filled me with pride.  I was proud to live in this U.S. and I believed in the words of that song. My favorite part was at the end, hand on my heart, with tears in my eyes, heart bursting with joy, we would all sing, “ The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.” These words rang so true to my young naive heart, oblivious to the real world around me. As I grow older and the world changes around me, watching as human kind progresses, as we evolve as people, and technology grows, and medicine becomes more and more advanced, it was amazing.
As an adult those words “The Land of the Free and The Home of the Brave,” break my heart.  They do not hold the same magic as they did to me so long ago. America is not the land of the free, as our anthem claims to be.  America has advancd in so many ways, but lacks the ability to see past one’s own mind.
Oxfords Dictionary defines Free as an adjective, adverb, and verb.
  • Adjective; Not under the control or in the power of another, able to act or be done as one wishes
  • Adverb; without cost or payment
  • Verb; release from captivity, confinement or slavery
In 2018, even with all our advancement, there is a community of people who are truly not Free, denied the right to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.  Transgender humans struggle and fight every day to be free.  They fight within themselves to find out who they are, not knowing where they belong, and scared to be who they are meant to be. Once they can accept themselves and start trying to be free of their chains that bind them and keep them from being happy, they have to fight with loved ones and society now to be able to be free.
Gender Dysphoria is the distress a person experiences as a result of the gender they are assigned at birth, that this assigned gender does not match the person’s gender identity. Could you imagine going your whole life knowing something to be true, but no one believed you or they shamed you for knowing the truth?  That is what America and society is doing to Transgender Humans.  We are calling them liars and refuse to believe their truth.  Society tries to group these amazing, brave, strong humans with those who hurt people for pleasure and denies them their right to know freedom and peace. Transgender humans are not monsters.  They are humans same as you and me.  Their souls and minds are trapped in the wrong body.  Imagine for a second that you are trapped in a small hole you can’t see, hear, or move.  No one can hear your screams.  You are all alone.  How do you feel,  scared, alone, no way out, stuck forever, wishing someone would hear your screams for help?  Imagine feeling this way your entire life. This is how someone with gender dysphoria feels every second, every minute, every day of their life, regardless if they set themselves free or stay trapped within themselves, all because others are unable to see past their own beliefs.  Just because someone is different or does not carry your same beliefs DOES NOT give you the right to say they don’t matter, or have the right to live free, to know peace, feel safe, and be happy in their own skin.
“Stop judging others for their beliefs, don’t be a part of the pain someone already feels!” Be the antidote that saves their life.

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Frozen -- by Matthew Soares

8/1/2016

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The recent events in Orlando caused me to think about many things. One of the things I have been thinking about is hate, more specifically why we allow it to continue. One reason I have come up with is our language. Words are our primary means of communication and I think this is taken for granted. It is easy to get wrapped up in our routines and over look the words we use. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” and this rings true for the injustice of our words.

Have you heard these words: fag, dyke, slut, whore, idiot, moron, and dummy? Ever been called one of them or others like them? Or perhaps you have had a racial, religious,  or sexist slur directed to you? If so, how did you feel? Names give us a sense of identity, but they can also lead us to form preconceptions about others. We need to take a closer look at the language we use because words can hurt other people, and as an openly gay male, I know just how hurtful they can be.

Names can leave mental and emotional scars that are painful. Think about this for a minute: what do fag, dyke, slut, whore, idiot, moron, and dummy mean any way? We have all said these things to or about someone, but why? Probably because it was easy, we were angry, or commonly “we were just playing around.” Words can hurt a person, and they can hurt deeply. They lower the individual’s self esteem and self worth, making them feel lonely and depressed. Trust me-- I know. We seem to carelessly call people names without ever stopping to think, “I wonder how that person feels”, or “I wonder what that person has been through?” I’m willing to bet though, that if we did think about it, then we wouldn’t consider using insulting words. Words are like pebbles in a pond. As you throw the pebble into the water, the water churns and the ripples grow and spread outward. The same holds true for your words. A word of negativity will produce ripples of negativity and how far these ripples will travel, no one knows, but the opposite is true for kind words. Names and insults can break and hurt, words of compassion and kindness can heal.

If we take a closer look at these injustices, we see that they all have a specific language associated with them. They each carry their own words and phrases that help deliver their messages of discrimination, bigotry, and hate. If we wish to stop the hate then we must first look at the language we use. It may be easy for us to stand on the sidelines and say, “I agree, we should stop this” but what does that mean? It is easy for us to look at racism, sexism, and homophobia and say that we do not agree with them. We can tell our friends and colleagues that such bigotry and prejudices are wrong. But is this enough?  If there is one thing that I have learned it is that we can not simply stand around and disagree with an injustice. To stand on the sidelines and disapprove of something isn’t enough to change it. So this then leaves us with a calling, a calling to stand up and make a stand against words that would harm others.
​
We need to stop being human beings, and become human doings. One way to do this is through education, by learning about diversity we grow in understanding. With understanding, we can reach out to other people and help them. When we help others, we find that we feel better about ourselves. We need to step out of the sidelines and get involved in the world we live in. We must try to erase hate, and silence the tongues that seek to harm others by using words, names, and insults. This is what I am asking, no…challenging you to do. Madonna said it best in her song “Frozen”: “You only see what your eyes want to see. How can life be what you want it to be? You’re frozen, when you heart’s not open. You’re so consumed with how much you get. You waste your time with hate and regret. You’re broken when your heart’s not open.” The next time you are faced with the choice of insulting someone think: “How would I like to be treated?”---Go and do the same.
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Sandie's Story

5/25/2015

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My husband Ron and I are native Rhode Islanders who moved to Illinois, just outside of Chicago, in 1978.  Our two children, first a daughter and 3 years later a son, were born and raised there.  We had the perfect family, two very bright children (a daughter and a son), a house, 2 cars, 2 cats, and a dog (and later my mother living with us).  We lived in a great diverse neighborhood and town. We lived in Illinois for nearly 32 years; and then one day in 2009 we decided we were going to move back to Rhode Island.  Both children were married and living in other states--one in Massachusetts and the other in Seattle.  So in November 2009 we moved back to Rhode Island.  About two weeks after moving back, we get a phone call from our then son asking if we were both home.  We could tell by his voice that there was something serious going on.  So, we sat and listened with 3,000 miles between us, while he told us of his journey of experiencing severe depression and anxiety and ultimately being diagnosed with gender dysphoria.  That's when she told us she was transgender and what that meant.  After having been living as a woman privately, she was about to come out publicly as Annabelle, the woman she always was meant to be.

Our initial reaction was relief...whew, no one died, no once had cancer.  There were currently no issues with her marriage, no one got arrested, etc., etc.  Fear of the unknown causes many crazy images to go racing through your mind, when you hear the words "I need to talk to you."  So, okay, is that all?  We can deal with that.  Not quite sure what yet; but that we can handle.

Did we feel a sense of loss?  In a small way, yes.  It was nice having a daughter and a son.  A complete family, right?  It sounds good.  But we really didn't "lose" our son because she didn't go anywhere.  Our new daughter was the same person she always was.  In fact, she was better.  She was no longer distant and noncommunicative.  She smiled more.  There was a lilt in her voice, which became higher-pitched and softer after she began hormone replacement therapy.
And she called us more often!  She was happy and relieved to have finally unburdened herself of her secret. 

Although Ron and I both grew up and still practice our Roman Catholic faith, we are both fairly liberal in our views and in our support of the LGBTQ community.  We have other relatives and friends who are gay, so we did not have any issues in immediately accepting and loving Annabelle.  But, as parents, we did fear how she would be viewed and accepted by others.  More importantly we feared for her safety as a transgender woman.  Althought you always worry about your children's safety no matter how old they are, being trans just added another layer to our worry meter!

One of our first actions upon learning of Annabelle's transition was who do we tell and how do we do it.  Annabelle contacted her sister and told her.  She asked us to inform her uncles and their families and together we told her one remaining grandparent.  We visited her grandmother while Annabelle phoned her to tell her she was now living as a woman.    Later, Annabelle would meet my cousin Deb and her partner Alexia, who were filmmakers.  This led to the documentary film about Annabelle, myself and our friend Shannon, called TransJourney.

I had been familiar with PFLAG for many years but had never felt a reason to contact them before.  But after Annabelle came out to us, I thought it would be a good idea to attend a meeting, if for nothing else than to see if there were other families of transgender children to whom I could relate.  Thus began my journey with PFLAG where I met a wonderful group of caring, compassionate people who got what I was feeling and who felt as strongly as I did about fighting for equality for our lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and gender non-conforming family members.

One thing led to another and here I am leading the fight for the Greater Providence Chapter of PFLAG!
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When My Daughter Came Out - A Mom's Story

5/25/2015

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My middle child had a turbulent adolescence and young adulthood, quite unlike my other two children.  Drugs, cutting school, hanging out with the scuzziest crowd she could find, shop-lifting, full-fledged affairs with boys, a year at one college, a year at another, a year roaming the country working at marginal jobs.  Her father and I were flummoxed.
Suddenly she stopped talking about boys, settled down at a university, graduated with honors and behan her career in a helping profession 300 miles from hom.  When I visited her I notied that, wherever she lived, her house-mates seemed to be (or definitely were) lesbians; but I never consciously attached much importance to that.
Then, when she was 22, she came home and told me she is a lesbian.  I felt my life change in an instant.  I felt guilty.  I had bought into society's myths about the cause of homosexuality -- a domineering mother and a distant father.  (I was then separated from my husband, who has since died.)  I was frightened, thinking that from here on her life would be rootless and unstable; that she might suffer job discrimination, harassment or even gay-bashing.  I was concerned that she would never find someone to wrap her emotional life around.  One thing I didn't feel was a need to reject. her.  I loved her completely, but I needed help dealing with my confusion and upset.  In my "shell-shocked" condition, I gave her a vaguely supportive response that I don't even remember now, more than twenty years later.
Somehow I had heard of Parents & Friends of Lesbians & Gays.  Two weeks later I was at my first meeting.  There I related some of that important conversation my daughter and I had had.  I spoke of my worry that I had let her down in my response, and of my fears for her future life.
The other parents, without any attempt to sound like psychologists, enlightened and encouraged me.  They assured me I hadn't caused my daughter's homosexuality -- no one has that power. They relieved my guilt.  And -- most important -- the lesbians and gays in the room told me, in open discussion and one-to-one during the break, that many of their experiences paralleled my daughter's: going through career upsets and acting out anti-socially while "coming out to themselves."
I was given several very helpful pamphlets, but I knew they were not to substitute for the human contact I was to have.  They were to help me frame further questions and reinfore all I was learning.
Since then, nothing I feared has happened.  My daughter excels in her profession, in her activism, and in her avocations.  She has a huge circle of supportive friends.  While she doesn't have a "forever" life partner, she has had long-standing exclusive affectionate relationships with young women I like.
Best of all, her bonds with her siblings and me are loving and strong.
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    Personal Stories

    By sharing our personal stories with others, they get to know who we are and that LGBTQ people and families want the same things as everyone else -- to live fulfilling, happy lives with their loved ones and be treated equally with dignity and respect. PLEASE SHARE YOUR STORY WITH US!  You can email your story to PFLAG at pflagprovidence@gmail .com.  It doesn't have to be long.  Just enter "Personal Story" in the subject line of the email.

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