This week, two prominent public figures have come out of the closet and publicly identified as gay and I for one have something to say about this.

First came new of CNN Anchor Don Lemon. Lemon, who anchors CNN’s Newsroom and who this year was voted as one of the Ebony Power 150 most influential blacks in America, released a statement in anticipation of his new book “Transparent” where he stated:

“Today I chose to step out on faith and begin openly living my own truth. And let me say right up front that I hope many of you will be inspired to do the same thing in your daily lives. Some of the things I’ve chosen to reveal in my book Transparent were very difficult to share with even those closest to me.

There was a time when I was terrified of revealing these things to the person I love most in this world - my own mother. But when I finally mustered the courage to tell her that I had been molested as a child and that I was born gay, my life began to change in positive ways that I never imagined possible. Yet I still chose to keep those secrets hidden from the world. I, like most gay people, lived a life of fear. Fear that if some employers, co-workers, friends, neighbors and family members learned of my sexuality, I would be shunned, mocked and ostracized. It is a burden that millions of people carry with them every single day. And sadly, while the mockery and ostracizing are realized by millions of people every day, I truly believe it doesn’t have to happen and that’s why I feel compelled to share what I’ve written in Transparent.”

Then came news of Phoenix Sun’s President Rick Welts who announced he was gay. Telling the NY Daily News, "It's just a topic not really spoken about in our industry. It's kind of out-of-step with where our society is today." From the NY Daily News …

Welts, who started out as a ball boy with the Seattle Supersonics at 16, had to keep his orientation under lock and key during his meteoric rise to team presidencies.
"In my mind, I had to make sacrifices in my personal life in order to protect my professional career," he said.

Especially in a conservative state like Arizona, land of lax gun laws and tough immigration bills. He never brought a long-time partner to team events - and when that partner contracted AIDs and died of it, he had to suffer in silence. "That was the most difficult thing I've ever had to do," Welts said. "Walking into the office and trying to explain why I needed to be gone a couple of days. Nobody should have to go through that."
 

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In honor of the Nationional Latino AIDS Awareness Day (NLAAD), I wrote this blog for CHATmosphere, a blog hosted by the great folks at CHATPDX.
 

On October 15^th, the last day of Hispanic Heritage Month, I alongside my many peer activists, educators and friends recognized the National Latino AIDS Awareness Day (NLAAD).

Organized by the Latino AIDS Commission in 2003, “NLAAD has been established as a national community mobilization and social marketing campaign that unites the Hispanic/Latino community in efforts to raise HIV awareness, promotion of HIV testing, prevention and education; in addition to other critical health issues such as Viral Hepatitis, Sexually Transmitted Infections and Tuberculosis…”

This year’s theme, Save a Life, It May be your Own. Get Tested for HIV, challenges us to educate ourselves about our own status and get tested, recognizing that regular and consistent testing is perhaps the best tool to combat this disease.

Every 9 ½ minutes, a person in these United States is infected with HIV… every 9 ½ minutes! All of us who work in this field recognize that more and more these days, the faces of those infected are that of our people, young Latinos and Latinas like me.

In the shadow of the day to come, I stopped and thought about what got me started in this field and why I continue to do what I do today.

In 2004, I had the privilege of attending the 11^th Annual Ryan White National Youth Conference on HIV/AIDS held here in Portland, Oregon. The conference was a gathering of over 600 young activists, educators, students, and health professionals. In essence, RWNYC was a gathering of anyone and everyone who worked around, was interested in, or impacted by the issues of HIV/AIDS in young people.

For me, this was the first time I had ever attended an event of this type. Quite honestly, going to this conference was a bit outside my comfort zone! I don’t recall if it being my first time was what made me nervous or whether simply because I went to it alone, at the last minute request of a mentor. What I do remember, quite vividly, was sitting in the opening session of the conference, meeting and talking with a young man who was in attendance.

This young man was so charming with quite the lively personality. He was Latino, he spoke Spanish and he was young so we pretty much hit it off during that entire session. I remember conversing with him during the whole hour long plenary. He made it, being there…comfortable, he made it…relatable to me.

Towards the end of the plenary, there came a point where folks had a chance to introduce themselves and share a bit about his story. This young man got up and shared a bit about himself.

To this day, I honestly don’t remember what his name was or any other details about him for that matter. All I remember was one thing; him getting up to that microphone and saying four simple words: “I am HIV positive.”

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Hey there Fellow Activist,

By now, I hope you all have heard about the DREAM Act. If you haven’t, check out the wonderful folks at Dream Act Info (http://dreamact.info/ ) for more information. In a nutshell however, the DREAM Act is a bill that would give undocumented students a pathway to citizenship if they go to college or the military.

I want to share an email that I received from someone I know. This person is a friend of a friend who happens to be a friend on Facebook and wrote this message to me in response to a link I had posted about the DREAM Act.

“Hey I know this may seem odd that you get a message from me but I would just like to thank you for your posts. I don't think many people know what it's like for undocumented Latinos out there. When I hear anything it's mostly making fun of them, when in actuality it's something really serious. It’s serious to me because most people even close to me in my life don't know that I'm illegal.

You know, one time I told a friend about my situation and their response was "but you’re like....smart! And you don't have the ghetto accent." I was so offended!

My parents came here when I was three. It's been hard for me because I've had to deal w this on my own when I didn't choose it. I think that's what people don't understand and have no heart towards. I didn't come here to take anything from nobody. I'm not a criminal in anyway and a lot of young people in my situation fall into that and I haven't and still I feel treated or labeled for something I never asked for. Anyway...I don't wanna get started cus it is a very sensitive subject for me. I just wanted to say thanks for taking an interest and for sharing things most would turn their backs on.

Now, you may ask yourself, why is this important, why should we care? Well, as our woderful Advocates Staff Sarah Audelo has pointed out, many of our fellow sexual & reproductive health activists are potential beneficiaries of this law. If you were at Advocates Urban Retreat, you met some there. You may have not known they were there, but we were…

Many folks who I’ve talked to about the DREAM have a hard time understanding how this bill relates to them, how this piece of legislation impacts them. Well, I think this letter illustrates just that. This person who emailed me did so out of the total blue. Up until the point she emailed me, I HAD NO IDEA of her situation as an undocumented person. It goes to show that there are countless young people out there who are in this unfortunately situation. Many could be your fellow classmates, your friends, and your fellow activist. Im proud to see Advocates for Youth take a stand in this important issue and I ask all you fellow Activist to do the same!

Click on the Take Action Banner on the top of your screen and send a message to Congress: Support the DREAM Act!

With Love

Ariel
Peer Educator
Youth Resources

Hello Everyone,

So...I am here with my dear AFY Angel William and just wanted to take a few minutes to update everyone on today's activities are Creating Change. I don't have my notebook on me so more reflection of the workshops will have to wait to later but for now, lets talk about some thoughts that are flowing in my head.

First thing...

• This was an idea that was brought to us by a collegue here in a conference in response to our conversation about yesterdays White Supremacy Session. The notion that to be REAL Wold Changers, we as activist, we as people need to be prepared to give up and risk the privilege we have. That is to say, that as activtist and people who work in this field, whenever we are working for a cause or a movement, the privilege we bring as educated, talented, and fierce activist must be put on the line in order to gain success!

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With some time between activities, I wanted to take the time to reflect on a couple of things.

So yesterday's Institute was a very interesting one. Titled "Challenging and Transforming White Supremacy in Our Work: Our Vision, Our Roles," the conference program listed it as this:

This Institute will focus on white folks working in building liberation movements. What are the systems and analysis we need to do this work? How are we reflecting individually and collective on our work with other white folks and with folks of color? How are we working and sharing tools to build anti-racism and anti-imperialist work as white LGBTQ activist across lines of ability, race, class, culture, gender, sexuality, and all other identities?

So I decided alongside my two partners in crime Daniel and William to attend this workshop because we felt that as young poc's who are working in this very field, we could see, hear and learn from the perspective of white folks who are working on this issue and who are trying to grow in their knowledge of and understanding of poc's.

For me personally, coming to conferences like this is always exciting in a sense that we often get to hear about some of the great work people are doing in the very fields that we are working on. Yet at the same time, coming to conferences like this can sometimes be so...boring...because you often times just go from workshop to workshop listening to folks talk about the work you are already doing, the facts ands stats you already know and tell you things you have heard a million times over. In essence, it becomes a great old exercise of "you are great, we are great, thing are wonderful, let's keep working on it with passion and see you next year!!" So, in order to avoid having those instances, I try to attend workshops where I challenge myself to look at this from a perspective I don’t have or just to hear and learn about something I don’t know.

Well.... after attending this workshop, let's just say, I should maybe follow dear Durryle’s advice and stick to what I know. I mean, this institute was for lack of a better word “wack.” Every single possible thing you are NOT supposed to do was done at this training. One hour for introductions! 15 minutes group discussion on a single question! No set agenda! No set goal! The whole thing was tragic from beginning to end. What most bothered us about this workshop was the fact during the entire course of the workshop, there was no discussion of concrete tools which folks can utilize. No discussion of how folks can approach their work with poc’s. Nothing! Nothing at all! There was a lot of reflection, there was a lot of self-analysis but absolutely no concrete tools! I just don’t understand how you can have a workshop on transforming white supremacy without actually talking about specific things we can do.

So…lets just say day one was disappointed workshop wise. Yet at the same time, I am so excited to be here! Even more excited to start to reconnect with some wonderful folks I have met over the years. So for now, we will continue to learn, continue to grow, and continue to make change at Creating Change...

In the mean time, enjoy our quick reflection of the day's event below:

Hello Everyone,

So by now I hope you are all well aware of the fact that Advocates for Youth & Youth Resource are representing at this year's Creating Change Conference in the great state of Texas! We have all been working and learning and growing in our knowledge of Queer issues.

Today's Institute on Best Practices for Queer Youth Work had some great discussion on youth empowerment and equitable partnerships between adults and youth. As someone who works in the youth development field, I found the discussion to be quite exciting. I think what we have come to realize is that a lot of work still needs to be done in this area and it's especially difficult to achieve equatiable relationships in youth work within organizations that have been long established. Nontheless, we do need to come to a greater understanding and embrace the idea that youth development IS community organizing! That idea right there was my "AHA" moment of the workshop!

A shout-out is well deserved to the folks from The Boston Alliance of GLBT Youth and FIERCE for putting on a great discussion.

On a side note, all of us here (William, Daniel, Ernesto and myself) have jumped on the social networking bandwagon as a tool for social change and are Facebooking, Twittering, Youtubing, blogging and so forth while we are here in Texas. Keep up with all of us here on Amplify or through our videos on YouTube!

Until Laters World Changers!!

Ariel

 Transgender Man Elected Mayor of Silverton

 

09:40 PM PST on Thursday, November 6, 2008

 

By JACK PENNING, for kgw.com

 

The first African-American President. The first time in 40 years an Oregon Senate candidate beat an incumbent Senator. And in tiny Silverton, Oregon, residents have elected the man who's believed to be the first ever openly transgender mayor in the United States.

kgw.com

Stu Rasmussen was recently elected the mayor of Silverton. He is believed to be America's first openly transgender Mayor.

Stu Rasmussen served two terms as the Mayor of Silverton in the 1990s. But he hadn't admitted to being transgender. He's not the same man now that he was then. Today he wears a skirt and high heels. He has breast implants, and long red hair. He looks like a woman - but he's not.

"I indentify mostly as a heterosexual male," Rasmussen said. "But I just like to look like a female."

Rasmussen is a man. He even has a girlfriend. He says he's always been transgender, but he only "came out" a few years ago.

"Some guys mid-life crisis is motorcycles or sports cars or climbing mountains or throphy wives or whatever." Rasmussen said his mid-life crisis was quite different. "I always wanted cleavage, so I went out and aquired some."

With the way he looks, he wasn't sure how his run for Mayor would go.

"The first 30 seconds they think, am I in a freakshow? Is there a camera behind me? What's going on here?" Rasmussen told NewsChannel 8. "And then we get down to dicussing whatever the issue is - city business or business or whatever - and they figure out this guy's different, but he knows what he's talking about."

It's Rasmussen's knowledge of the issues, and of the town, that won over so many voters. As one voter said, "Stu's very devoted to this town."

Rasmussen won by a hefty margin - 13 points. It really wasn't close.

"He wants to maintain the intergrity of Silverton," voter Gail Frassenei said. And she said she isn't sure Rasmussen would be elected anywhere else. "I think it's amazing a small town like this can be so open-minded, to elect someone that's made a life change."

"I'm prejudiced, but I think this is just about the coolest town on Earth," Rasmussen said, just before he broke down, a tear gently running through his eyeliner, and onto his cheek. He can't wait to take office in January. He said he's finally confident enough to be himself, as he runs his hometown, wearning his signature heels.