June 3, 2007

I've been listening to a lot of ABBA recently. I like music from that genre and ABBA has always been a favorite. "I Have A Dream" never made top of the charts, but when I listened the other day, I found it carried a poignant message for me personally. There are a number of versions, but this one is my favorite. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0R3JAruiWm0


We visited our regular class at the university last week. The students are always a lot of fun. The Q&A is the part we look forward to. This time, we were asked a question that had not been discussed to the degree we did this week. A lady asked what God must think of what we do. The discussion became rather involved. Needless to say I told her God loved me so much He made me this way. I hope we at least let her leave with a more open mind.

Another question was totally unique. A young female student wanted to know if we could give her advice on how to become a judge in drag queen contests. That has been one of her dreams. I've known drag queens who are friends, but not being one myself, I and the others were not a lot of help. I thought of a t-shirt that might read, "I earned a four year degree and all I got to do was judge this lousy drag queen contest".


I don't normally talk a lot about my personal life in this blog. However, I think I have a hint of what it may have been like on The Titanic. I came home from work Friday before Memorial Day and water was outside the door. I opened the door to find a flooded apartment. A pipe had burst during the day and it was a disaster. The resident manager put me up in a hotel while they dried things out. They laid new carpet last week. Fortunately, I had minimal personal damage.

That evening, he came by to check on how things were. He's only been on this site a few weeks, but began talking to me about his partner and how they had been looking for domestic partner benefits, and found them here.

I shared with him some of the things I do with the 'T' part of the GLBT community. It was an interesting conversation. Something occurred to me. As a gay person, he is able to be out to the point he can apply for career positions and be open about very core of who he is. Domestic partner benefits is an obvious example. Things are not perfect, but their level of acceptance has taken major leap forward in recent years.

On the other hand, as transgender people, we have not reached that level of acceptance. Susan Stanton and a host of others are examples of that fact.

I believe the transgender community is at a singular point in time. Virtually every week the last few months, we have had positive press, a major talk show, the transgender character on All My Children, Susan Stanton and her dignified way of handling her situation, the recent article in Newsweek on the subject of gender and others.

It is my belief that one does not need to be an activist, as we normally define the term, to make a contribution. Each person has something to offer. I hope history will show this was our time to make that quantum leap forward.