Diana’s Little Corner in the Nutmeg State: Growing Up

Friday, September 07, 2007

Growing Up

Today I had a planning meeting for Connecticut TransAdvocacy Coalition in Hartford. As I was walking back to my car from the courtyard of a large national insurance company where we had the meeting; I was thinking how far I have come in the last seven years, and I am not talking about trans-issues.
All my life I was probably in only four or five places in Hartford and my circle of friends was maybe only numbered a dozen or so. Now I know my way around the Capital, the Legislative Office Building, the theaters and maybe a half a dozen restaurants in Hartford. I know the heads of non-profits organizations, legislators, a member of the GLBT Commission in Hartford and lobbyist. I lead a support group for three very successful years and I am a part of the coalition that is working to pass anti-discrimination legislation whose members include ACLU, NOW, GLAD and a dozen of other organizations. I went to Washington to lobby my Congressional delegation. I have helped out in a senatorial campaign. And lastly I am working toward a Master degree in Social Work.
As I was standing on the steps of the office building waiting for the walk light, I looked out over the Capital and Hartford and it just kind of seemed surreal this “Long Strange Trip”. If in 2000 you said I would be doing all this I would never have believed you.
I guess I have matured after long last.

2 comments:

Unknown9/8/07, 10:56 AM
Some of us are late bloomers. ;-) But the great thing is, at least to me, it's never too late.

You should be pleased and proud!
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Stana9/9/07, 11:41 AM
You have broken out of your cocoon and today you are a butterfly!
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Quotes

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

A right delayed is a right denied.Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.

Martin Luther King Jr.

No one is born hating another person… People must learn to hate and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
Nelson Mandela

We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist
James Baldwin

There is a fine line between free speech and hate speech. Free speech encourages debate whereas hate speech incites violence.
Newton Lee

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.
Albert Einstein

"The point is that there are always obstacles, whether they seem insurmountable or merely bothersome. The question is not how difficult the path, but whether in your heart, you wish to undertake the journey."
Zandru's Forge

Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.
Mahatma Gandhi

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

You've Got To Be Carefully Taught
You've got to be taught
To hate
And fear
You've got to be taught
From year
To year
Its got to
Be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to
Be carefully
Taught
You've got to be taught
To be
Afraid
Of people
Who's eyes are oddly made
And people who's skin is a different shade

South Pacific
Songwriters: Oscar Hammerstein II / Richard Rogers