Diana’s Little Corner in the Nutmeg State: Remembering Our History

Thursday, March 25, 2021

Remembering Our History

Sometimes we are way ahead the rest of history. We had same-sex marriage long before gay and lesbians. It was our little secret.

When one of us who was married transitioned all of sudden they’re in a same-sex marriage and the marriage was still valid. Sh…

But we also ran into problems when after transitioned and married.

Remembering Robina Asti, 99-year-old pilot, WW II veteran and transgender icon
Asti successfully fought for survivor's benefits for transgender people after losing her husband
CBC Radio
By Sheena Goodyear. Interview produced by Chloe Shantz-Hilkes.
March 22, 2021

Dru Levasseur will never forget the day he met Robina Asti.

It was 2012. He was a lawyer for Lambda Legal's Transgender Rights Project. She was a 92-year-old widow furious that she'd been denied survivor's benefits just because she was transgender.

"That changed my life as a transgender person, just meeting somebody her age," Levasseur said. "It just impacted me so deeply. It just made me realize that I could grow to be that old."

Levasseur took on Asti's case. Not only did she receive her benefits, but her challenge prompted the Social Security Administration to change its policy regarding transgender spouses.

After that, Asti became outspoken on trans issues, marching in Pride parades and speaking to LGBTQ audiences about her life. In 2019, she and her grandson founded the Cloud Dancers Foundation to advocate for older transgender people.

She died peacefully in her sleep on March 12 in San Diego at the age of 99, her family told Out.com.

Listen to her here on a TED Talk...

Correcting a wrong.

Many trans people and also lesbians and gays were given a less than an honorable discharge even through this is on a state level it is a major step to our community.

Here in Connecticut HB 5592: AN ACT REDEFINING "VETERAN" AND ESTABLISHING A QUALIFIED CONDITION REVIEW BOARD is moving forward.

What the bill does anyone who received a less than honorable discharge because of post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury, or because their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression can appeal to the state to have their status changed. This is only for state veteran services.

No comments:

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

Thursday, March 25, 2021

Remembering Our History

No comments:

Post a Comment