The New Reality.

We live in a new world and we all have to find our way, will it last for only four years or will it be the “New Reich” or Putin have his stooge in power and cut support to Ukraine?

For us we also face a new unknown that we will have to find our way through. Erin In The Morning has a map of high risk states…

But in a week and a half the elections have made it obsolete… now the who country needs to be painted black.

Okay first off… we must curb the rampant fears, they could be justified in the future but lets cut back on the “Chicken Little” routine running around in circles flapping our wings.

We are only 0.5 percent of the population… that is a half a percent of the population! However, the last poll…
Most favor protecting trans people from discrimination, even as growing share say gender is determined by sex at birth
So what we need to do in my opinion is… education. We need our “think tanks” to start to work on an effective way to counter the lies from the right-wing Republicans.

We need to build allies, we are nothing without our allies. And an ally is not a person who agrees with us, and ally speaks up for us. An ally takes a What I learned when for four years I worked helping pass the non-discrimination law and other laws for us in Connecticut.

This is from one of our fliers back then…

CT TransAdvocacy Coalition, CT Women's Education and Legal Fund, Planned Parenthood of Southern New England, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, CT AFL-CIO, Anti-Defamation League CT, New Haven Pride Center, CT Sexual Assault Crisis Services, Transitioning and Loving Life (TaLL), True Colors Sexual Minority Youth and Family Services, CT American Civil Liberties Union, CT Outreach Society, NARAL Pro-Choice CT, The Connecticut Alliance for Business Opportunities, UConn Rainbow Center, UConn Women's Center, Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Unitarian Universalist Society: East, Permanent Commission on the Status of Women, New England Healthcare Employees Union SEIU 1199NE, CT Citizen Action Group, National Council of Jewish Women (CT), CT Chapter of the National Organization for Women, Triangle Community Center, CT Coalition Against Domestic Violence, CT Clergy for Full Equality, CT Latina/os Achieving Rights & Opportunities, Human Rights Campaign CT, PFLAG Hartford, PFLAG Southeastern CT, City of Stamford, City of New Haven, Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, City of Hartford Commission on LGBT Issues

We didn’t do it alone we had help, we had a lot of help!

From 2010 and Love Makes a Family

We tell our stories… stories are the biggest weapon we have. Back in the first decade of this century I traveled around with Love Makes A Family to go to “Town Hall” meetings, I remember many drives on a dark roads coming home from them, we had a car full traveling to New London, to Winsted, to the four corners of the state. This picture is from back then, taken when I was talking about the non-discrimination bill in Hartford at the UConn School of Law. After my talk a woman came up to me and said, I wasn’t going to donate to Love Makes a Family anymore because we are getting marriage equality here but listening to you I see our struggle for equality isn’t over.”

Our stories make a difference. There was a reason why the CT TransAdvoacy Coalition and the LGBTQ Aging Advocacy Coalition are called a coalition is because we cannot do it alone.

 And donate to LGBTQ+ organizations, they have their work cut out for them.

 

Hey! We can't sit on our duffs. If you want change you have to get out and help to bring about change.

We are going through the 5 stages of grief.

The first comes Denial.
Then grief.
#5 is the Acceptance stage.

So what are you going to do about it? I think of the words of Harvey Milk...

Gay brothers and sisters, you must come out. Come out to your parents. I know that it is hard and will hurt them, but think about how they will hurt you in the voting booth! Come out to your relatives. Come out to your friends, if indeed they are your friends. Come out to your neighbors, to your fellow workers, to the people who work where you eat and shop. Come out only to the people you know, and who know you, not to anyone else. But once and for all, break down the myths. Destroy the lies and distortions. For your sake. For their sake.

There was an activist back in the 70s named Saul D. Alinsky and he was a socialist and wrote, Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals READ IT!

I came up with some ideas...

Idea #1 Form an underground railroad to bring people to healthcare who cannot get it in their home states.

Idea #2 Find housing in your state for those who want to flee their states.

Idea #3 Build coalitions! Join with the abortion rights advocates. Join with immigrant groups. Join with anyone who will support us.

Idea #4 Build a speakers bureau to spread the truth. Polls have shown that over 60% of the people support us but they only knows the lies the Republicans put out.

Idea #5 Work with religious groups who are affirming, they cannot sit quite anymore because that is condoning the hatred.

Idea #6 Open your pocketbooks... donate to places like GLAD, Lambda Legal, ACLU, Lambda Legal, Sylvia Rivera Law Project and other transgender and LGBT legal organizations. It is going to take money to win our cases... the right has billionaires to support them while we just have ourselves.

So what are your ideas? So instead of sitting here moaning about fleeing the country which you all know you will never do... become an activist and fight for our human rights.