Protest Protest Protest

The thousands of protestors


I was getting nervous just watching them up there


LOL


Supportive Mormons<3


THE GAYS LOVE YOU TOO WELLESLEY!!


A small child there with his fathers with the cutest umbrella ever


More people


The pre-rally lull

The protest in Boston was nothing short of a supreme success for the community. There were congresspeople, senators (Ted Kennedy wasn't there, sadly, but he was definitely there in spirit), community organizers, students, husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, friends, family, everyone. Everyone was there in love and support. The feeling of being among friends was truly overwhelming. The rain couldn't keep us away.

As we borded the t, going back to our corners of Massachusetts and the world, there was a sense of completeness. We had sung and danced and chanted. Our voices were heard. We're mad as hell, and we're not going to stand for it. This is something bigger than ourselves, bigger than just us. This is for us, this is for our families. This is for the ones who came before us whose voices were never heard, and the ones who will come, in the hopes that they will use their voices, that they will speak out against injustice. This is so that the world will see that we aren't just bigots here in this country, and we aren't silent either. We can't be scared back into the closet. We aren't going away.

There are more protests to come. The greatest gift we can give to the nation that granted us freedom:

Protest. Protest. Protest.

I have over sixty photos of the protest and several videos, which I'll load onto my youtube account sometime soon and post here. Thanks to everyone who went out and protested today.

What a Wonderful Dream

I bought and watched Fried Green Tomatoes last night, which I've seen about a bagillion times on TV but I've never actually sat down and just watched it all the way through. It's a very well done movie and Mary Stuart Masterson is nothing short of drop dead gorgeous.

After having watched the movie, though, I decided I really needed to read the book so I had something to go off of.

OH. MY. GOD. The book is SO good. I work from 5-8 on Thursdays and I literally spent 2.5 hours reading that book, so much so that I didn't even notice when massive amounts of people came in to the student success centre. It's so good, I cannot put it down. Like most novels that are turned into movies, the movie is nothing like the book. I feel like, in many ways, the two could stand alone.

The Ally Panel went extremely well! We had three lesbians, one gay man, one bisexual, one questioning person, and an entire audience of all different genders, races, faiths, perceptions and orientations. Everyone who was there said it was a great success and they look forward to more in the future. According to many people in the audience they learned a lot, particularly about the support that GLBTQ people need. One girl told me she had no idea of how difficult it really is for GLBTQ youth, and her perception was changed. She also voted for McCain, which is an indicator of what's going on (or not going on) in her head.

I'm still really excited about the protest on Saturday, but people seem to be nervous about it. Why is everyone so nervous, people rallied all the times in the 60's and 70's and eventually were granted their rights. My best friend told me, and I quote to "run as though you are being chased by zombies" (because she knows about my unnatural fear of zombies as a result of watching far too many horror movies with Molly cause she thinks she is oh so hardcore, and I know you're reading this right now Molly) in the event that something goes down.

My mother (who is being slightly douchey for some reason lately, and I'm just going to assume she is wicked stressed at work at that I didn't somehow screw up again per usual) is worried about the rally, but she said she was going to go in to Hartford to see if there was one there this weekend (doubtful, Hartford sucks when it comes to things like this). She gets very testy when I talk about the GSA, and she has no interest at all in hearing about what is going on with the club I created, or in the life I am living in reality. She just skims the surface. But that's her I guess.

They brought up the issue of coming out to parents at the ally panel, and as much as I didn't really discuss it because it is a little too fresh for me, I did say that there was a palpible sense of relief when I came out to my mother and my sister. I know they both knew and were perhaps waiting for me to come out to them, perhaps waiting for me to bring a girl home, perhaps waiting for me to become a nun. Whereas my sister's relief turned in to happiness; happiness that I am happy in the life I am leading and the relief I have personally found in being myself, my mother's relief turned in to a kind of anger that I can't quite put my finger on. She doesn't want to talk about it, and it is very obvious. Maybe she is angry that she let me turn nineteen before she discussed this with me. Maybe she is angry that I even came out in the first place, or that she wasn't the first person I told. I'm not sure what her issue is, I can't understand her for the life of me.

I feel like my blogs always kind of take on a negative vibe but I totally do not mean for them to do that at all. It's hard for me to make things funny here because most of the funny things that go on in my life are inside jokes and would make absolutely no sense to anyone else. For example, when I ran to the bathroom tonight because I was literally about to pee my pants from laughing so hard at an impression my best friend at school did of a chick who lives down the hall from her. It was by far the hardest I have laughed in a very long time.

I'll leave you with this, so you can maybe get a sense of the real Rachel

Random Weekly Update

Tonight was the honours banquet, and it was super intense. The food was delish and the company and conversation were very good (it was good to get away from the chaos of classes for a few hours and just sit around and talk).

The speaker was so intense though. She's a sociology professor who specialises in abuse survivors and abusers. She gave us lots of web sites to help others or help ourselves, including RAINN, of which I am a big supporter. RAINN does wonderful work.

Abuse is everywhere and it effects so many lives. Both sets of my parents' parents came from very abusive relationships. My father's parents were terribly abusive to one and other, and psychologically abusive to their three sons. My mother's father constantly abused his wife (my grandmother) and his only son and psychologically abused his five daughters. He died of a heart attack when my mother was fifteen. My grandmother, as a result of his abuse, has had several strokes.

Neither of my parents every abused each other or me. They broke the cycle with themselves. But it's not okay to live with abuse. My grandparents shouldn't have had to deal with that behaviour, and neither should my mother and father, or my aunts or uncles. It is a serious problem and it needs to be stopped. It was interesting looking at it from a sociological perspective, though. What makes people become abusers, etc.

This issue is very personal to me for a variety of reasons which I don't want to bring up, which made the banquet a little more than uncomfortable. I hope I didn't give the speaker the wrong impression, I really wasn't bored at all and I was paying attention but there is a fine line between looking thoroughly bored and trying to not be ill. It's difficult to describe what was discussed at the banquet to people who were not there, so just take my word for it, it was intense.

I'm actually taking a class with the woman who spoke tonight next semester, called Changing Families. It sounds like a fantastic course. It doesn't go towards either of my majors so I'm hoping it's at least insightful.

The ally panel is tomorrow (!!) and I'm soo nervous and anxious and excited. I'm Rachel to my friends, but I don't know everyone who is going to be at the panel. I want to be Rachel to them, I don't want to be anything that they perceive about me from what is said at the panel. I'm just Rachel. The panel is necessary, a lot of people don't have anyone to put a face to when it comes to GLBTQ issues. We share the same dorms, the same halls, the same classrooms, the table in the cafeteria. I just want everyone to see that our differences make us the same. We're not all the same person, even straight people aren't the same. But we all love, and that's what brings us together.

They'll name a city after us
And later say it's all our fault
Then they'll give us a talking to
Then they'll give us a talking to
Because they've got years of experience

We're Here Too

I made posters tonight for the rally on Saturday. I am SO excited! One is neon green, one side says "Closets are for Clothes" and the other side says "Out and very Proud." The other is bright pink and says Equal Rights. I need to spruce them up a bit but figuring out what I wanted them to say was the hardest part.

I've heard a lot of people, including non-straight people, saying things like "I don't understand what these protests are going to do, it's a matter of that state, it's a matter of their supreme court, etc. etc." The fact of the matter is the supreme court of California ruled that same-sex marriage should be legal, that it is unconstitutional to deny homosexuals the right to marry. I was always led to believe that the supreme court is the highest power in the land. In any event, we're protesting to show this country that we're not small in numbers, we're not going to tolerate being treated this way. We're mad as hell and we're not going to stand it anymore. Personally, I'm a ninteen year old out lesbian. I've known I was gay for most of my life, I've been certain of it since I was 14/15, I've been coming out since senior year in high school. I only recently came out to my mother, despite how terrified I was. We shouldn't have to be afraid to be ourselves. I'm going to go out on a limb and speak for all the little ones trying desperately to find their place in the world, the kids who know there is something different about them but they just can't put their finger on it, the kids who want so badly to belong, but they simply can't, the kids who would rather suffocate in a place of death than have to force the world to face the truth. I made it out of that place, but there are MANY who don't. This country is letting its own children suffer, knowingly. I'm not going to stand by and let this happen anymore, something must be done.

Give us our constitutional rights, our birth rights. Tell me I matter as much as the straight person in the voting booth next to me. You take my taxes and my vote, but you can't treat me as a human being. I'm so ready for this rally. People are saying "but this is massachusetts, gay marriage has been legal for years." Right, it has, but there are bigots everywhere. We're rallying to show the rest of the country that we're here too, we see what's going on in California, and we're not going to let them stand alone. Take some comfort, maybe, in those who stand up all over the country and say we aren't taking no for an answer anymore. We're here too California.

I think the Colbert Report summed it up best with "We're going to out live, out last and out survive the bigots."

Looking Out for a Sunny Day

I'm pretty excited about the Ally Panel coming up this Thursday. I opted not to do it last year because my RD walked up to me one day and said "So I hear you're a lesbian, would you be on our ally panel?" and really caught me off guard.

So this year, with the newly formed GSA, which I slave over daily for hours generally, the executive board of the GSA is more or less running the show. This is our first big campus event and I'm really excited. I hope it goes off without a hitch. I'm not anticipating anything happening between now and Thursday that would impede the panel, and the rules are really clear that if you're going to be an ass you should go elsewhere. But people can be asses, and someone will in all likelihood say something that shouldn't be said (at a catholic school, in a college setting, in front of peers, in public, etc. etc.).

I'm so busy lately that it's not even funny. All the free time I have consists of the time in between classes. Yesterday I got out of class at 3:15, had a meeting at 3:30, had to work at a blood drive (which I still don't know how I got roped in to, since I have been known to faint at the sight of blood, but fortunately I was only working the "canteen" and making sure the donors didn't pass out) until 6:30, had dinner and went to the gym for an hour, then had a GSA meeting. Well I mean, I did go to IHop at midnight, but who is trolling around Boston suburbs at midnight and later?

There are a few girls who I really want to go out with sometime but how on earth am I supposed to be like "hey, want to get a coffee sometime?" when I don't have a minute free? I feel like I'd have to give her my entire schedule and say "pick a time slot," which would be so douchey. I feel bad because my lack of flexibility is making it slightly impossible to have a life, and as much as I hate to say it, school/clubs/work are my life right now. But I feel like it shouldn't be that way, because I'm nineteen. I REALLY love my life and I'm having a great time, but I'd like to have enough time to take a chick out if I wanted to, or even go see a movie with my friends, or, you know, do all of my work and get it done instead of staying up until 3 am every night working my ass off. If this is how it is when I'm nineteen, how is it going to be when I'm twenty-two? Twenty-eight? Thirty-five? Fifty? What is my life going to be like? Am I just setting myself up? I have really high hopes for myself and what I can accomplish, but is it at the expense of all the other things I want and expect out of life?

It's hard to think about the future when you're so scared that it's going to be exactly the same as the present. But everything will be okay. Everything is always okay.

Protest on Prop 8 in Boston

If you're in Beantown you should attend the protest on prop 8 this Saturday at 1:30 outside of Boston City Hall.

Here's the facebook link:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?sid=c18f58112e2fc89a20dac389b09ac0ee&refurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fs.php%3Fq%3Dproposition%2B8%26n%3D-1%26k%3D400000010%26sf%3Dr%26init%3Dq%26sid%3Dc18f58112e2fc89a20dac389b09ac0ee&eid=37701726407

I'll be there (hopefully, unless it gets completely out of hand) with a bunch of my friends.

We can be with you physically, California, but we're with you in spirit!! Keep fighting the good fight.