Since my last update, I've started a new job as a Community Garden Assistant at Grow Pittsburgh. It's keeping me busy for sure, and I can see how my experience as the ITL fellow honed a lot of the skills I need to rely on for this job: community organizing, time management (still working on this), visioning, social media, leading educational workshops and communicating effectively.
I still manage to keep up with trans education and advocacy where I can. Did you get to check out The Other Men Project presents: Locally Queer at the Brew House this month? My boyfriend and I led a brief Trans 101 there, with a strong focus on etiquette.
Also, I joined two classes at Carlow with some other LGBT and reproductive justice advocates, to lead Trans 101 trainings. One class was for students going into service professions like teaching, nursing and social work. The other was for graduate students going into counseling. I wanted to share this email I wrote about my experience at the second class:
Thomas Waters [see his blog at www.thomascwaters.com] and I split the evening. He began talking about the LGBT community in Pittsburgh, with a focus on legislation and non-discrimination at the city, county and state level. I'm glad for his pointed focus on the "Q" and how queerness is really shifting how we all think about LGBT issues.After the break Thomas led another section on activism vs. advocacy and various levels of involvement in government and constituent issues.
Then I gave a short trans 101, which focuses on the basic basics and also on etiquette. I'm feeling more and more confident doing these. A woman in her 50's commented that the whole concept of a continuum and thinking of human experience as non-binary gave her a serious "aha!" moment. How cool!
