Stories on the Square: Coming Out From Under/Stories of Emergence

Do you like passionate, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants story-telling? Come to STORIES ON THE SQUARE to witness great story-tellers doing what they do best.

STORIES ON THE SQUARE happens at the Square Cafe in Regent Square on Fri. Sept. 16th. Doors at 7pm, show at 8pm. Tickets are $45 and benefit the Initiative for Transgender Leadership

Hosted by Wendy Bell of WTAE. Featuring Brian Broome, Phat Man Dee, Vanessa German, Christina Springer, and more!

Check out the Facebook event page here and invite your friends!

Note: Donations made through PayPal will not result in ticket reservations.  To purchase tickets stop in Square Cafe during business hours or email TransLeadership@gmail.com.

Transgender 201 Training 8/4/11

At the beginning of August, Bobby and I had the opportunity to share our knowledge of trans issues with my co-workers: staff at Coro Pittsburgh as well as Public Allies and someone from the Allegheny County Dept. of Human Services.

We presented a PowerPoint, which was a combination of many efforts. In some ways the presentation was similar top the one Mad and I did in March for the Presbyterian Task Force on Ministry with Sexual Minorities. We encouraged participants to take a close look at all of our gender assumptions, how really--no (or very few) people we know actually fit the stereotype of what a man is or what a woman is. We went through the basics: binary vs. continuum, pulling apart gender & sex, pulling apart sexuality & gender identity. We did our best to define who falls under the trans umbrella and who doesn't (this isn't always so clear). We talked about issues that trans people face, and showed profiles of trans celebrities (mostly academic, artistic and/or politically active).

One of my favorite slides is for when we talk about the positives of the trans community--our assets. I can get bummed out talking too much about all the hardships trans folks face, even though sharing that info is very important. I like to show what's so great about us too.

The main activity at the end was breaking into groups to begin to figure out how to create structures in the workplace (policy, procedure, culture, etc.) that support trans inclusion. For example, the Coro offices are located in a large building with many other renters. How do we ensure the bathrooms that we share are safe places for trans folks? What resources do we need to successfully address the need for safe bathrooms? What roadblocks do we foresee and how are we going to work through them?

Overall, I was happy with how the presentation turned out. I'm excited to do more of these (any takers?) especially because of the conversations that get started around trans issues and 'cause we get the chance to lend value to our own experiences as worthy information to share.

Landmark Education Part II

Continued from the previous blog post: Landmark Education Part I

So, I decided to commit my 25th birthday weekend to something totally different: the Landmark forum. Full days on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, then back for a re-cap on Tuesday evening. In my view, it's like a weekend crash-course in getting-to-know-yourself and generating-a-new-life-philosophy. Putting things into perspective, getting a grip on patterns one keeps doing over and over again. I also described it to some people like an extended poetry reading or consciousness-raising session. Folks shared incredibly powerful stories and we were all witnesses to each others' transformations large and small.

I was thinking a lot about my fears of coming out, about integrity & accountability, about relationships and all that stuff that hangs over my head and never gets said. At every break you are given "homework" like, think about this or that decision you made when you were 5 or 14 or 24 that shaped what you thought you were capable of from then on. Or, call up someone in your life and have a totally unreasonable conversation with them, for example, have that conversation you know in your heart to be impossible and do it with urgency and courage and love.

It's very freeing, pinpointing the moment I decided for myself that I was going to make myself be "the responsible one" from then on because I couldn't count on anybody else, even though I didn't want to be responsible and raged against it. One snippet I like that came up a lot that weekend "what we resist, persists". Like we all know a parent's behavior we absolutely do not want to repeat but--there it is--and it seems even more prominent the more we try to fight it. So just making the decision to leave decisions we make about ourselves and other people (I'm too this, or not that enough) in the past where they belong, because otherwise, those decisions and resentments shape how we see everything in the future and squeeze out any possibility that we can do anything new.

I have more to say about this that I can't remember now. I did have some incredible things come out of that weekend. Met some really amazing people. Felt like I was in a really safe space. Laughed, cried, had some conversations with people I never thought were going to be possible, really got to the bottom of a distressing family mystery, and I think, became a much better listener.

I'm currently attending the Landmark 10-week seminar series "Causing the Miraculous" 'cause, why not? On a somewhat-related note, I just finished reading, again, The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies, a Canadian playwright with a magnificent beard. These three books are about how tiny decisions create entire lives of consequences, how the minor characters make all the difference, and how the world of the miraculous really isn't that far away. Plus it's full of magicians, circus freaks and brilliant weirdos.

Landmark Education Part I

Back when I first started this fellowship, Mad invited me to do the Landmark Forum, an intensive weekend of philosophical education and self-work. All three ITL co-creators did some variation of the program and they all seem to speak the same language during planning meetings. I check out the website once and promptly forgot about it.
Mad brought it up a few more times. I was wishy-washy. It seemed creepy and expensive and not-for-me. It seemed vaguely religious, and too good to be true. Mad invited me a few more times and then in May she told me that there was going to be an introduction meeting in Pittsburgh led by someone she really admired. I decided to go with and check it out, partly so Mad would quit asking me. I appreciate that she warned me, "Now, people here are going to seem a bit more happy and shiny than the regular session" so I knew to take it with a grain of salt. The marketing of it is pushy and annoyed me. I didn't like how everyone anticipated every negative thought I was having. But Mad shared some thoughts with me personally that made it more about a gift she was offering me to offer to myself. I was also struck by some observations she had of me that seemed really "confronting" and really showed me that she was paying close attention.
Furthermore, the speaker was really good. He was excellent and eventually was like, "Oh, I'm sure I could tell you a bunch of reasons to do this, but why not just do it 'cause what the hell?" I liked this. I decided to do it cause "what the hell" and because I felt like I needed something big and totally different in my life to shake me up. Also, it seemed uncanny that the next Pittsburgh Forum was over my birthday weekend.
I was told that the Landmark Forum starts when you register, however, I did do my immediate ambivalent ramble: "Oh no! Why did I just sign up for this thing on my birthday weekend? Everyone is going to think I am a big weirdo and voluntarily brainwashing myself...I'm going to start talking in annoying jargon and blah, blah, blah..." But then really started to see how it was true for me: it did start once I registered. June was an awful month and I kept thinking how I really needed a new perspective on things, needed something to shake me up. My b-day weekend came along soon enough and I really worked hard to get as many things out of the way and taken care of before the weekend really began. Knowing I was about to do this motivated me in a way I really needed. I wasn't looking forward to 13-hour days in an overly-air-conditioned room in Greentree...but I was optimistic.

Sharing Larkin Street Stories video

[Shout out to the folks at the Transgender Response Team in Baltimore for passing this info along!]

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has made a series of brief videos available for youth-serving organizations, intended to assist providers in building their capacity to serve LGBTQI2-S (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, and two-spirt) youth. The collection is titled "Larkin Street Stories", and all videos are shot at Larkin Street (a homeless drop-in center in San Francisco) using real agency staff and clients.

The third installment is "Neither/Nor: Working with Transgender Youth".

Description: In Episode 3 of Larkin Street Stories, Toby coaches a transgender youth who is preparing for an important job interview. During staff meeting, Larkin Street staff members discuss the importance of never making assumptions about a youth's identity and allowing youth to self-identify. Loch shares Larkin Street's approach to creating an intake form that is inclusive of all identities.

Next Phase!

Due to some shifts at the Regional Internship Center, I am shifting the focus and structure of my project and the next four months will look quite different from the past 6. Things have been a little up in the air, as makes sense, because of these changes, but now I'm on the ground again and excited about what comes next. For the next 4 months, I will be focusing on the following areas:

1. Design and presentation of a comprehensive series of recommendations for Coro's organizational structure (including ways Coro influences its network and community) to ensure Coro stays far ahead of the curve when it comes to LGBT diversity and inclusivity. The recommendation plan will include a timeline of implementation (ex. what should be done by when).
• Examples of recommendations might include: requesting Coro alumni to include sexual orientation and gender identity when filling out surveys to keep track of LGBT people going through the programs, standardized informational packets of LGBT issues/best practices to be distributed among Coro partners and affiliates, procedures for ensuring transgender people's preferred names and pronouns are used when applying for programs & placement, etc.
2. LGBT community involvement and consultation for LGBT organizations in and around Pittsburgh:
• For those organizations who serve the LGBT community interested in strengthening or creating internship programs
• To create a LGBT community 5-year plan informed by LGBT organizations, community representatives and community members. This plan to be included as part of the overall 5 year plan for the region to be created at the 2011 Building Change conference. More info: http://trcfwpa.org/news-events/building-change-convergence/. Also planning an LGBT workplace issues training for employers as part of the conference.
3. To ensure continuity of responsibilities with the RIC and the ITL including social media work, tracking internships created, presenting another workshop on internship programs for employers, and creating and presenting a final presentation of my fellowship experience on November 18th, 2011 (save the date!).

Would love to chat about any of these projects with our readers. You can email me at rsorock [at] coropittsburgh [dot] com. More updates to come!

Words of Wisdom: What I've Learned So Far

Looking ahead to November 18th. Just over four months to go and using this time to take a step back, assess what I've done and learned and regroup to get to the next level. This is really just a list for me to take stock, but it may have some useful tips, especially for folks struggling with professional development.

1. You can't know if you can do something yourself until you do it. Especially apparent when you see someone else doing it not as good as you think you can.
2. Inviting someone personally to your event is more efficient and effective than sending out 1,000 emails.
3. Use a variety of methods to outreach an event: in person, over the phone, email lists, personal emails, snail mail, social media. Follow up & follow up again.
4. Share stressful feelings sooner rather than later (useful in many areas of life).
5. Use checking in and meeting up in person to keep on track and stay accountable. It's easy to hide behind an email.
6. Embrace organizational change to stay ahead of the game and stay relevant. These things happen all the damn time.
7. Visual organization helps mental organization. Tidy up the desk! Put business cards in one place!
8. Planning events effectively always takes more time than you think.
9. Share what you know, what you've learned. Ask for what you need, seek out people who have skills & connections that can help you.
10. Speak up for communities you don't see represented in research, in meetings, etc.
11. Give people the benefit of the doubt. They may not know what you are talking about or be aware of your perspective. They may be afraid of speaking from a place of ignorance. They may just be having a bad day.
12. Listen.
13. Emails can always be shorter. Less text on that flier is better.
14. A good presentation means a lot.
15. Having that tough conversation clears the air.
16. Say out loud when things should be kept in confidence and get acknowledgement.
17. Real change takes time, but much can be done now.

Making Strides and Thinking Ahead...

Last Wednesday, June 22nd, I got the chance to see the fruits of my labor in the form of a workshop on internship programs for organizations in Pittsburgh that serve the LGBT community. This is something I started to put together back in April and went through the steps of:

• generating an invite list;
• securing the room;
• feeling confident enough to assist in leading the workshop;
• developing a discussion about our lgbt-community;
• email, phone and face-to-face outreach for the event;
• buying snacks for the event;
• DOING IT!;
• thinking ahead to what happens next...

so...the sunday before the event I had no confirmed RSVPs and was kinda freaking out, but I am really happy to report that 8 people attended from the following 7 organizations: New Voices Pittsburgh, Delta Foundation, Planned Parenthood, GLSEN, GLCC, ALPHA, and PATF! What a great mix of organizations and perspectives. It seems like the most helpful part of the workshop is the discussion between organizations: what they need, what works, what doesn't.

I see the "Creating a Successful Internship Program" workshop as offering assistance not only in comprehensive internship program creation but also in just taking the time to take a hard look at the organization's goals for the future. What is the work that needs to get done? What work would we like to get done? How can we provide a great experience for an intern and also benefit from the intern being there as much as possible? There is much potential for brainstorming & breakthroughs.

The discussion following the workshop was prompted by sharing my personal perspective of our LGBTQ community's assets and challenges and how creating better internship programs can help the community. Workshop attendees provided additional assets including: cultural history of people of color, labor rights and challenges including: HIV/AIDS stigma, neighborhood segregation, inadequate transportation.

Transportation kept coming up and that was a surprise for me: I know our transportation system is seriously lacking, unstable, and unreliable. But I never had considered it a queer issue before. But of course it makes sense: for lower-income LGBTQ people, especially youth and people living outside of a major city, access to safe, reliable and affordable transportation means the difference between having access to services & a queer community and not being able to participate, to their detriment and our community's. Plus for queer youth who may not be out to their families, they especially need independent means of transportation to get support and attend community events. Here is one issue just about every community in Pittsburgh can rally behind: TRANSPORTATION. We need it to be more affordable, more reliable, offer more transportation options (water taxis, car taxis, trains, trolleys, bike lanes, etc.).

I also want to respond a little to another issue that come up when discussing one major LGBTQ community challenge: divisions within the community. Namely, how do we actually build community and do it responsibly? For example, if I see that the group I work with is not serving the African-American/Black community as we should, I could go to where the community is, talk with various people, get new perspectives, etc. What often happens is taking one person's perspective as representative of an entire community, expecting that person to be the educator all the time, and not taking responsibility for the pain that might arise when talking about these issues. I have experienced the fatigue of being a community representative--people asking me questions that are not appropriate or relevant and maybe something I absolutely do not want to talk about right then and there. Feeling that need to speak up for my community when I see it isn't represented in a "representative" study...There is a lot of discomfort and pain associated with these conversations. Seeing each person as unique and only a representative of one may be helpful. Taking a stand and then responding respectfully to critiques, changing behavior, speaking up for those with less privilege, using one's status to advocate for others. These are ways to build community.

Stay tuned for another post about what happens next...

Pride Month!

A huge THANK YOU to everyone who showed support at the June 10th Dreams of Hope fundraiser!! The Community House Church is a beautiful space with an over-abundance of genuinely nice people. Wow, those Dreams of Hope kids too...It takes a lot to be so professional, while candid, and deliver a great performance. I also really loved how comfortable audience-members felt in sharing some personal and touching stories how they really needed something like Dreams of Hope when they were younger and are still feeling the pain of bullying years later. I felt honored to be sitting with the young adults of Dreams of Hope and may have teared up once or twice...

The feeling at Community House reminded me of a film screening I went to with my partner, her sister and a friend on June 9th at the WQED studios.

Two Spirits: "Fred Martinez was one of the youngest hate-crime victims in modern history when he was brutally murdered at 16. This film explores the life and death or a boy, who was also a girl, and the essentially spiritual nature of gender."

First of all may I just say that I love WQED! Deborah Acklin, WQED's president and chief executive officer, spoke to us at the beginning about WQED being such a great place to work, with a rich history in bringing a diversity of perspectives to communities. She spoke of Mr. Rogers and his commitment to making television nurturing and educational. I never knew WQED was the first! The room was nearly full of people and chilly.

The film was beautiful and showed a variety of perspectives, although it was at times too dramatic. The best parts were the close-ups of Fred's mother speaking about her son and her very real awareness and feelings about him. I like that the directors chose to include a lot of the history of the oppression of and brutality against native peoples in this country.

After the film, a member of the transgender community, a member of the American Indian community and a member of the film community sat on a panel and a moderator asked questions to each. Then the audience was asked to provide questions. One older man spoke for a long time (and maintained most people's interest the whole time) about how Paganism (which he actively practices) allows for much more celebration of the body, of gender fluidity and or sexuality than nearly every other major religion in the world. How sad that so much torture and "justified" hatred is promoted by religions throughout history...I spoke to this man after the Q&A session and thanked him for sharing personal stories of overcoming bullying and discrimination and living through the AIDS epidemic. I see a need for more inter-generational connections in the queer community. There is conflict for sure. Older gays tend to think only in terms of gay and straight and many men are often blatantly sexist. Younger folks invoke the wrath of older gays, who believe we all don't know how good we have it. And there is this big gap in our community--everyone that died of AIDS, is dying. Not to mention all the other ways we are divided as a community.

I raised my hand at one point and said how tired I am of seeing films about trans people who are murdered, are murderers, or who kill themselves. I outed myself and I asked why aren't we seeing more films of queer people who survive? I can't really remember now what they said. But something like--these traumatic stories are effective, and who wants to watch a movie about a a boring well-adjusted person anyway? I guess also that there are so many of these hard stories to tell and they deserve to be told--all of them.

After the event I had my picture taken with Mr. Rogers, the dinosaur out front.

Pride weekend was emotionally fraught, thinking about what we all had to endure to make it to this point, what still has to be done. I may have my personal issues with Pride's focus on getting wasted, corporate junk and apolitical-ness but when I saw that man in the parade in a cop uniform (not actually a cop unfortunately), hairy chest visible to the world, twirling with a baton and looking AMAZING, everyone cheering for him and taking his picture, and he kept his energy up the whole time...I just thought how great it all is, being out, loud and proud.

Dreams of Hope Benefit

On Friday, June 10 from 7 – 10 p.m. at Community House on Pittsburgh’s North Side, dynamic youth performers Dreams of Hope will share their talents and stories at their performance to kick off Pride Weekend in Pittsburgh!

Tickets are $5 for students, $10 general admission and $20 for champions for information and to purchase tickets via the PayPal button at http://transyouthleaders.blogspot.com. All proceeds benefit the Initiative for Transgender Leadership, a job training placement initiative for transgender youth.

Join us June 10, 7:00 PM Community House,

120 Parkhurst Street Pittsburgh, PA 15212 where

Dreams of Hope will entertain, engage, and teach us.

Dreams of Hope is teaming-up with ITL to benefit our Trans Youth Fellowship.  The fellowship provides professional skills, mentoring, and community impact.  We have raised nearly $13,000 of the total $20K needed to support (1) the Fellow (Rayden Sorock), (2) the Sponsoring Organization (Regional Internship Center of Coro Center for Civic Leadership), & (3) grassroots change of the region's transgender conversation.

Learn more: http://www.dreamsofhope.org/about