Letters From A Change Agent: #IMNormal

Project Kinect just held our first annual Social Change Forum. The goal was to bring community members of Madison together and discuss how we could use our privilege to become more inclusive. About 30 participants joined us and we discussed a wide range of topics from the definition of terms like inclusion and ally to being a real advocate and what those actions looks like. At the end of the day we felt empowered and ready to charge forward.

There was a piece of the conversation that, because of limited time, was not touched upon. With more time, and with future events, I would like to hear more about conversations about when stereotypes and privilege are mixed. Status quo embeds our subconscious with what is and what is not normal. Symbols of what our society deemed as normal, two happily married parents of opposite sex with two children, house and a dog, are actually no longer considered normal. Now, a divorced family whose parents re-marry, one is homosexual, children are adopted, and they have a guinea pig as a pet is considered a more form of normal. The fact is, normal has no category anymore because we are all normal. Our diversities are so eclectic that one assumption of what is normal can not exist. Unfortunately our sub-consciousness has not been able to catch up with reality. That is why I support the #IMNormal campaign so much.

#IMNormal is a campaign to share and illuminate how there is no definition to what normal is. Despite what society says is normal, we are all different and in those differences, we are normal.  Our governments, media outlets, art, fashion, and cultural norms may dictate what is normal, but it is our individual stories that truly make us normal.

Norm:al Africa is initiating the #IMNormal campaign for two reasons:

1) The campaign wants to bring awareness of LGBTI issues throughout the globe by displaying how we are all normal and deserve the same human rights.

2) The campaign is to assist Norm:al Africa in aligning their startup efforts in Uganda.  Norm:al Africa is the newest organization to fight for the rights of the LGBTI community in East Africa.

 #IMNormal because I am a strong independent gay man who understands my past and privilege does not define me, but can be used to advocate and empower others.

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#GivingTuesday Sending Love Notes

Give $10 to the Norm:al Africa campaign on #GivingTuesday to send a love note from Africa.  This campaign is filtering money into three African organizations and two American organizations who focus on supporting LGBTQ communities.

Give $10 to send a love note from Africa.

Click on the link above and donate $10 to send someone special a love note.  If you send 3 love notes, you can still receive a t-shirt. T-shirt sales will continue for #GivingTuesday. When you donate, tell us the name of who you want the love note sent to and include an address.

Click here for the Norm:al Africa website and Facebook page.

Our shirts were recently on Bravo’s The People’s Couch. Shirt worn by Scott Nevins. 

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Voices We Love: Gina Crosley-Corcoran

This last week, Gina Crosley-Corcoran published a fantastic article on Occupy Wall Streets’s website.  Gina is a writer, activist, musician, doula, mother of three, and is currently working on her Masters of Public Health in Maternal Child Health.  Her website, the Feminist Breeder, is an eclectic website of tools, related articles on inclusiveness and bridge building, and humor to our insane lives; not to mention a recipe or anecdote.  It is a great site to get lost on for a bit.

Most recently Gina caught the attention of Project Kinect with her article Explaining White Privilege to a Broke White Person.  Privilege itself has a lot to do with the state of our society.  Understanding privilege then can help more specifically understand white privilege.  You can read the entire article here.

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Projects We Love: The Gay Men Project

The Gay Men Project is a personal project by New York based photographer Kevin Truong. His goal is to create a visual catalog of gay men living across the world.

Every profile shares a story in the person’s own words. In Kevin Truong’s own words:

“This project is simple. Basically I’m trying to photograph as many gay men as I can. My goal is to create a platform, a visibility on some level, and a resource for others who may not be as openly gay. A visual catalog of gay men and their stories. When I think of my own experience, and all the time I spent in the closet and hiding the fact that I was gay–to be at a place now where I feel completely comfortable being on the blog and telling the world “Hey, I’m a gay man,” I think there’s a power in that, for me and for a lot of the men on the blog. So it’s kind of a numbers game, I think the more men I photograph, the more impact the project has.

My dream is to take the project to as many different cities as I can across the world.”

If you would like to participate please contact:

kevin@kevintruong.com

The Gay Men Project: the First 373 Portraits from The Gay Men Project on Vimeo.

A New Show About All Of Us

This pilot episode explores what the show will be and what living out is.  With the help of four brilliant and lovable Clinton School classmates, Gregg bounces ideas off of them for living out, becoming allies and what it means to use privilege for the marginalized.  Gregg’s running this ship though so there is references to Designing Women and the movie Living Out Loud with some “flowery language.”

Causes We Love: Gender Identification

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Recently my dear friend, co-host, business partner and non-sexual life partner wrote an Open Letter to Ru Paul.  It was a great vehicle to share some honest and truthful thoughts on language used to reference the Transgender community.  More importantly, the article expresses the relationship in the LGBT community and how often, the LGB are not respective of the T.  It is a letter that also reveal vulnerability.  Here is a teaser…

I would like to express my frustration with your show.  I have, over the years, enjoyed the show mostly due to the fact that so many of friends have participated in it one way or another. At the current time I am just exhausted.

Don’t get me wrong, I do understand the drag culture very well and first hand but I find the show’s constant use of offensive terms to be deplorable and unacceptable.

To read the entire letter and learn more about this phenomenal woman, check out Dinamartinez.com.

To donate to the work that Dina is getting done to better assist her in her efforts of advocacy in the LGBT community, check out her Go Fund Me.

Minnesota AIDS Walk

Last Sunday I went to the Minneapolis/St. Paul area so I could walk the 2011 Minnesota AIDS Walk.  I was walking with the St. Paul Public Schools(SPPS) Gay Straight Alliances(GSA) that are sponsored by a St. Paul organization called Out for Equity.  Together, our team raised over two thousand dollars with a total of about twenty-five walkers.  It really was an amazing day.  The day was full of pride, excitement and huge sense of community was raised because we were all there to help raise awareness on AIDS/ HIV and promote the education of it.

The Word of Rhonda

We only spent one night in Beaumont but I got a good chance to check things out the next morning though.  The night that we got in town however, the four of us just wanted to grab a drink so we headed downtown to find an open bar with some locals to chat with.  Our search became extremely limited when we only found one bar open, this little country gay bar called Beaumont Patio and Bar.  We walked in and were welcomed by a large empty bar area with a few people carrying things out to their car.  We sat, ordered a round from the bartender and waited.  The bartender was the owner, Chris, and she welcomed us and chatted with us for a bit but we didn’t get any information until Rhonda sat with us on the outside patio.

 Rhonda grew up in Beaumont and works part time in the medical field and the rest of her time cleaning vacation houses for a friend.  When we asked her why there was nothing open, she said that there was really no reason for anything to be open.  As for the gay bar, she told us everyone had

Rhonda was our welcome wagon into Beaumont

 started to go to a new spot down the road.  That is how things work in the LGBT community in Beaumont, when something new opens, the old ends up shutting down.

I find great sadness in this because if a community is working towards the same goal, then why isn’t there more cooperation?  This isn’t just for the LGBT community, this is for all communities.  In order to get things accomplished, we have to find common ground in order to move forward together.

In this example, yes I realize that these are business’ in competition, but there is still a way to make it work so that the entire community can flourish.  I take this from the example that Madison, WI made.  When I moved back to Madison in the fall of 2006, there were still only two GLBT friendly bars.  They were always competing against and defamating each other.  Now, in 2011, there are five successful gay bars that all have good standing in the entire city of Madison, find pride in holding winter dart leagues and summer softball tournaments and continue to build a larger and more successful pride celebration each summer.  That is a community working together.  We all have to find common ground and we can do it and I believe that Beaumont’s LGBT community will.  Everyone can take a lesson from Rhonda and “Just find it through love”