An accessibility ally

At a Quaker retreat last weekend, during the introductory announcements about the site, the schedule, etc., a member of the Planning Committee made some announcements about accessibility, including an announcement about the fragrance-free nature of the gathering.

I was grumpy and overwhelmed at that point.  I felt that fragrance issues hadn't quite been handled adequately so far, in a community with a history of handling them very well.  I'd been trying to negotiate with my (well-meaning and responsive) cabin-mates, who'd brought fragranced personal care products with them.  I certainly did not expect to have the reaction I did to zir announcement.

Ze stated very clearly that this was a fragrance-free gathering, and that this was for accessibility reasons and is an accessibility issue.  Ze explained plainly and clearly several of the problems fragranced products can cause for people with medical conditions triggered or exacerbated by chemicals in fragrances, and how such exposure would prevent members of our community from participating in the gathering. 

But ze went further.  Ze announced that the Planning Committee was providing fragrance-free soap, shampoo, and conditioner.  Ze added, "So there's no excuse for using scented products."  Ze also said, If you are wearing something scented and someone with a fragrance sensitivity can smell it, you have already made them sick.  Then ze said (I'm paraphrasing), If we can smell a fragrance, those of us without fragrance sensitivities, being allies and advocates, are the ones who should take it upon ourselves to say something in situations like that, rather than leaving it to people who are sensitive.

How did I feel? 

This heavy load lifted from my shoulders.  There were all sorts of things ze had said, and so I didn't have to.  There were all sorts of ways ze was advocating for me and for other people there with this accessibility issue, and ze was calling other allies to do so, and so we didn't have to.  I was off duty.  It was amazing.  It gets so completely exhausting doing self-advocacy around disability accessibility (and not just disability).  This weight just lifted from my shoulders. 

I made a point, later, of telling ze how much I appreciated what ze had said and the language ze had used.  Ze said it was heart-felt, and that was how ze had chosen zir words, and that ze appreciated the feedback. 

Me, I appreciated zir advocacy, and I appreciated how the whole community -- once again -- embraced responsibility for accessibility for vulnerable members of our community. 

Someone over the weekend reminded us vocally that "community is a Quaker testimony."  Yes. 

Blessed be.  Thank you, Friends. 

A review of Ben Whitmore’s "Trials of the Moon: Reopening the Case for Historical Witchcraft"

I don't have the brain right now to digest and analyze this fully, but I find it really interesting.  - Stasa

from http://www.sourcememory.net/veleda/?p=39

Here is an excerpt:

This is a review of Ben Whitmore’s Trials of the Moon: Reopening the Case for Historical Witchcraft. A Critique of Ronald Hutton’s Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft. Auckland: Aotearoa / New Zealand, 2010 http://www.goodgame.org.nz/trialsofthemoonexcerpt.pdf


I am glad someone took on the task of providing a detailed critique of Hutton’s book. Ben Whitmore, a Pagan priest in New Zealand, does not hail from the school of Wicca-is-a-direct-transmission-of-ancient-Pagan-tradition. He is clear “that today’s witchcraft is largely a reinvention” and favors  examining the foundational myths of modern neopaganism with a critical eye. At the same time, he feels a spiritual kinship with past traditions and holds out the possibility of recovering their authentic roots:



“I feel it is high time that Wicca and Paganism be permitted to have not just myths, but a history as well.” Hear, hear.
Hutton, although himself a Pagan, has systematically attacked the idea of pagan survivals in medieval Europe, and not just in this book. He hews to an orthodox focus on literary sources as the font of culture, with a corresponding disregard for the testimony of folk tradition and its conservational power. We hear from Diane Purkiss about how the English school of witchcraft history had “hardened into an orthodoxy”since the 1970s. Whitmore points out that they ignore the rich documentation of folk paganism by continental historians (a disregard, paired with sputterings about “rigor,” that I have been protesting for years).


Hutton’s earlier book is described as taking a “withering” approach  toward neopagans while rhapsodizing about christianity. Such attitudes are unsurprising in most academic circles, but Hutton’s dismissals have been taken up by some Pagans as well. Whitmore recounts “one rather sad conversation I had with a bright young High Priest and High Priestess who were abandoning the Craft because Triumph had convinced them they were living a lie.”[2-3]


Whitmore makes an effort to be evenhanded. He praises Hutton’s chapters on Wicca as “balanced and comprehensive.” He corrects an error about the succession in Alexandrian Wicca. [3] It’s been years since I read Triumph of the Moon, so I don’t remember if the feminist branches of Wicca were included. In any case, modern paganism is not the main thrust of Trials of the Moon; it is about making the case for a historical connection between pagan ethnic religion, including goddess reverence, and later witches and witch traditions.


Whitmore counters Hutton’s exaggerated claim of “a tidal wave of accumulating research which [in the 1990s] swept away … any possibility of doubt regarding the lack of correlation between paganism and early modern witchcraft.”He lays out the misrepresentations and revisionism in Triumph of the Moon by reviewing the historical literature that Hutton cites, and systematically showing that his sources do not say what he claims they do. In some cases they say the complete opposite. The quotes that Whitmore provides shows that they affirm rather than deny the persistence of pre-Christian spiritual traditions, including shamanic ones. The exception is Muchembled, but even he acknowledged the demonization of folk beliefs and observances in constructing the myth of the Witches’ Sabbath. [6-8]


So the book tests Hutton’s evidence and provides some much-needed historiography. It also offers  helpful summaries of ideas by various authors. P.G. Maxwell-Stuart, for example, talks about the incompleteness of European conversion into the middle ages, and tracks the imposition of elite ideas about diabolical pact and witches’ sects onto folk culture. (Hmm: a footnote alludes to the famous case of two German villages where only two women were left alive. Maxwell-Stuart, however, appears to have erased the specific targeting of women, rendering it as only two “residents”spared by the hunts. [9 fn 27]) Still, I’d like to read his discussion of the number of accused witches who actually were cunning folk, healers, diviners, or people who had dealings with the faeries. [10]

Read more:
http://www.sourcememory.net/veleda/?p=39

Conflict and Quaker process

I was thinking recently about a conflict in the Meeting where I'm sojourning.  And then I found myself thinking back on conflicts -- and potential conflicts that never were -- in other Meetings and Quaker organizations I am or have been part of.

I posted the following to Facebook: 

...reflecting today that whenever I've been really angry over, disturbed about, or hurt by a conflict in a Quaker meeting or organization I've been part of, the real root of my pain hasn't been the conflict, but a lack of Quaker process. Whereas the most potentially terrible conflicts have been transformed in the deepest love through worshipful decision-making, leading-seeking, and truth-seeking together.

Thoughts?  Reflections on your own experience?

What are the parallels or analogs in Pagan groups or organizations? 

6th Annual Brigid Poetry Festival

It's the 6th annual Brigid Poetry Festival! All over the internet! 

I found out about this a few years ago through Deborah Oak Cooper, Reya Mellicker, and Anne Hill. 

A quick web search of Brigid poetry brings all sorts of results for this year's festival.  

Enjoy!

Blessed Brigid to you!

A happy and blessed Brigid to you!

Brigid is the Goddess of smithcraft, healing, and poetry. How is She moving in your life today? 

If this is Imbolc, Candlemas, or Brigid, to you, what does the holiday mean to you?

Upcoming CPT aboriginal justice delegations to northwestern Ontario, Canada

Here's an opportunity for peace witness work here in North America.  - sm

http://cpt.org/cptnet/2011/01/25/cpt-international-christian-peacemaker-teams-announces-aboriginal-justice-delegati

CPTnet
25 January 2011
CPT INTERNATIONAL: Christian Peacemaker Teams announces Aboriginal Justice Delegations to Treaty #3 Territory (Northwestern Ontario) March 31-April 11, August 12-22 and September 24-October 5, 2011.

Corporate clear-cut logging of Asubpeeschoseewagong traditional territory has destroyed hunting, trapping, and food and medicine gathering activities.  The legacy of  Indian Residential Schools have deeply impacted families and communities.  Mercury contamination discovered over forty years ago continues to poison residents.  Explore what it means to live in right relationship with the earth and each other.  Find out what it means to be an ally to indigenous communities engaged in healing, resisting colonialism, and struggling for sovereignty.

From a base in the city of Kenora, and visits to Asubpeeschoseewagong traditional lands, the delegation will meet with Indigenous and non-Indigenous community leaders and residents.  Delegates will develop an analysis of colonialism, participate in undoing racism training and plan a public witness/nonviolent action as appropriate to confront issues of structural violence. Some physical rigors may be involved, such as camping in basic conditions, and stretches of time outside in unpredictable weather.

Fundraising expectation: $525 Canadian or US.  Delegates make and pay for their own travel arrangements to Winnipeg, Manitoba or to Kenora, Ontario.

CPT is a faith-based group that seeks participants who are interested in human rights work, committed to nonviolence and to undoing racism, and willing to participate in team worship and reflection.  Delegates should have plans to share about the trip upon return to their home communities and congregations.  All on-ground travel, two to three meals a day, simple accommodations, and all honorariums and delegation fees are covered.  Most CPT delegations involve some physical rigors.

English language fluency is required for full participation.

Funding support: CPT has limited funds available to assist applicants who otherwise could not participate.  CPT is committed to undoing racism and will give preference for funding support to applicants from communities that have been disadvantaged by racism.

For more information or to apply, contact CPT, PO Box 6508, Chicago, IL 60680; phone 773-376-0550; fax 773-376-0549; e-mail delegations@cpt.org, or see CPT's website at: http://cpt.org/participate/delegation.

What are your favorite feminist blogs?

What are your favorite feminist blogs?

Some suggestions I've received so far, some of which I've known about, some of which are new to me:

from Amy S: 

• I Blame the Patriarchy, http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/

• Fugitivus, http://www.fugitivus.net/

• Yes Means Yes, http://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com

• (sometimes) Shakesville, http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/

• (sometimes) Tiger Beatdown, http://tigerbeatdown.com/

• (newly-discovered) DarkDaughta, http://darkdaughta.blogspot.com/

A few other suggestions I received:  

• Bitch PhD (which is mostly laid down but sometimes not), http://bitchphd.blogspot.com/

• Feministe, http://www.feministe.us/blog/

• Feministing, http://feministing.com/

• Ta-Nehisi Coates, http://www.theatlantic.com/ta-nehisi-coates/

• Pam's House Blend, http://www.pamshouseblend.com/ 

What are your suggestions?  

A quick web search turned up some of these. What's your experience with them?

• The Angry Black Woman: Race, Politics, Gender, Sexuality, Anger, http://theangryblackwoman.com/

• Finally, a Feminism 101 Blog, http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/ 
• (I confess, I loved this page: http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/04/17/faq-what-do-you-mean-by-not-my-nigel-feminist-abbreviationsjargon/)

• Feminist Blogs, http://feministblogs.org/

• Bitch Magazine / Bitch Media, http://bitchmagazine.org/

• The F-Word: Contemporary UK Feminism, http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/

• Feminist SF - The Blog!, http://blogs.feministsf.net/  (I wish there was more here!)

I had to dig hard to find any blogs at all by women of color, much less feminist ones.  Even in this day and age.  This sucks.  

Update:  How could I forget Geek Feminism???

• Geek Feminism, http://geekfeminism.org/

What feminist blogs do you suggest? 

from CPT: ABORIGINAL JUSTICE: USA and Canada sign UN Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples | Christian Peacemaker Teams

from Christian Peacemaker Teams

ABORIGINAL JUSTICE: USA and Canada sign UN Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples | Christian Peacemaker Teams

CPTnet

5 January 2011

ABORIGINAL JUSTICE: USA and Canada sign UN Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples

by Peter Haresnape

“We owe a very great debt of gratitude to those who remember the old ways to live and honor the earth. And yet, we have ignored them, oppressed them, and even stripped them of the land that is their life. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is an important step toward protecting these vulnerable members of our human family, of giving them the dignity and the respect that they so richly deserve.”
- Archbishop Desmond Tutu

On 12 November 2010, Canada endorsed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The U.S. followed suit on 16 December. Both countries, along with Australia and New Zealand, initially voted against the Declaration when the UN General Assembly adopted it on 13 September 2007, but with these recent endorsements, the Declaration is now unanimously recognized by the international community.

The Declaration is the result of more than twenty years of discussions and negotiations, making it one of the most carefully designed instruments to support human rights on an international level. According to Amnesty International, “The Declaration does not create new or special rights. Instead, the Declaration provides urgently needed guidance in applying existing international human rights standards to the specific circumstances and needs of Indigenous Peoples.”

It remains to be seen how the Declaration will affect the attitudes and actions of the U.S. and Canada towards Indigenous Peoples. Prior to his announcement of support for the Declaration at the White House Tribal Nations Conference, President Obama gave many examples of recent endeavours to amend past wrongs and improve current conditions for Indigenous communities in the United States. He did not refer to specific articles of the Declaration that would connect to such endeavours, but he did say, “What matters far more than words […] are actions to match those words. And that’s what this conference is about.”

The Declaration sets out minimum standards expected of governments towards Indigenous Peoples. Canada has yet to move toward meeting these standards, but the Declaration provides a tool for Indigenous communities seeking justice in Canada. On Monday 13 December 2010, Barriere Lake First Nation delivered a copy to Prime Minister Stephen Harper as part of their campaign against Canadian interference in their traditional governance.

Implementation, not endorsement, will be the true test of the Declaration’s value. Canada and the U.S. must demonstrate respect for Indigenous knowledge and law, and understanding of their nations’ colonial history and present. “Only through continued use will its provisions become our reality,” writes aboriginal and human rights law expert Robert T. Coulter. We must start citing the Declaration at every opportunity as we call our governments to account for their actions across the world, and as we—both as individuals and as nations—build relationships with Indigenous peoples.

Text of the Declaration

Robert T. Coulter’s analysis of the new U.S. position

Music from circle at Winter Solstice/Yule (but probably not what you think)

In my Tradition's Winter Solstice ritual, we spiral into the Darkness, spend some time there, discover a number of gifts in the Darkness, and then spiral back out into the Light.

Several pieces of music have stuck with me from circle this year.

Lorna Kohler's "Spiraling into the Center" 

Spiraling into the center
The center of the Wheel
Spiraling into the center
The center of the Wheel
I am the weaver,  I am the woven one
I am the dreamer, I am the dream
I am the weaver,  I am the woven one
I am the dreamer, I am the dream...

(I learned this with "shield" and "wheel" interchangeable (ah, folk process...).  There are times when "shield" makes sense to me, and times when "wheel" makes sense to me, too.  Sheet music for this can be found on p. 251 of Songs for Earthlings.)  

Clara Scott's "Open My Eyes, That I May See"

When I had walked a counter-clockwise spiral into the center of the circle, into the Darkness, I spent some time in worship there.  And one of the things that came to me were lines from this hymn:

Open mine eyes, that I may see
Glimpses of truth Thou hast for me...
Open mine eyes, illumine me
Spirit Divine!

Yes, it's a hymn!  Like a lot of women of my generation, I spent many years thinking that was simply the opening to Cris Williamson's "Song of the Soul."

But at FLGBTQC Mid-Winter Gathering a few years ago, when Willie Frye was our keynote speaker, we sang hymn #166 in the Quaker hymnal Worship in Song in worship one morning.  And I learned there's a whole hymn behind those opening bars...  Clara Scott's hymn "Open My Eyes, That I May See."

Open my eyes, that I may see
Glimpses of truth Thou hast for me...
Open my eyes, illumine me
Spirit Divine!
Open my ears, that I may hear...
Open my ears, illumine me
Spirit Divine!
Open my mouth, and let me bear...
Open my heart, illumine me
Spirit Divine!
Open my mind, that I may read...
Open my mind, illumine me
Spirit Divine!

Cris Williamson's "Song of the Soul"

During the rest of ritual, then, "Song of the Soul" was of course stuck in my head.  During singing, I snagged my wife's copy of Rise Up Singing (there are occasionally advantages to casting a circle in your own living room), and my circle sisters indulged me by singing it enthusiastically with me.

In harmony.

They rock.  

And we can sing this song
Why don't you sing along?
And we can sing for a long, long time
And we can sing this song
Why don't you sing along? 
And we can sing for a long, long time

May you, too, always find gifts of magic in the blessed Dark.

The Pagan Arts Initiative
(a project of the Delaware Valley Pagan Network)

presents the

14th Annual
Winter Solstice Celebration

Celebrate the Darkness and the Light
with Songs and Stories

featuring
SpiralSong
Feminist Spirituality Vocal Ensemble


Saturday, December 18, 2010
7:00 pm

co-sponsored by
Thomas Paine Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
3424 Ridge Pike
Collegeville, PA, 19426
directions at http://www.tpuuf.org/about-us/directions/
Please email or call to confirm child care availability for this Celebration (contact info below). 


Sunday, December 19, 2010
7:00 pm
co-sponsored by
Walking Fish Theatre
2509 Frankford Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19125
(Frankford Avenue & Cumberland Street)
SEPTA and driving directions at http://www.walkingfishtheatre.com/directions.html
Space is limited; we encourage reservations for this Celebration (contact info below).


Tuesday, December 21, 2010
8:00 pm

co-sponsored by Springfield Friends Meeting
and The Inner Path
at Springfield Friends Meetinghouse
1001 Old Sproul Road
Springfield, PA 19064
directions at http://delcopeacecenter.org/directions.html

Suggested donation, $10.
All are welcome regardless of ability to make a full donation.

For more information, email dvpn@dvpn.org or call 267-255-8698.

A performance of "A Winter Solstice Singing Ritual" by Julie Forest Middleton and Staśa Morgan-Appel. Book and compact disc for sale at each Celebration and at http://emeraldearth.net/winter__solstice.htm. 

For information about additional Winter Solstice Celebrations, please click here.

---

Maps

Thomas Paine Unitarian Universalist Fellowship

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Walking Fish Theatre

Walking Fish Theatre

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Thomas Paine Unitarian Universalist Fellowship

Springfield Friends Meeting

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Springfield Friends Meeting

Samhain

I have been thinking a lot over the last few weeks about Samhain ("Saw-wen"), which is also known in different traditions as Hallowe'en or Hallowmas.

In my tradition of Feminist Witchcraft, Samhain is the Third Harvest, the Witches' New Year, and the Feast of the Beloved Dead.  This is the time when we honor those who have gone before, our literal ancestors and our spiritual ancestors, those whose names we know and those whose names are lost to us.  We mourn endings and losses of the past year.  And we welcome babies who were born this year and honor new beginnings from this last year. 

It can be a very tender time of year for many of us.  A time to gather together, grieve, and rejoice. 

For our potluck, my particular little group often sets our theme as "Remembrance Food: Food that honors your ancestors or cultures that have nurtured you."

The time between Samhain and Winter Solstice is the time between death and rebirth.  At Winter Solstice, the Sun is reborn -- on the shortest day, the Sun comes back to us; "life comes new from Death" [Schrag, "Kore, Evohe"]. 

In our culture, we're used to thinking of birth as the beginning of life, and death as the end.  But really, death and life are a circle, and we can't actually say what comes first: death paves the way for new life.  Without the death of the old year, the new year can't be born; without the death of the old leaves, new leaves can't be born; without time in the Darkness, seeds, ideas, and babies can't germinate; without the sacrifice of our food -- the grain and the animals, Lugh and the Horned One -- we wouldn't eat; all light casts a shadow. 

Every seed becomes a promise
Kore takes them in Her hands
Into the Earth, and into the Darkness
And into the quiet lands...
- John Schrag, "Kore, Evohe"

With every change comes some kind of end: without the "death" of an old way of being, the new way wouldn't be "born."  Loss is inherent in change. 

Witches have a saying:  All things must change, or die; and death is change. 

This Samhain, I am remembering my grandparents, their parents, and others who have died over the years and who will always be with me -- friends, loved ones, family members, former partners, teachers, mentors, spouses of friends, beloved pets... 

I'm also honoring people who have died this year, or whose deaths I've just learned of this year, several of whom I've mentioned on this blog under the tag "Samhain."  Christine Oliger, Father Emery Tang, George Willoughby, Morton Kravitz, Mabel Lang, Art Gish, Carolyn Diem, Sarah Leuze, Lynn Waddington, Gene Stotlzfus, Betty Nebel, and others.  And people I didn't know personally, but still honor, like Miep Gies, Dr. William Harrison, Daniel Schorr, and others. 

This Samhain, who are you honoring?  

• Who are your ancestors, literal, spiritual, metaphorical?  Known and unknown? 
• Who are your beloved dead you honor?  
• Who are your not-so-beloved dead you are glad to release?
• Who are you mourning?  
• What new beginnings do you honor from this last year? 
• What new babies did you welcome this last year? 

Who is remembered, lives.  

Blessed be. 

Open house week at many mosques and Islamic centers in US

I just found out that last week was a week of open houses at many mosques and Islamic centers in the US.  I wish I'd realized; I would have gladly visited our local Islamic center... 

Information on Fragrance-free Quaker Meetings, Churches, and Gatherings?

The Ministry and Counsel Committee at the Meeting where I am sojourning, New Brunswick, has brought forward a minute to Monthly Meeting for Business recommending that the Meeting become fragrance-free, as a matter of accessibility.

Meeting for Worship for Business is not yet in unity with the principle of becoming a fragrance-free Meeting.  The matter has been referred back to Ministry and Counsel, which would like to find out about other Quaker organizations which are fragrance-free, and if possible, see some of the policies of those organizations. 

So I am working with Ministry and Counsel to collect some of that information, and I was wondering if you all might be able to help me.

• Do you know of any Quaker Meetings, Quaker Churches, or Quaker Gatherings which are fragrance-free?  Which ones?  

• Can you email me any specific policies, or any language in announcements (stasa dot website at gmail dot com)?  (Or post a comment with links to any on-line policies?)

New Brunswick Friends Meeting, and I, would be immensely grateful. :)

Thank you, Friends!

Writing my principal

I am beginning to write on this blog about my experiences in high school.  I've received some gentle, powerful, thoughtful responses, both in comments and privately.  Thank you.  It's helping me do more work on this. 

Before reading this post, I invite you to read the two I've written so far.  While you can absolutely read this one free-standing, the prior two provide some good background:

• Another cost of bigotry, classism, bullying, homophobia, and heterosexism
• Reactions to "The Prep School Negro"

Today's post is a letter, one that was surprisingly scary to write.  Some part of me still feels like that scared high school froshling or sophomore who's being blamed for being bullied.  (And I was blamed for being bullied.)  Some part of me almost expects them to say, "Well, what do you expect?  You did
turn out to be a lesbian."  To which my grown-up self says, "That attitude is exactly why LGBTQ teens have an even-higher risk of being bullied and of committing suicide than their straight and cisgender peers.  That needs to stop." 

Why this post, now? http://www.writeyourprincipal.com/, and the encouragement of my Garrison friends on Facebook and of Andre Robert Lee.  Thank you.

October 12, 2010

Melinda Bihn

Head of the Upper School

G. Peter O’Neill, Jr.

Head of School

Garrison Forest School

300 Garrison Forest Road

Owings Mills, MD  21117

Dear Ms. Bihn and Mr. O’Neill,

            I’m a 1986 alumna of Garrison Forest School.  Several things are prompting me to write to you today: the Write Your Principal Project (www.writeyourprincipal.com); conversations I had during this year’s National Coming Out Day; the increased attention currently being paid to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer teenagers who have recently committed suicide; and the heartbreaking fact that even after those deaths, more LGBTQ teenagers are committing suicide every day. 

But what’s prompting me most of all to write are the conversations I am starting to have with other Garrison alumnae about our experiences of bullying when we were at Garrison – and in particular, the pain from anti-lesbian bullying I experienced when I was a Garrison girl.  That pain remains with me to this day, poisoning the legacy of what was in so many other ways a wonderful education, and poisoning my present-day relationship with GFS. 

            When I was at Garrison, great care was paid to the issue of teen suicide.  However, no care at all was paid to the fact that LGBTQ teens were at a much higher risk of suicide than their straight and cisgender peers. 

What’s more, bullying against perceived lesbians and against girls and women who didn’t conform to gender stereotypes was rampant during my four years in Garrison’s Upper School.  Both students and adults were targets, and both students and faculty perpetrated this kind of bullying.  This created an unsafe climate for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students, faculty, and staff, as well as for members of the Garrison community who were straight and cisgender allies. 

            Nationally, LGBTQ teens are still at a higher risk of suicide and at a higher risk of experiencing bullying than are their straight and cisgender peers. 

·       According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, LGBTQ youth are 3-4 times as likely to attempt suicide as straight and cisgender youth – not as a result of being LGBTQ, but as a result of bullying and harassment. 

·       The Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network’s 2009 National School Climate Survey found that, due to perceived sexual orientation or to gender expression:

o      85% of LGBT students experienced school harassment within the last year

o      61% felt unsafe at school

o      30% had stayed away from school for at least a day within the last month due to safety concerns

o      LGBT students who experienced increased rates of harassment and victimization experienced increased levels of depression

o      GLSEN also reported on positive steps schools can take to enhance students’ safety. 

            I graduated in 1986; it’s now 2010.  So I ask you:

1)    What has changed in the nearly 25 years since I graduated from Garrison? 

2)    How is Garrison safer now for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and ally students, faculty, and staff? 

3)    How does Garrison prevent – and when prevention fails, how does it stop – bullying against LGBTQ and ally members of the Garrison community? 

4)    How does Garrison support LGBTQ and ally students, faculty, and staff? 

I very much look forward to hearing from you. 

Yours truly,

Staśa Morgan-Appel

Class of 1986

Columbus Day; Indigenous Peoples' Day

Two good videos, with some thought-provoking perspective on Columbus Day.

"Happy Columbus Day"
(via Native Appropriations)



And "Reconsider Columbus Day"



Enjoy... both the funny bits, and the uncomfortable, thought-provoking bits.

Reprise: "Not the National Coming Out Day conversation I expected"

I wanted to share again my post from last year for National Coming Out Day.

...I'm always surprised when people who know me at all well are surprised to find out I'm a lesbian. It's less startling, but still frustrating, when people are surprised I'm bi, because there's still an assumption of monosexuality in this culture: either you're homosexual or you're heterosexual. Folks who are startled to learn I'm bi either know I've had successful romantic relationships with men and assume those are invalid now (because I must be monosexual), or assume that because I have been involved only with women since they've known me and am not that interested in men, I must be monosexual.

But those are still the conversations I more or less expect to have. The kind where I refer to my partner or spouse in conversation at an event, the other person asks what my husband does, and I say, "My wife is a mathematician," and they blink. The kind where someone I've known for a long time says in shock, "You had a husband!?," and I say, "Yes, my first partner was male, and yes, I was out before we got together. He took me to my first Pride event."

But these conversations have progressed and changed over time. For example, more and more over the last few years, the conversations I've been having around the fact that I'm a lesbian center around civil rights, and especially marriage equality.

And while there's one little thread on my Facebook Wall about National Coming Out Day and how people identify and what labels mean (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer), there's another, completely different, conversation I've ended up having about the reality of my life as a lesbian in today's society.

And it really does feel like a coming-out conversation: Here is my reality. Here is the truth of my experience.

And as with many other such conversations over the years, I'm finding someone I'm talking with disbelieves the uncomfortable truth...

Click here for more.

What about National Coming Out Day?

So, today's National Coming Out Day. 

What does that mean? 

For me, that meaning has evolved over the years.  I wrote a little last year about how that's changed -- how my conversations have changed from stark conversations about existence ("I didn't know you're bisexual/a lesbian") to more nuanced conversations about the day-to-day reality of my life and the legal realities of second-class citizenship ("For $100 you can get the same benefits as legal marriage!") (Yeah, right...). 

But I'm curious.  What does National Coming Out Day mean to you?  If you're a lesbian woman, a gay man, a bisexual woman or man, a transgender woman or man, a queer woman or man, a cis ally, a straight ally, someone who's none of those things, someone who's confused about it all -- what does National Coming Out Day mean to you? 

Added "I'm a Witch - I'm You" video

More "I'm a Witch - I'm You" response videos

The Pagan Newswire Collective is, well, collecting "I'm a Witch - I'm You" response videos (like the one I posted here yesterday) on their You Tube Channel.

Thanks, PNC!

Check out the playlist here (especially as new ones may have been uploaded since I posted this)!

In the meantime, here are some more:

Holding Patrick McCollum in the Light today

Even though all US citizens, regardless of religion or lack of religion, are supposedly equal under US law, non-Christians face several interesting forms of discrimination. 

I wrote about some of the specifics in my post Difference and Discrimination in the US and the Religious Society of Friends.  One of the situations I wrote about was not being allowed to work as a chaplain in the prison system. 

Rev. Patrick McCollum filed suit in CA over being barred from being allowed to work as a paid chaplain in the CA prison system.  He's in court today for one of the hearings pertaining to his case -- click here to read details over at the Wild Hunt. 

Patrick's friends and supporters, including folks at Cherry Hill Seminary, are asking people to send Patrick and his legal team spiritual support today especially. 

I know I am holding Patrick and everyone involved in the Light today, and I invite you to do so as well.