A long-overdue Bent Alaska update — October 2013

Audre Lorde, poet and writer (Black History Month)

A self-proclaimed “Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet,” Audre Lorde was a Caribbean-American poet, writer, and activist in the civil rights, antiwar, and feminist movements. Bent Alaska presents her story as part of our celebration of Black History Month 2012, with thanks to GLAAD and the Equality Forum.

Twirl

With Annie Muse’s poem “Twirl,” Bent Alaska is pleased to continue featuring the creative writing of LGBTQA Alaskans.

James Baldwin, author (Black History Month)

James Baldwin was an African-American and gay writer whose novels and essays captured the conflicted spirit of late 20th century America. Bent Alaska presents his story as part of our celebration of Black History Month 2012, with thanks to GLAAD and the Equality Forum.

Bent Alaska celebrates Black History Month

February is Black History Month. Bent Alaska will be carrying a number of features and stories this month in celebration of Black History Month, and celebrating the lives and achievements of Black LGBTQ people in particular.

White lines and a bell-shaped curve: The Rule of the 68%

If I paint a couple of white lines that the 68% can easily conform to, I will have at my disposal a powerful conforming force. But if the lines are white enough, thick enough, enforced enough, and I land out in the tails, I can even cease to be considered human. I could become Other.

Who are you? I really want to know!

In our TBLG community (yes, TBLG — let’s get the initials in the right order for once, shall we?) we really do want to “get” each other. It’s just that there are some places we, ourselves, cannot go. And that’s Okay. We just need to be very careful to be aware that our own orientation is not the only “right” orientation. We need to be very careful not to be mean.

Trans-suicide: I nearly became a statistic myself

The National Transgender Discrimination Survey in 2011 found that 41% of its respondents had attempted suicide at some point in their lives . Annie Muse suggests that keeping oneself safe from self-harm is not so much about “coming out” to others as it is about “coming in” to oneself.

TransAlaska gender support group forming in Fairbanks: First meeting tonight

A new peer support group is forming in Fairbanks geared in particular toward female-to-male transgender persons and masculine-oriented women.

Remembering Harvey Milk

Today marks the anniversary of the death of Harvey Milk, assassinated in 1978 by Dan White. Bent Alaska presents his story with thanks to the Equality Forum.

Harvey Milk

“The important thing is not that we can live on hope alone, but that life is not worth living without it.”

Harvey Milk (born May 22, 1930, died November 27, 1978) became the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in the U.S. when he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. He served eleven months before he was assassinated. Milk was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.

Harvey Milk, a New Yorker, migrated to San Francisco in the 1970s, when an influx of gay immigrants from across the country was changing the Castro neighborhood into the city’s gay village. Milk opened a camera store and founded the Castro Valley Association of local merchants. His willingness to represent the interests of local merchants with city government earned him the unofficial title of “the Mayor of Castro Street.” Milk discovered that he had a natural flair for politics.

Milk was a political outsider and a populist who made his own rules. From his shop in the Castro, he ran grassroots campaigns based on relentless meetings, door-to-door canvassing, and media interviews. His supporters formed “human billboards” by standing along major thoroughfares holding placards. Milk’s first three tries for office were unsuccessful, but  gave him increasing credibility with the electorate.

When Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977, a 68-year-old lesbian wrote, “I thank God I have lived long enough to see my kind emerge from the shadows and join the human race.”

Milk was shot to death in his City Hall office on Nov. 27, 1978, by Dan White, a conservative anti-gay former supervisor who also murdered Mayor George Moscone. White was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to five years imprisonment. City-wide violence erupted in San Francisco when White’s sentence was announced.

Harvey Milk had forebodings of his assassination. He left a tape-recorded “political will” naming his preferred successor on the Board of Supervisors. On that tape he said: “If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door.”

Milk became well-known in his lifetime for variations of what was called his “Hope Speech.”  Here is as it was heard in the award-winning documentary “The Times of Harvey Milk” (1984):

For more about Harvey Milk, visit his LGBT History Month page or Wikipedia article.

Transgender Day of Remembrance: Remembering the dead — and the living

On Transgender Day of Remembrance, let’s remember those who have lost their lives to suicide and murder, but let’s also remember — and celebrate, honor, love, and welcome — the living. Even if we don’t “get” them. There’s so many worthy, cool, and interesting transgender and genderqueer people with all kinds of lives and all kinds of interesting stories to tell. And not only stories about being transgender.