Articles tagged with: PFLAG
Coming Out: A Work in Progress in Fairbanks this weekend
Revive the Red Tent Productions would like to invite you to an evening in three parts:
- “A Midnight Clear” by L.B. Hamilton
- “Quintessential Image” by Jane Chambers
- “Tree House” by Heather Warren
Sponsored by PFLAG Fairbanks and the North Star Community Foundation, this exciting night is Revive the Red Tent’s first installment of theatre dedicated to representing the LGBTQ community. Consisting of two one-act plays and a performative reading, the theme of the evening is centered upon the struggle of “coming out.” “A Midnight Clear” and “The Quintessential Image” are traditional one-act plays, in both the audience encounters characters struggling to make sense of their choices. “Tree House”, a piece written by local author, Heather Warren, is a semi-abstracted performance of a short story.
This theatrical production is primarily produced, designed, and performed by members of the local LGBTQ community. Performances will be at Dance Theatre Fairbanks on Nov. 19th and 20th at 8 p.m. Admission is $10.00 (more if you can, less if you can’t) and seating is limited. The show is not recommended for children under the age of 14.
Libby Roderick benefit for PFLAG Fairbanks
Libby Roderick performs a benefit concert for PFLAG Fairbanks on Friday, November 19 at 8:00 PM. A limited number of tickets is available. Proceeds benefit PFLAG activities and the UU welcoming congregation. The concert will be held at the Unitarian Universalist church sanctuary (across the street from the Princess Hotel). The hall holds 150, so seating is limited. The UU is a welcoming congregation. *$32 each* cash or check only. Call 45-PFLAG pflagfairbanks@gmail.com.
Free Coming Out Day films for Juneau
Free Films Sunday and Monday, October 10 & 11, at 6 pm, kick-off the new Conscientious Projector Film Series at the Nickelodeon Theater, sponsored by the Juneau Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.
In honor of National Coming Out Day, the October Films are co-sponsored by SEAGLA (SouthEast Alaska Gay and Lesbian Alliance) and PFLAG (Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians and Gays).
** Bullied is the new Southern Poverty Law Center release by an academy award nominee filmmaker documenting a true story of one student’s ordeal at the hands of anti-gay bullies. His story offers inspiration to those fighting harassment. 40 min
** Straight from the Heart interviews a wide cross-section of American parents including a police chief, a Mormon couple, an African American mother, and Bobby Griffith’s mother (the mother of Bobby from Prayers for Bobby) all speaking from the heart about their grown gay and lesbian children. 27 min
Optional discussion following both films. Snacks and admission are free. Donations are appreciated.The Juneau Unitarian Universalist Fellowship meets Sundays at 10 at the corner of Cordova & Foster in West Juneau and is a Welcoming Congregation, welcoming people from every class, nationality, race, gender and sexual orientation. For more information, please visit JUUF online.
PFLAG wins best themed booth at Alaska fair
“PFLAG Fairbanks won “Best Theme Decorated Booth” at the Tanana Valley State Fair! The booth has received many positive comments, gentrifying the Borealis Pavilion in the fair’s main showcase for non-profits, vendors and (this year) politicians. Congratulations to Jenn and Beverly for all their preparation and to the volunteers (especially to Kerry, who recruited volunteers) who have made the booth a success with young and old alike.”
“Besides thanking Beverly for the hard work on constructing the booth and Jenn for painting the animals, including the Rave Rooster, PFLAG also wanted to thank the Imperial Court of All Alaska for their support in helping underwrite the costs, and Alaskans Together for their support as well. It is a community project, with over 50 volunteers, several new members, and everyone providing their own touch in making an impact in community. Good job.”
Gay AK: Get ready for late summer and fall events
Homer AK Chamber apologizes for gay float snub (photos & video)
“It has been brought to the attention of the Homer Chamber of Commerce that part of the narrative provided by Homer PFLAG for its participation in the Fourth of July Parade was not read during the parade. The Chamber regrets this oversight and apologizes for the omission.”
“Along the route, when the crowd realized who we were, they often loudly increased their cheering. However, the emcee in the judging booth who read every other group’s information or prepared statement refused to announce our name, mission, wouldn’t say PFLAG, GSA, lesbian, gay, or anything about us other than “Float #10… uh… building community… and diversity.”
“I appreciate both your taking the time to meet me in person and the emailed response you sent last week. PFLAG were and remain very concerned about the fact that the emcee chosen by the Homer Chamber of Commerce omitted the words “lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered” during our participation in the Homer 4th of July Parade. I would like to take this opportunity to provide you with some background about who we are and what we stand for, respond to a couple of points in your email, and hopefully identify some positive ways to move forward. I have decided to reply publicly in hopes of answering some questions among our constituency that have been raised since the incident, and since the incident occurred in a public venue I think that the discussions that come out of it ought to be public as well, so I will be forwarding this message to our Homer PFLAG list and to other groups and individuals who picked up the story. I hope that you will share it with the board of the chamber as well.First, I’d like to say that marching in the Fourth of July parade is enormously meaningful for our organization. Last year when we entered the parade it was the first time that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (lgbt) people and their friends and allies publicly marched down a Homer street in the town’s history. For many of our participants it was the first time that they publicly identified themselves either as an lgbt person or a straight ally to our community. I think it’s safe to say that we were all terrified, and with no small of amount of reason, many of us having been victims of harassment, violence, and discrimination at various points in our lives. So to say that we were thrilled by the overwhelming support we had in terms of numbers (our float fielded more participants than any other in the parade) and from the amazingly supportive on-lookers would be a great understatement. For me, and I’m sure for many of our marchers, it was one of the proudest moments of my life.Hopefully that gives you some idea why our reaction to what happened at the parade this year is so strong. When your emcee failed to read the words “lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered” it felt like a slap in our collective faces. The amount of personal courage it takes to stand up as an lgbt person in Alaska, where it is perfectly legal to fire us from our jobs or kick us out of our apartments solely because of our sexuality, is enormous and to be met with such a bold dismissal from the professional announcer chosen by the Chamber of Commerce was awful.Second, I’d like to respond to a couple of points from your email. You write that the emcee “has the option to reword material for time, readability, etc.” and that this is a normal practice of “adlibbing” which occurs every year. I’m curious because there were a number of much longer and wordier statements announcing other floats in the parade. Our written statement was a bit less than 25 words long. It takes less than 30 seconds to read. So I don’t see how time could have been a factor in the emcee’s “editing” process. As for readability, I can see that a word like transgendered might be a mouthful, although one would think that an emcee who works as a talk radio host could probably tackle it, [but] a word like gay, consisting of three letters and only one syllable, is extremely pronounceable. Next I would ask why it is the policy of the chamber to allow their emcees to personally and without any accountability edit the contributions of parade participants. I’m curious if you would find it acceptable for one of your emcees to edit out references to military service from the VFW folks, or references to boats from the Homer Wooden Boat Society. Either one would render the statement meaningless, just as what your emcee announced was completely devoid of meaning. You also state explicitly in your email that you did not speak with the emcee regarding what happened. Is it the policy of the Homer Chamber of Commerce to ask no accountability from its employees and volunteers when evidence exists of possible willful discrimination against a whole segment of the population? It’s my understanding that people like this represent the organizations they work for; is discrimination a proper representation of the Homer Chamber? If so I think that there are many of your members who would like to be made aware of that fact.Third, I would like to offer two suggestions for moving forward in a positive way. While I’m outraged by the emcee’s actions during the parade I do not believe that the chamber as an organization is one that favors discriminating against people based on their sexuality or gender identity, but the events of the 4th cast some doubt on that. I think it’s fair to ask that the chamber both make a public apology for what happened and to publicly clarify the organization’s position on this form of discrimination. In addition, I think that it’s fair to ask that the chamber make a commitment to more carefully screen emcees in the future to prevent against selecting one that has such an ideological bias as to prevent them from reading references to the race, gender, religion, political affiliation, sexual orientation, or gender identity from the written statements provided by the parade participants.In closing, the emails I’ve received from you end with a quote that I rather like, it says “it is curious that physical courage should be so abundant in the world and moral courage so rare.” I agree with Mark Twain here, and I can only assume that you do as well, so while it takes a degree of moral courage to take a stand against hate, fear, and discrimination, I hope that you and the Homer Chamber of Commerce have that courage. I would hate for the young people who courageously marched in the parade with us to have their first experience with public support for lgbt people to be insulted.
“We would like to thank the Homer community for the support you’ve shown us, and look forward to continue working with all of our partners and allies to make Homer a community free of hate and discrimination.”
Cheers for PFLAG at Golden Days Parade & almost 100 attend Fairbanks Pride Picnic
I would like to give my gratitude to the many members of the community who stepped up to make an amazing Fairbanks Pride Picnic!! I tend to be long winded so if you get bored just skip down to your name and smile. Don’t see your name?? That means you should expect to be recruited to help in next years picnic!!!First I would like to thank PFLAG and the ICOAA, for without their sponsorship you would have been listening to a little boombox and wishing there was food. No seriously, without their financial support and community connections this event could not have been the success it was. Thank you!I would also like to thank College Floral for donating gift certificates to our performance winners. Donations are the bread and butter of non-profits, grassroots, and small community organizations. Every little bit counts and yours was greatly appreciated.The Center for Non-Violent Living, IAA, and IWILL all provided positive community education information. Thank you for taking the time to provide these for us. I hope that we can continue to work together in the effort to educate the masses.A big round of applause to Cheri and Jene, who provided the vendor booth this year. It added a festive aura to the event and gave everyone an opportunity to show their pride on a regular basis. Why get all your pride paraphernalia on the internet when you can support your local businesses and community members by buying local. Look out for these two… they will be spreading rainbows again in the near future.Were you dancing at the picnic… shaking it on a picnic table perhaps? Maybe you were tapping your foot or simply listening to announcements? We have Bernie to thank for that. Bernie responded to my pleas and rushed in to save the day with sound and music. Thank you so much Bernie… you rock!!Many thanks to Pete and Miss Maxine for shuttling people from the end of the parade to the picnic. Thank you to our Emcee Donald who saved me from having to talk in front of all of those people. And put your hands together for our performers Micheal and our current Grand Duchess Kara!!! They took the spotlight from all of you who didn’t manage to get out of bed!!!As many of you know I am still recovering from shoulder surgery and this makes me unable to lift, tote, or move anything. After listening to me make plans for 2 weeks and “puking rainbows” (as she called it) everyday, when the time came my Poppie was there to DO everything. All the hauling, moving, shopping, cleaning, packing… that was all her. Thank you my love, I could not have gotten through it without you.I have one last thank you. To all of you that stopped by, dropped in, hung out, or otherwise attended the picnic, thank YOU. None of this would have been worth it without the guests. It is YOU that made the fun. YOU provided the conversation, YOU provided the dancing, YOU provided the games! And just so everyone knows, there were almost 100 of YOU throughout the day. Thank YOU!!Oh, and don’t forget! There will be voting at College Floral on August 21st for Emperor and Empress of All Alaska. Get out there and cast your vote! Don’t know who to vote for? Find out! Ask your candidates questions, engage them in conversation; find out what they plan to do if they become the new Emperor or Empress. Informed decisions are our own responsibility.Also… PFLAG is still looking for volunteers to sit at their booth at the Tanana Valley State Fair. Please contact Kerry at 45-PFLAG to sign up. Help spread the positive through our community with information!
On behalf of the members and supporters of PFLAG, I would like to give a big, heartfelt thanks to Shayle for pulling together the colorful contingent of participants that carried the borrowed flag from Anchorage (thanks, Anchorage), the signs, and the new PFLAG Fairbanks banner in yesterday’s Golden Days Parade. Most of Fairbanks was there. What a difference a few years of visibility in community make. The crowd was receptive, with pockets of cheers and salutes along the route.Also a big thanks to Jenn for organizing the picnic. Thanks to the Imperial Court of All Alaska in helping underwrite the expenses. It was a good turnout of all ages and talent in the community. It was great to reconnect with friends who hadn’t seen each other in a while.The next big event will be the Tanana Valley State Fair. Kerry is still signing up volunteers and will have free passes for those willing to spend two hours at the PFLAG booth in the Borealus Pavilion anytime between noon and 10pm. (Leave a message at 45-PFLAG.)Dates for the fair: August 6th through the 14th. If you are coming to Fairbanks during that time, stop by and say hi and see how Beverly has adapted the booth to fit the theme of “Barn in the USA.” We aim to be contenders for the decoration prize. Thank you to Alaskans Together for supporting the costs of the fair booth.If you know allies who support our community and would like to become members of PFLAG or provide funds for community events in conjunction with the Court and individuals creating gay-friendly space in Fairbanks, point them to Fairbanks PFLAG at www.fairbankspflag.org or join our Facebook page.
Homer July 4th emcee "would not say the words lesbian or gay" *Updated with contact info
I am writing on behalf of the Homer Chapter of PFLAG, to express my heartfelt appreciation to the community of Homer for the cheers and support we received for our float during this year’s 4th of July Parade. This year, PFLAG (Parents, Friends of Lesbians and Gays) marched with the newly-formed Homer Youth Gay-Straight Alliance, in order to strengthen efforts at providing support and solidarity for LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered) youth in Homer.I am also writing to express my concern about the significant omissions by the emcee of this year’s parade, Tim White, while he was reading the description of our organizations and float. Rather than reading the prepared statement as written, he omitted the names of our organizations and would not say the words lesbian or gay, which were part of our statement. This omission was quite obvious and did not appear to be accidental.It is tragic to think that this incident might be related to anything other than a logistical mishap, especially on a day when we are celebrating a day that is all about freedom. It is my sincere hope, and that of Homer PFLAG, that the Homer Chamber of Commerce is committed to having the voice of the 4th of July Parade be one that would never in any way be associated with discrimination, censorship, or homophobia.Some people have said, “Why do those gay people need to have a special float in the parade at all?” I would answer, that the reality of discrimination and ignorance towards LGBT people is very real in Homer, Alaska—particularly for young people. The intention of PFLAG and the GSA in our community is to promote equal treatment of all people—regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity. In the words of the ACLU, “freedom does not protect itself.” Silence is deadly—and the silence of this year’s parade emcee has given us an opportunity to speak a bit louder.
Glitter Parade & Pride Picnic in Fairbanks
My oh my, can we have fun with that! Come out and join us all you Queens, Kings, and Princesses. Bring your tiaras and your glittery best. Tell your friends and anyone else who’ll be interested, and let’s show Fairbanks our Pride!
This year’s Fairbanks Pride Picnic will be held July 24th at Growden Park directly after the Golden Days Parade. Join us for BBQ, performances, booths, and games galore! The fun starts around 1pm and they don’t kick us out until 8pm. Bring your friends, your family, and your need to have a good time.Want to get involved and help your local community? We are looking for organizations and groups who would like to share their information, performers who don’t need a real stage, and anyone else who may want to lend a hand.