Living Transgender In American Society Today: Pennies From Heaven

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Pennies From Heaven

Hi all,

I generally don't promote fundraisers here but this one is very important - TYFA is a well established and trustworthy trans youth advocacy organization. Please consider helping any way you can. Even prayer and directing good thoughts or energy toward this helps too.

Hug,

Eva-Genevieve!

Pennies From Heaven - PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY

Those of you who follow my Facebook may be aware that I made an emergency trip to Kansas this week. A school there was refusing to recognize a 10 year old transgender girls gender identity. They were requiring her to attend school as male and wouldn't budge.

I met with a school across town and they were happy to have her and wanted to learn how to make her school experience safe and productive. We registered her and expected that she would start school later in the week. I flew home to AZ.

Now the district administration has become involved and informed the parents (two moms) that their child will not be accomodated at ANY SCHOOL in their district. The child must present male or gender neutral, must use a male name and male restroom. The reason given is that to do otherwise would "interfere with the learning environment".

We are going to file suit against this school system . TYFA has retained the best attorney in KS with experience in GLBT discrimination. We need to raise an estimated $25,000 (or more) to litigate this case. I am calling this fund raising effort "Pennies From Heaven". Make any donation amount but end it with .01 (example 20.01) so that we know you are donating for the KS Defence Fund. Are you with me here?

It is time to take back our schools for gender variant students everywhere and we are going to start in Kansas.

MAKE YOUR DONATION NOW:http://imatyfa.org/permanent_files/donatetest.html

Kim Pearson

Kim Pearson
Executive Director
TransYouth Family Allies, Inc.
928.486.7824
www.imatyfa.org
kimp@imatyfa.org
http://www.causes.com/tyfa
http://www.twitter.com/havasumoma
http://www.facebook.com/havasumoma

1 comment:

SaraAugust 23, 2010 at 8:13 AM
I know Kim personally, and she does good work. I will make a donation. But I don't believe in the GLBT model. It does a great disservice to post-operative heterosexual women, and, in my opinion, to all men and women who have dealt with transexuality and moved on.

I guess we can agree to disagree when it comes to the health and welfare of children.

Sara ...
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Any Body, Everybody, Christ’s Body…

…was the theme at this years National Gathering of the UCC Coalition for LGBT Concerns this year in San Diego (July 14 –17). There were about 125 attendees from all across the US and we even had folks from other countries. Several topics were discussed including ways to make Church accessible to all – many physical and mental challenges were included in this discussion as well as LGBT concerns, Mentoring Queer youth – the emphasis being the need for all of us to be mentors as we are able and that we all have something to teach others, Advocacy & Empowerment, OnA Next Steps: Telling Our Stories, and also a panel discussion on including “transgender” and gender expression more specifically in OnA statements, and immigration issues too – far more issues and information than one person could take in or even list here.

Starting Wednesday afternoon we jumped right in with a very lively worship service with wonderful music and through the course of the gathering we heard many inspiring speakers and participated in several “breakout” workshop sessions. We broke into small discussion groups daily, heard many points of view on important topics, and made many friends in the process. On our last evening the General Minister and President of the UCC, the Revered Geoffrey Black was the keynote speaker at the banquet. My favorite speaker at the conference was Felix Carrion who often contributes to the UCC’s “Stillspeaking” on-line daily Devotional. We ended the conference Saturday morning with another lively worship service and dismissed just in time for several of us to rush over and march in San Diego’s Pride parade with the Mission Hills UCC Church and Bloom in the Desert Ministries (also UCC affiliated). I brought back lots of things to discuss in upcoming Mission Board meetings, but more than anything else it is the personal connections that made the conference very worthwhile. I feel a part of something much larger now – there was so much positive, hopeful energy shared there. I felt so very warmly welcomed by everyone and I believe that my input there was greatly valued as well. And, of course, I made an impression with my array of colorful dresses and hats too! (Would you expect anything less)? I was so blessed for being allowed to represent First Congregational Church in Riverside at this Gathering.

Follow this link to pictures from the event -the photos are in no particular order and a few shots of the fire that broke out behind the motel where I was staying.

Hugs and Blessings,

Eva-Genevieve!