PFLAG CDA is proud to announce its first annual BIG Fundraiser event!!
This year, we are partnering with Lake City Playhouse to bring you a fantastic musical, Jason Robert Brown’s “The Last Five Years”.
The house is ours for one night, and we want to share it with you! Tickets are available only through PFLAG members for $20 in advance or $25 at the door. On the night of the show, there will also be a silent auction benefit, sponsored by several local businesses and artisans, as well as refreshments.
Doors open at 6:45PM; curtain at 7:30PM
Contact information:
pflagcda@gmail.com or message via Facebook
208-907-1078 (PFLAG CDA Hotline)
208-651-0797 (PFLAG Treasurer and LCP Liaison, Rebecca)
*Be advised, this an adults only event. The play features strong language and adult themes, and persons under the age of 6 will not be permitted into the theater. We encourage you to make arrangements to treat yourself to an adult night!*
As many of you know, the local Human Rights Education Institute has been a champion of supporting equality and using trials of the past to create a well-informed future generation. For the first year, during the month of June, HREI has asked for an installation celebrating the history of Pride and the LGBT movement. A rag tag group of a half dozen local LGBT rights activists embarked on this intrepid journey with less than a month to plan.
In short, the result is pretty phenomenal. Wading through a century (and even a little beyond) of oppression and uprising, the culmination of this project saturates a quarter of the display room. Images, stories, memoirs and marches act as guides through the transition from a closeted, hidden, tormented group into an out and proud army clashing with stereotypes and demanding equality.
There will be a reception for the opening of the exhibit on Friday from 5-7PM.
The Human Rights Education Institute is located at 414 Mullan Rd in Coeur d’Alene.
This exhibit was made possible by the partnership of:
The Coeur d’Alene Center for Gender and Sexual Diversity
A couple of exciting (and easy!) ways to support our parent organization are set for the fundraising extravaganza that will be May 2014.
In addition to our own rummage sale, for which we are still taking donations, and whatever support we can lend Spokane PFLAG on National Give OUT Day (our status is not ready this year for it), everyone can chip in to help the national nonprofit.
First, for the third year running, the Johnson and Johnson Company is partnering with PFLAG’s Safe Schools Program to raise money to go toward anti-bullying strategies. Johnson and Johnson understands the unique struggles faced by LGBT students, and with their Care With Pride initiative, they can help to make a difference. Watch an informative and heartwarming video about the way the world could be here and then be sure to text “HERO” to 41010 to send $5 to Care With Pride. Johnson and Johnson will match every dollar for up to $150,000 to PFLAG’s LGBT youth programs. That’s $300,000 to help make schools a safe place for all students. Just send the text and $5 will be added to you cell phone bill– easy peasy.
Second, there is an amazing new book that is available now for preorder on Amazon. It’s called “This Day in June”. Here is the Amazon.com description:
This Day in June is an uplifting and upbeat book that shares the experience of attending an LGBT Pride festival and a day when everyone is united. It includes back matter that informs the reader of various aspects of LGBT history and culture.
Inspired by founder, Jeanne Manford’s, bravery and hoping to instill in the next generation feelings of love and solidarity, this book is written for parents and children to enjoy and learn together. A copy of the book costs $8-11, depending on whether you want hard or soft copy and a portion of the proceeds will benefit PFLAG National when you order through Smile, Amazon’s charity giving program (as soon as we have the necessary documentation, we’ll have one of these too, so every time you order though Amazon, you can support your local PFLAG chapter). Simply select PFLAG National as your chosen organization when you order.
So, that’s it! $15 later and you helped raise nearly half-a-million dollars for safe schools as well as provided your family with a valuable tool for educating our youngest allies.
Recently, a group of friends and I produced and directed a performance of Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues. Originally performed as a one-women off-off-Broadway show in the 90’s, this play has evolved into a worldwide, billion-participant movement to end violence against women and girls. It was a humbling and extremely rewarding experience.
There are half a dozen plays that can be used as fundraising vehicles for local violence prevention and education programs, but, as a rule, The Vagina Monologues is to be performed only by women. The idea is that only those who possess a vagina can understand the unique sexual and physical struggle that women face in today’s society. In 2004, a monologue was introduced to include those who were not born with the physical female anatomy, but who have come to realize their true gender identity. I wanted to share this with you:
They Beat The Girl Out Of My Boy…Or So They Tried
by Eve Ensler
Introduction
As part of Eve’s work to include the voices of all women who face violence, she
interviewed a diverse group of transwomen in preparation for creating this piece. This
piece was performed for the first time by an all transgendered cast in LA in 2004.
They Beat The Girl Out Of My Boy…Or So They Tried
At five years old
I was putting my baby sister’s
diapers on.
I saw her vagina.
I wanted one.
I wanted one.
I thought it would grow
I thought I would open
I ached to belong
I ached to smell
like my mother
her sweet aroma lived in my hair
on my hands, in my skin
I ached to be pretty
Pretty
I wondered why I was missing my
Bathing suit top at the beach
Why I wasn’t dressed like the other girls
I ached to be completed
I ached to belong
To twirl the baton
They assigned me a sex
The day I was born.
It’s as random as being adopted
or a being assigned a hotel room on the 30th floor.
It has nothing to do with who you are
Or your fear of heights.
But in spite of the apparatus
I was forced to carry around
I always knew I was a girl.
They beat me for it.
They beat me for crying.
They pummeled me for wanting
To touch
To pet
To hug
To help
To hold
Their hands
For trying to fly in church
like Sister Batrell
For doing cartwheels.
Crocheting socks
For carrying purses to kindergarten
They kicked the shit out of me every day
On my way to school.
In the park
They smashed my
Magic marker painted nails
They punched my lipsticked mouth
They beat the girl
out of my boy.
Or they tried.
So I went underground.
I stopped playing the flute
“Be a man, stand up for yourself
Go punch him back.”
I grew a full beard.
It was good I was big.
I joined the Marines
“Suck it up and drive on.”
I became duller.
Jaded.
Sometimes cruel.
Butch it
Butch it
Butch it up.
Always clenched, inaccurate,
Incomplete.
I ran away from home
From school
From boot camp.
Ran to Miami
Greenwich village
Aleutian islands
New Orleans.
I found gay people
Wilderness lesbians
Got my first hormone shot
Got permission to be myself
To transition
To travel
To immigrate
350 hours of hot needles
I would count the male particles as they died
16 man hairs gone.
The feminine is in your face
I lift my eyebrows more
I’m curious
I ask questions.
And my voice
Practice practice
It’s all about resonance
Sing song sing song
Men are monotone and flat
Southern accents are really excellent
Jewish accents really help.
“Hello my friend”
And my vagina is so much friendlier
I cherish it
It brings me joy
The orgasms come in waves
Before they were jerky
I’m your girl next door
My Lt. Colonel father ending
Up paying for it.
My vagina
My mother was worried
what people would think
of her
That she made this happen
Until I came to church
And everyone said you have a beautiful
Daughter.
I got to be soft
I am allowed to listen
I am allowed to touch
I am able to
To receive.
To be in the present tense
People are so much nicer to me now
I can wake up in the morning
Put my hair in a pony tail
A wrong was righted.
I am right with God.
It’s like when you’re trying to sleep
And there is a loud car alarm–
When I got my vagina, it was like someone
Finally turned it off.
I live now in the female zone
but you know how people feel about
immigrants.
They don’t like it when you come from someplace else.
On May 15th, we invite you to participate in the Second Annual Give OUT Day! Give OUT Day is a national initiative that will engage hundreds of organizations and mobilize thousands of people on a single day across the country to participate in an online giving campaign in support of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community.
According to a study done by the Horizons Foundation which examined charitable giving trends within the LGBT community states that less than 5% of people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered are actually donating to the cause.
Last year, PFLAG National and the 33 umbrella chapters which participated raised $8000, only a portion of what the nationwide day of giving was able to collect. The Razoo Foundation, who will be “hosting” the event, expects a 50% increase in donations this year, so it is a great year to be a part of it! Not only will this new group be a part of the making of history, but it is a fantastic to accrue some extra start-up funds for the projects and goals we have for our community.
There is a planning webinar for Give OUT Day scheduled for Friday, April 11 at 2:00PM (EST) or 11:00AM (PST). It will also be recorded and available to listen at your convenience after that.
PFLAG Coeur d'Alene / Kootenai County 