Hello, Lavender Classes of 2018! Greetings, faculty, parents, family and friends! I wanted to start off saying thank you for inviting me, but “inviting me” seems so formal. As the first person in DuPage County who was hired specifically to be gay, I am not known for standing on formality. This feels less like an […]
Posts Tagged ‘LGBT history’
Welcome, Lavender Graduates!
Posted: 8th May 2018 by admin in BlogTags: #LGBT youth, Class of 2018, Lavender graduation, LGBT history, LGBT timeline, Pride, Rebellion
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Twenty Years After a Comic, An Airport, and a Hot Mic
Posted: 26th December 2017 by admin in BlogTags: #coming out, #LGBT youth, community, Ellen coming out episode, friends, LGBT history
I just watched a very poignant clip of Ellen interviewing Oprah about the 1997 coming out episode (The Puppy) on the Ellen Show. That episode aired in April 1997 and I started work at Youth Outlook in October 1998. I found it difficult not to tear up while Ellen and Oprah talked about both the […]
Reflections on a Revolution
Posted: 4th October 2015 by admin in BlogTags: #LGBT youth, challenges, HIV, LGBT history, life changes, PrEP, revolution
Seventeen years ago on the first Saturday in October, I sat in a park in Naperville, shivering and uncomfortable, dressed too lightly for how the temps dropped after the sun went down. I was at a Take Back the Night rally for domestic violence awareness, one of the first assignments of my brand new job […]