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YOU’RE ON. I’M IN.
Colorado has marriage equality and legalized marijuana. When I was in Denver for the 27th Annual National LGBTQ Task Force Creating Change Conference, I suggested that the Task Force should sell specialty Colorado license plates. Under the snow-capped mountain logo, the tagline: “Marriage Juana?”
Speaking of taglines, after a year-long, goal-setting, soul-search, The Task Force has a new, minimalist, tri-colored logo and the tagline: “Be You”. Clearly “F You” has already been taken. Their preferred pronoun, ‘you’, is a bit too neoliberal and ruggedly individualistic for me. I’m more interested in what happens when a whole bunch of brilliant, fierce, furious LGBTQ activist Yous join forces.
The week before the conference, Denver police shot and killed a 16-year-old gay Latina, Jessie Hernandez. Instead of marching to the police station, conference activists honored the wishes of the family and held a memorial in her honor.
Young black and brown LGBTQ activists have kept visible the racist, police violence that has been kept invisible for years. Young LGBTQ activists have led the response in Ferguson. Three young queer black women started #blacklivesmatter. They spoke out at the conference. Their fury and frustration fueled every conference issue: transgender, youth homelessness, immigration, reproductive justice, and seniors.
I am wired, tired and inspired. The torch has passed to the next, next generation. Here are my conference take-away taglines: You’re on. I’m in. What do you need me to do?
#Juno
Before the power went out in Ptown, I was doing what everyone in town was doing. Watching Weather Porn. On an average weather day, the music on the Weather Channel sounds like porn music.
The foreplay was intense, and the storm really was super with a big payload. Mother Nature is the original dominatrix.
But more chilling than the wind chill was the school closing scroll:
Our Lady of Psychological Warfare, closed.
Bully the Gays Middle School, delayed.
Mrs. Murray’s Home School, open
and she doesn’t want to hear your bellyaching, so get dressed and get down here.
Watching it was like hacking into a top secret list of Momdrassas. “So this is where they train them!”
The power is back on. The drifts are huge, old-school, Biblical. But little by little, shovel by shovel, toss by toss, I’m making progress.
See Kate Live!
Hey HiberNation, this is your wake up call from your favorite PajamaGram, Kate Clinton!
She’s got your sleep number. She wants to wake you up: shake you with punchlines, tickle you with truthiness, and whisper sweet everythings in your ear. Don’t hit that snooze button! For those of you who have been awake for years, thank you for making the coffee. It’s a new day with new laughs. Time to rise and shine and join the wide-awake Dreamers
June 4th – NYC – Lambda Literary Awards
June 20th- NYC– Levity and Justice
Click here for Kate’s complete schedule!
- Sign up for Kate’s newsletter to keep up with her tour dates and more »
- See videos of Kate in action »
I’m Not Dreaming of a White Christmas
Many years ago I learned that a dinner and a demo is my dear partner’s idea of a good time. For her, a bullhorn is a sexual device.
Once on a bright, freezing cold February day we were marching for either U.S. out of (fill in Latin American country), or for nuclear disarmament, or for aerosolized pentamadine, or against the first or second war in Iraq. We were in front of the White House – yes children, there was a time when you could get close – when someone shouted “Die-in!” Everyone lay down like they were filling in chalk silhouettes.
I stood there like the Washington Monument on a sunny day, with my dear galpal, tugging my coat and hissing, “Supine! Supine!” I spat back, “This is a camelhair coat. I am not lying down on the ground.” A helpful, supine queen nearby suggested, “Honey, take it off, put it on inside out and just lie down.”
In the moments before we leave for a protest, no manila file folder is safe in our house. My dear partner believes in them. She protested in 1990 at George HW Bush’s first and only AIDS policy speech. She smuggled a file folder in her briefcase through security. As Bush spoke, she stood silently with her opened folder, “Talk is Cheap; AIDS funding is not.” She was escorted out.
As I was layering on the warmest clothes I could find for the huge December 13th rally in NYC, I heard the familiar screech of magic markers and caught a stinging whiff of Sharpie. The sign read “Lesbians Against Police Violence and Racism”. Each word was underlined in red. Several times.
We joined protestors in Washington Square Park marching to One Police Plaza. Protestors carried hundreds of huge black silhouettes of hands with “Black Lives Matter”. Ten people carried a huge montage of Eric Garner’s eyes. Signs were hand-made or mass-produced. They were all on message. I was nervous that our sign introduced an off-topic LGBT motif.
The march was massive, mostly black and brown, mostly young and ceaselessly vocal. We fit right in, with an occasional nod and thumbs up.
Manilla file folders are good in a wind. Even held overhead, a sudden rogue gust will not buckle them. I had forgotten what our sign said, until I heard a young girl, shout, “Mom! Lesbians!” Insert the ‘what are the chances, but we actually knew them’ joke here. We did actually know them.
One young lesbian from a pod of young women ran up to us and asked if we had more file folders. Sadly, we did not. Note to self: next time, bring blanks. We saw them later with impromptu cardboard signage, “Lesbians Against Police Brutality”.
I am glad I was there in solidarity, as a lesbian witness against racism. This is a moment when all thinking white people must question our individual and institutional white racism. That is our job. In that questioning I realize I fear that my “Lesbians Against Police Violence and Racism” sign would actually be read as off-topic in Gay Pride parades.