The Radical Roots Of Community Acupuncture

Images from the Young Lords in the late 1960's and early 1970's.

 
Community Acupuncture and NADA Points

From June 2019-March 2020 I was honored to be part of the SEED Clinic {SEED = Support for Everyone Experiencing Distress} based at the Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism.  I wrote this blog post about community acupuncture many years before, when a sliding scale/low-cost community acupuncture clinic was opening in Central Vermont.  I later received NADA {National Acupuncture Detoxification Association} protocol training using seeds or beads. While different from using acupuncture needles, it uses the same 5 points.  

I know that to many the thought of getting needles stuck in you is anything but relaxing. However, my acupuncture experiences have all been very grounding and rejuvenating, like I just woke from a nap. When I was living for a short time in North Carolina I found an acupuncturist who provided a sliding-scale, making this modality accessible for me. Later, I learned about Community Acupuncture or Group Acupuncture, which is quite different than what my acupuncturist friend calls "Boutique Acupuncture" which is more common in the States - seeing a practitioner one-on-one in a private room, having a full intake/consultation, laying down and getting needles put in points on various areas of your body.

In Community Acupuncture, people share space in one room, fully clothed, sitting or laying down, and needles are placed in the ear, hands, feet, face and/or head. While this atmosphere may be less private, it encourages a sense of community and may provide comfort to those less at ease with intimate, one-on-one, and/or unclothed settings. Practitioners are able to see more clients in less time, making these sessions much more affordable. Community acupuncture also encourages family members and friends to come in for sessions together. More family/friends = more comfort = more healing (hopefully). My friend who was inspired by the creations of Working-Class Acupuncture clinics changed her practice and found that providing Community Acupuncture greatly diversified her clientele, in terms of class background and ethnicity. The first two Community Acupuncture clinics that I received care at are both ones that friends were part of co-creating: Third Root Community Health Center in Brooklyn, NY and Providence Community Acupuncture in Providence, RI.

I'm excited about the many efforts near and far to make health care more accessible, affordable/free, inclusive, and empowering.  This includes acupuncture and this is nothing new.  Those who've gone before have paved the way for community acupuncture to persevere and flourish. This includes those involved in such grassroots organizations as the Black Panther Party and the Young Lords. These groups, when mentioned at all in mainstream media, are usually described as criminals, gang members, cop-killers, and other terms used to instill fear and perpetuate separation between peoples who actually have much in common.  Rarely examined in mainstream media and history classes is the white supremacy, police brutality, systemic poverty, medical apartheid, aggressive military recruitment in communities of color and mistreatment of veterans, and other forces that communities were responding to.  It's also rarely mentioned that both of these organizations included healthcare as a top priority - see the Young Lords Ten-Point Health Program and Black Panther Community Programs.

Having recently learned that Community Acupuncture will soon be available in Central Vermont, I've been thinking about the Young Lords, both their organizing efforts during the late 1960's and early 1970's and those who've continued organizing today. The summer before last I heard Democracy Now's brilliant program "Influential Puerto Rican Activist Group the Young Lords Marks 40th Anniversary."  Former Young Lords spoke about how, inspired by the Black Panther Party and other community groups organizing for healthcare, education, and self-determination, and against police brutality and poverty, collaborated to meet the needs of their communities. The Young Lords took over a TB testing van that greatly underserving the people who needed it most, and later took over the Lincoln Hospital because of the lack of access to healthcare in the community. (I highly recommend listening to the broadcast and hearing the stories directly from people involved at the time!) I realized after the program that I'd heard of Lincoln Hospital before, because it offers free 2 week trainings in auricular acupuncture, where needles are inserted into the ear to support withdrawal (from street drugs/medications), promote relaxation, and address imbalances caused by Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  

I had heard of this program and hoped to one day receive training there, but I had no idea that the center's history reached back to the days of radical mass movements in response to racism here and abroad, including the Vietnam War, during the 1960's and 70's. I had been writing to a few US Political Prisoners (PPs) for many years, and knew that these community organizers who were targeted by the US Government, including the FBI's COINTELPRO program which used illegal tactics, infiltration, and assassination to destroy peoples' movements, have contributed greatly to my life in ways that I'm not even aware of. However, I hadn't realized that there was a direct relationship between my passion for herbalism and community health and the US PP's I'd been corresponding with, who'd been involved with the Black Panther Party, the Black Liberation Front, the Weathermen/Weather Underground, the American Indian Movement, Students for a Democratic Society, and who'd also organized with the United Farmerworkers, against apartheid in South Africa, and for Puerto Rican independence.

Wikipedia writes: "The Lincoln Hospital's acupuncture drug detoxification clinic was founded in the South Bronx by activists involved with The Black Panther Party, The Republic of New Afrika, the Young Lords, and Students for a Democratic Society. The clinic offered drug rehabilitation with a holistic approach, employing acupuncture, political education classes and community service.  In the courses, participants learned about their addiction in a political context, exploring how their addiction harmed themselves, their community and family. It also explored the role of governmental institutions such as the CIA in drug trafficking and profiteering as well as how drug addiction has worked against progressive and revolutionary change. Community work was also politicized: doing work such as helping an evicted tenant find housing, welfare rights work, helping a family with transportation to go see an imprisoned relative, or attending a trial showing support for one of the many political prisoners who were being railroaded into prisons for their political work. 

Eventually the center was targeted by the FBI under COINTELPRO. FBI agents would attempt to turn drug addicts involved in the center into informants, often successfully. The tension came to a head when over 200 members of the New York Police Department
and their SWAT teams used excessive force to close it down. The government claimed that clinic workers were mismanaging funds, but others claim it was an excuse to close the clinic because of its revolutionary politics." The center is now known as Lincoln Recovery Center.

In a recent visit with US Political Prisoner friend/mentor, I learned that fellow PP/Prisoner of War Dr. Mutulu Shakur is an acupuncturist. He's been politically active since he was a teenager, when he became part of the New Afrikan Independence Movement. He became a licensed acupuncturist in the 70's and worked with the Lincoln Detox Center for 8 years, as a political education instructor, counselor, acupuncturist, and the Program's Assistant Director. He was a Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Black Acupuncture Advisory Association of North America (BAAANA) and the Harlem Institute of Acupuncture and lectured before medical communities around the world. He is also the stepfather of hip hop artist Tupac Shakur. (Dr. Shakur was arrested on February 12, 1986. Click here for more information on his case.)

I'm going to include excerpts from a radio interview with Dr. Mutulu Shakur, though I highly recommend reading it in its entirety. Mutulu Shakur: On The History Of The Use Of Acupuncture By Revolutionary Health Workers To Treat Drug Addiction, And US Government Attacks Under The Cover Of The CounterIntelligence Program (COINTELPRO)

Free Dr. Mutulu Shakur, Mutulu Shakur with co-defendant Marilyn Buck (Rest in Peace),
and Revolution in our Lifetime by Emory Douglas

"So the Lincoln Detox became not only recognized by the community as a political formation but its work in developing and saving men and women of the third world inside of the oppressed communities, resuscitating these brothers and sisters and putting them into some form of healing process within the community we became a threat to the city of New York and consequently with the development of the barefoot doctor acupuncture cadre, we began to move around the country and educate various other communities instead of schools and orientations around acupuncture drug withdrawal and the strategy of methadone and the teaching the brothers and sisters the fundamentals of acupuncture to serious acupuncture, how it was used in the revolutionary context in China and in Vietnam and how we were able to use it in the South Bronx and our success. Primarily because we had a love for our people and we had a commitment to our people, we started very rudimentary....

...all the fads and the health foods stores and all of the reflexology clinics and all of these things that allow to function today would not exist if revolutionary men and women did not fight tooth and nail to spread the possibilities of another form of healthcare system to the third world grassroots community.

(The 200 policemen that raided the Lincoln Detox Center). . . just controlled the whole thing and fired all of us or told us that we were to be sent to other hospitals. Right now today you can go into New York City and in those municipal hospitals within the community, with the black and Puerto Rican and poor communities, a municipal hospital, not the private hospital, but the municipal hospitals, you can now receive acupuncture treatment for drug withdrawal as an alternative method of treatment. And that exists today because many men and women were put in jail, shot and killed, had mental disorders, all the things that go with on going low intensity warfare, all the suffering that can be attributed to that is for ??. The reason why men and women now can go get acupuncture and alternative healthcare has to do with that cadre of men and women. And they need to be praised and that situation needs to be correctly analyzed.

(Dr. Mutulu Shakur uses the term "chemical warfare" to describe the intentional infiltration of communities of color/poor communities with drugs by the US government. Also, when asked to describe his use of "low intensity warfare," Dr. Shakur said, "I think a lot of times we put titles on things to cut the explanation and where we need to put the explanation, make the explanation more clear. Low intensity warfare very simply put, is the play on the weaknesses and uncovered flanks of organizations or formations that are a threat, to the powers that be or to your adversary. As it relates to us and the United States government and military government, we, the liberation movements, were infiltrated with agents, money was stolen and we were beginning to accuse each other, work that we were doing to educate and propagate to the community was being subverted and converted ’cause we did not control the media process. Our own egos were being used against us very fundamentally. Your mail was being stolen when you expected the mail to come for this, that or the other. Shoestring budgets were being stretched to the limits so we would fail to make certain deadlines. So we began to feel inconsistent, impotent, incompetent and we felt that the things were falling apart. So our morale began to weaken. So with a weak morale and a vicious military attack, an assassination of key leader, or a car accident driving him off the road, or an addiction or a supporter or something, anything that can breakdown the fundamental structure and the spirit of a formation is low intensity warfare. Where you’re being attacked everyday but it’s not the clear line that you anticipate. And it’s not haphazard attack. It’s a very fundamental, thought out, programmatic attack at the weaknesses that have been reported by the agent to the superior.")

In conversations with herbalists, acupuncturists, and others dedicated to accessible community health, often we speak of "health justice" as a fairly new concept. A new vision of healthcare that is inclusive of communities that have been excluded by the mainstream, dominant medical system that is dictated by straight, cisgender (non-transgender), upper-class, able-bodied, white men and corporations. However, this pharmacetical-flooded and profit-driven system is quite recent. Plant medicines and other traditional modalities such as acupuncture have been practiced much longer and their practice continues. And this generation is not the first to work for community healthcare rooted firmly in self- and community-sufficiency, a sense of empowerment and liberation (rather than perpetuating racism, ableism, ageism, mysogyny, homophobia, transphobia, classism, etc as well as rigid ideas of what's "normal"), and putting people's health before profits and ego.

My hope is that as we move forward with projects that embody our passion and vision of community healthcare, we draw on the lessons and wisdoms of our elders, many of whom are still held in US penitentiaries for their work serving the community. May we remember those who have passed, those who are incarcerated, and those who are still working for health justice - both from the inside and the outside. Let's read up on our history! Let's correspond with those community organizers held in prison, to share our ideas, learn directly from their experiences, and receive their feedback! And let's share what we learn, especially with the youth so that they may have the knowledge that they are part of a strong movement that stretches far back in history.

Resources:
The Lincoln Story by Ellinor R. Mitchell
May Day Free Acupuncture at Devi Health in Chicago (video)
National Acupuncture Detoxification Association
Acupuncturists Without Borders is a non-profit group who treats trauma victims in a group acupuncture setting, including Haiti and New Orleans post Katrina and has reserached P.T.S.D. for their Military Stress Recovery Project.
The Mujeres of the Young Lords By Erica González
The Young Lords’ Legacy of Puerto Rican Activism By Jennifer 8. Lee

CHOCOLATE EXPLOSION!

It's late December, so the time has come to get making Peppermint bark, and this year, Truffles and Peanut Buttercups as well. I generally don't eat loads of sweets, but during the winter holidays I like to make healthier versions of treats to share with friends and family. I'm including my winging-it recipes that are constantly evolving to document general proportions and to give y'all a starting point, for those of you who've asked how I make these. There are a gazillion ways to make nearly anything, so I'm just recording how I made all this, today. Feel free to leave comments about how you make these! Disaster-prevention tips are always welcome! Here are the recipes. Hopefully y'all listen (better than I do) to recommendations from Home Ec or a grandparent or whoever might have shown you around a kitchen to read the whole recipe from start to finish before embarking.
 

Peppermint Bark

1. Melt chocolate chips or bulk dark chocolate in a double boiler, or a similar rig - a metal bowl resting into a pot of simmering water. Be sure not to let any water splatter into the chocolate or it may seize up. This means instead of a warm pool of pourable liquid chocolate, you'll get a clumpy mess. As the chocolate melts, stir with a metal spoon.  (If it does seize up you can turn it into ganache for truffles.)

2. Line a glass or ceramic casserole pan with at least 1" or 2cm sides with waxed paper. Once the chocolate is completely melted, pour half of it into the casserole pan. If you have loads of chocolate, use a big pan or many big pans, if you don't have much, use a wee pan.

3. Smooth out your chocolate into an even-ish layer, and then let cool.  You can place in the fridge to cool to speed up the process if you like.


4.  As the first layer of chocolate cools, in another metal bowl melt white chocolate. You only need half as much white chocolate (or less) as dark chocolate. Also while the first layer of chocolate is cooling you can place your candy canes into a cloth or heavy plastic bag. Then proceed with hammering the candy canes into bits. Be careful about what surface you do your smashing on.  

5. Once the white chocolate is all melted, let it cool a bit.  Again, you can put it in the fridge to speed up the process.
 
6. Once your first chocolate layer is all cooled and solidified you can pour the next layer, the white chocolate. The heat of the white chocolate will melt the top part of the dark chocolate layer. If you'd like a fairly dramatic contrast between the white and dark chocolates, smooth the white chocolate just enough to spread out the layer, without mixing it too much with the dark chocolate underneath.

7. Let the white chocolate layer cool as you multi-task or breathe or whatever.

8. For your final layer: add the remainder of the dark chocolate that you melted at the beginning.  Re-warm it if necessary. While this third and final layer of chocolate is still soft and warm, sprinkle on the candy-cane bits/powder. A thin layer of the powder will adhere pretty easily. The larger bits may need to be gently pressed into the chocolate so that it dries into the top layer. Let everything harden. Shake off excess candy cane bits and save for later to incorporate into future chocolate adventures. Viola! Peppermint bark. Gently break into pieces and place in glass jars or reuse tins.  

You can make all kinds of chocolate bark.  You can skip the white chocolate and just do one layer of milk or dark chocolate and add things to the top.  In addition to a Peppermint bark, I like to make a healthier bark with dark chocolate sprinkled with raisins, dried cherries, nuts like pistachios and pecans, seeds, cinnamon powder and other herbs and spices, and/or a pinch of sea salt to bring out the sweet.  When making the layer(s) of chocolate aim for it to be around the height of a bar of chocolate or a bit more.  If it's too thick ~ especially if it's a harder, darker chocolate ~ it can be difficult to bite into.

Sprinkling and then patting the candy cane bits into the top layer of
dark chocolate, and the layers of the finished Peppermint Bark.

Note: Please check out the ingredients of all your ingredients. A lot of chocolates contain hydrogenated oils, palm oil, and other such ingredients that can have negative impacts on the people tending and harvesting the crops, the earth, and our health.  Not to mention the child slave labor that poisons the chocolate market - including huge multinationals like Hershey’s and Nestle. For more information, please see: "Chocolate’s Bittersweet Economy: Cocoa Industry Accused of Greed, Neglect for Labor Practices in Ivory Coast."
I've been trying to find a source of bulk fair-trade (certified or not) dark chocolate. The search continues, please let me know if you know of an ethical source for dark chocolate.

Peanut Buttercups

You can make your own Peanut Buttercups, replacing uber-sugared, salted, and hydrogenated-oiled peanut butter with natural peanut butter, sunflower, almond butter, or whatever you'd like. I also added some local Honey and Cinnamon powder.

1. Melt dark chocolate/chocolate chips in a double boiler and stir. Once entirely melted, add the tiniest layer of chocolate to the molds you picked up from a kitchen shop, thrift store, or that you saved from last year's Advent calendar or Ginger-bread-house-making-kits, etc.

2. As the chocolate is cooling a bit you can stir together a small amount of honey and cinnamon to sweeten and spice-n the nut butter to your liking. Add a lil dollop of the filling (straight nut butter or the nut butter-honey-cinnamon blend) into the molds, and press it down/ spread it around if you wish.  Just be sure to keep the filling away from the edges as much as you can, so that the next layer of chocolate you add seals it in.  Shallow molds harden pretty quickly, as long as you're not in a wicked hot kitchen. Larger molds take longer to cool (more surface area/thicker layer of chocolate= longer to cool), so I sometime place those in the fridge.

3. Once cooled, add more chocolate to cover the Peanut Butter-mound and complete the cup. Let it cool again until completely solidified and they should come easily out of the molds.

Peanut Buttercups don't require much chocolate and pack a protein punch. I used silicon star-molds once and it the chocolate got all white and splotchy, but I haven't had this happen in my plastic molds.  It may have had to do with the temperature I warmed the chocolate to?  Today my mom showed me how using two spoons to scoop the chocolate out of the other, which makes the process much smoother! 

Molds, Making the Peanut Buttercups, and the Innards.

Truffles

10 ounces Dark chocolate
1 1/4 cup Coconut milk
optional: Cocoa powder, more Dark chocolate, Coconut flakes

Pour the coconut milk into a double boiler and warm on low heat. Chop the chocolate into smaller pieces and add to the warm coconut milk. Stir the mixture constantly until the chocolate has melted and mixed completely with the liquid. This is your ganache. Refrigerate until hard (approx. 3 hours, you can put in the freezer if you have less time).

Stirring the Ganache, fresh-pressed Ginger juice, and Dad
lends a hand with his Laser Thermometer (138°F/58.88°C) -
checking the temperature is not necessary, it was just for fun

Separate containers holding the various flavors of ganache, Rolling the ganache into balls - the balls got stickier as my hands got stickier, the smoothest ones were created just after rinsing off my hands with warm water (but they all taste good!), Re-hardened ganache, & Finished truffles.

Remove ganache from refrigeration and scoop out by the spoonful, rolling into balls with your hands. Place balls on a wax paper-ed baking sheet and return to refrigeration to harden. Once hardened, remove balls from refrigeration and roll in a shallow bowl of cocoa powder, fair-trade if possible, and/or dried coconut flakes. Or you can melt more dark chocolate in a double boiler and gently roll the cooled balls in the warm chocolate, which when cooled will created a harder outer layer over the softer ganache. If storing for later, place balls in containers, and place waxed paper between layers. Store in the refrigerator and remove 30 minutes before feasting on them.

Flavors: For simple chocolate truffles, chocolate and coconut milk is all you need. However, you can add other simple ingredients to create chocolate flavor explosions! Today I made two batches and separated both in half. Four flavor possibilities! Last time I created Rose truffles using organic rose powder, as well as Vanilla, Coffee, and Ginger truffles.   As the truffles cooled I pressed a tiny bit of dried pink rose petal into the top of each Rose truffle. I pressed a tiny bit of chopped Ginger chew (you could use crystallized ginger with or without the sugar rinsed off) to identify the ginger ones. Atop the Orange I added a couple crushed Red pepper seeds.  And I left the Vanilla ones as they were.

I made Ginger truffles by grating enough fresh ginger root and pressing it through a fine metal strainer to get 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon of fresh ginger juice. Potent!  I added 2 tablespoons of homemade Vanilla extract to the Vanilla truffles. I infused 2 tablespoons freshly-ground fair-trade Coffee beans into the coconut milk for a few minutes, and then strained out the bits before melting in the chocolate. With the exception of the ground Coffee beans, I added the flavor ingredients after I'd removed the ganache from heat and poured it into smaller containers, such as glass measuring cups. I stirred each thoroughly and then placed it in the fridge. I've also infused Coffee beans in brandy to use when I don't want to have to strain out the coffee bits from the coconut milk.

Chocolatey Notes: Playing with chocolate gets messy, so I like to get out all the supplies beforehand and have a spatula handy to scrape all the good chocolate from bowls and fingers! Bendy silicone spatulas are the best (but make do with what you've got)!  As you can see from the photos above, my chocolate explosion-creations let folks know they are homemade with love!  Haha.  If you'd like smoother looking truffles, just keep a bowl of warm water nearby so that you can wash the chocolate off your hands as you're rolling them.  But some of the not-so-smooth ones look like cute little hedgehogs!  And you can always eat the "imperfect" ones :)

A note on flavorings: Something I love about cooking from scratch is that you can choose each and every ingredient you add to your creations.  Herbs and spices are plenty flavorful without involving any kind of artificial colors and flavorings. "Flavorings," natural or otherwise, are born of the perfume industry and can contain really dodgy ingredients. See Eric Schlosser's "Fast Food Nation" for a fascination description of the "Flavoring Corridor".

Keep all the chocolatey bits for a finale mystery chocolate blend!! Melt all the dribbles and chunks into Peanut clusters (roast Spanish peanuts and stir them into the chocolate, place dollops of the concoction onto waxed sheets) or make more mystery Truffle ganache. 

To learn more about chocolate, see the article that my friend Sandra Lory of Mandala Botanicals wrote: "More than a Valentine’s Sweet: Theobroma cacao". 

For more chocolate-y recipes, see the Valentine's Aphrodisiac Recipes post.

Chocolate Spice Elixir: a Warming Aphrodisiac with fresh local Ginger, Cardamom, Cinnamon, Vanilla, local Honey, and Fair trade Cocoa is available on Dandelioness Herbals' online etsy shop 

Today's Sources of Culinary Inspiration: Grammy and Pop-pop's sweets, Julia Child, the films Como Agua Para Chocolate/Like Water for Chocolate, Chocolat, and Tortilla Soup, PBS's The Meaning of Food, and the books Botanica Erotica by Dina Falconi and Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses by Isabel Allende. And I just found out that Maya Angelou recently wrote a book entitled Great Food, All Day Long: Cook Splendidly, Eat Smart.

updated 2/18 and 12/19

DEC 1st IS WORLD AIDS DAY

Dec 1st is World AIDS Day and is the perfect opportunity for getting tested, talking with your partner(s)/kids/parents/friends about safer sex, harm reduction and supporting those in our communities that are HIV positive and living with AIDS. For general info about HIV/AIDS please visit The Body.

Roy Belcher from VT Cares (Committee for AIDS Resource, Education, and Services) has created the film "Breaking Barriers: Fighting Stigma," sharing personal stories of people in Vermont who are living with HIV/AIDS. I was able to attend a viewing at the local public library (where it is available for loan) earlier this week and was moved by the stories shared.

AIDS didn't really impact my life until the summer after graduating from high school when I worked at a Unitarian Universalist conference center that hosted a gathering of gay and bisexual men. I loved serving in the dining hall that week, being surrounded by an inclusive and colorful atmosphere that seemed to both embrace and challenge masculinity - and dining attire ranging from dresses and pearls to nothing but leather thongs. The presence of such a vibrant community of men coming together to relax, dance, learn, share support, feast, etc. was healing for me just to witness, but it was definitely bittersweet. It was heartbreaking to see the quilt that they bring out every year and have to add the names of members of their community who they've lost to AIDS. I don't mean to perpetuate the myth that AIDS only affects gay men, or that it is a "gay disease," but my experience of coming from a small and very hetero-dominant town where HIV/AIDS was rarely discussed and then suddenly being temporarily and peripherally in a community where so many have lost loved ones really had an impact on me. I felt like I was seeing a world that I was not supposed to see.

Anyone with a heart would empathize with the pain of loss, but I was also outraged at the silence. The experiences common to one particular and targeted community (i.e. police brutality in communities of color) is not supposed to be of concern to the majority, to those in the dominant group. For some reason, though I was raised in a heterosexist* and sometimes violently homophobic culture, something just didn't stick with me. The belief that a family is a man with "male" anatomy married to a woman with "female" anatomy, and their children. The idea that heterosexual lifestyles are somehow normal. ?! That sex is defined solely as a cisgender (non-transgender) man penetrating a cisgender woman, which excludes a lot of people and practices. I could go on and on... Because the fact is that whether we've thought about it or not, whether we've explored what we were taught about sexuality and gender, whether we identify as lesbian, gay, queer, questioning, bisexual, pansexual, asexual, straight, somewhere else on the sexuality spectrum, or as something else entirely and whether we identify gender-wise as female, male, trans, genderqueer, non-binary or something else entirely, we are all harmed by homophobia.

Obviously if I identify as a woman and was deemed female at birth and raised as a girl and I'm walking down the street hand-in-hand with my male-identified, male-raised sweetie it's pretty safe to assume that we are not going to be targeted, attacked, or even killed on the basis of our gender and sexual identities. Especially as someone with privilege in the realm of how people perceive my gender and sexual identity, I don't mean to minimize the very real discrimination and violence that queer and transgender people face when I say that we're all harmed by homophobia and transphobia. I don't mean to paint some naive picture that sexuality doesn't matter or to imply that the solution is to simply just love who we want to love and be who we want to be and ignore the experiences of those most impacted by transphobia and homophobia. What I do mean is that we all have sexual and gender identities, even if how we perceive ourselves and how others perceive us is reflected and encouraged in our culture and communities. And for this reason, we all have a stake in getting to the roots of homophobia and transphobia and working towards justice. The existence of homophobia and transphobia, even if we don't notice it in our day to day lives, keeps all of us from thriving. Expose yourself to nearly any kind of media and you will find some (possibly closeted) violent homophobe ranting about gay marriage attacking all that "we" hold dear, another city/county/nation outlawing homosexuality, archaic anti-sodomy laws still on the books, the raping and/or killing of queer and trans people.  Hopefully you'll also see some brilliant, supportive, inclusive, open-minded messages of not just tolerance (putting up with "those people"), acceptance (ok, you're kinda like me), but straight-up, we're-all-in-this-together-and-all-have-the-absolute-and-unquestionable-right-to-be-and-love-who-we-want solidarity! (See the 'Supporting Queer and Questioning Youth' links to the right if you need a bit of that!)

So what I do mean by "no matter who we are we are all harmed by homophobia" is that when we're not free to be our full, radiant selves, when we walk into a doctor's office and a gazillion assumptions are made about our gender and our sex life, when the mainstream translates queer to mean perverse and straight to mean normal, when our cousin-sweetheart-mom-son, etc. is not safe to walk down the street as their full glorious self and maybe with their full glorious partner, when images of glowing white hetero families are crammed down our throat at every commercial break and in every magazine spread, we all suffer. We don't get the access to the health care we need, we don't get accurate information about risk and prevention and the sexual practices we enjoy or want to explore, we live in silence and shame about our bodies and our completely natural attractions and feelings, we're brainwashed into thinking that our dreams of having an equal, spirit-growing partnership and family is not possible, we proceed in our life doing what we believe is expected of us and what we think other people do instead of truly following our path and exploring fully.

All of us. All of us. If these statements don't relate, I feel pretty confident if you and I are able to talk for a few minutes we could find ways that at least most of them actually really do relate to your life. In a big way. Email me.

So the gathering of gay  and bisexual men had their 32 anniversary this year. And in a few days I will turn 32 myself. My birthday wish: Everyone to be able to be their full selves.  This  may look different to each person, but involves self-love, healing from trauma, love and support within our circles of (chosen) family and friends, the safe space to be honest, real, & open, being fully present in our bodies, knowing our boundaries and our needs and voicing them, listening, knowing our status in terms of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and discussing this with our partner(s), kids, friends, etc. when possible, and valuing & respecting ourselves and each other to practice safer sex and making sure that the people in our lives have access to the info and support they need.   

*Heterosexism is a system of attitudes, biases, and discrimination in favor of opposite-sex sexuality and relationships. It can include the presumption that everyone is heterosexual or that opposite-sex attractions and relationships are the only norm and therefore superior... Heterosexism as discrimination ranks gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and other sexual minorities as second-class citizens with regard to various legal and civil rights, economic opportunities, and social equality in many of the world's jurisdictions and societies. (taken from Wikipedia, with the parts I didn't agree with removed. If anyone else has a better definition, please post it!)

I can't leave on that note. So, action! Check out what kind of anonymous, free HIV testing is happening in your neck of the woods. Get tested. Support these projects by giving some time or money. Let others know about it. Wear a red ribbon. If you feel comfortable, tell others about your experience getting tested to help de-stigmatize STI's, open up conversations, and create a culture of awareness. When someone makes some ignorant comment about AIDS, school them. (We gotta be the good sex educators most of us unfortunately didn't have!) Educate yourself. Attend presentations, films, and drag balls that support organizations that focus onHIV/AIDS support, testing, prevention, and education. Dispel misconceptions like "Oh, it's okay that we didn't use a condom cuz s/he looks clean." Question gender. Challenge homophobia, transphobia, and rigid ideas of gender at the dinner table, in the work place, in the classroom, at the ballot box, in the bedroom, etc. Address people with the name and pronoun that they determine for themselves (even if you knew them in the past with a different name/gender). Have you got any more ideas? Please post them or send them to me. 

Please see earlier blog post:  In Praise of Pink (Toenails), Masculinity, and Transgender Propaganda. 

(Slightly updated Dec 5, 2018)