Introductions - 2
Return to first introductions page
Go on to the third introductions page
Go on to fourth introductions page
Go on to fifth introductions page
Go ahead to the sixth introductions
page
Pflag-talk introductions continue here.
Dixie Beer Kevin Gibson
Sue Null Ann Murphy
Jo-Anne Hawrysh Gabi
Clayton
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997
To: pflag-talk@vector.casti.com
From: dyb@hsonline.net (Dixie
Y. Beer)
Subject: Intros
I guess it's time for me to reintroduce myself too.
My name is Dixie. I am a co-founder, vice-president and newsletter
editor (10 pages every month!) of the Seymour, Indiana PFLAG chapter.
I'm a straight supporter. I have a husband and a 15-year-old daughter
(who is absolutely brilliant, of course I'm not biased in any
way).
How did I get involved with PFLAG? Well, we moved here 11 years ago
from Cincinnati. Not the most accepting of big cities, but from here
in Bible Belt Southern Indiana it almost looks like a Nirvana. I
increasingly became appalled at the attitudes around here toward
anyone who was different in any way, especially sexual orientation.
I'm assuming that most of you have read Rhea Murray's page, if not
you can access it from the PFLAG-talk web page. I am a good friend of
Rhea's and as the story unfolded, I became angry and concerned that
the family had to go so far away for support. Also, I figured that
there were other families in the area who were feeling just as
isolated and maybe didn't feel that they could travel for support and
that a PFLAG was definitely needed in our area. I urged Rhea to start
a PFLAG here and promised to help in every way. The rest, as they
say, is history. Our PFLAG chapter started two years ago. We have
grown to a mailing list of 76 households (and it is still growing),
have two meetings every month with average attendance of
approximately 25-30 people and we just had our first fundraiser, a
spring dance, which was gobs of fun and gives us lots of hope for the
future. In a way, our group is probably different from most PFLAG
chapters; we have lots of parents on the mailing list who are
frightened to attend meetings- our meetings are mostly attended by
GLBTs and straight supporters. We probably have a larger percentage
of straight supporters than most groups.
I have always had gay friends, even in elementary school (of course,
we didn't know the name for it then- they just knew they were
different) so I never had to go through the learning-acceptance part.
It's just natural for me to celebrate!
Hugs,
Dixie
Dixie Beer
dyb@hsonline.net (home
address)
dbeer@japl.lib.in.us (work
address)
When we lose the right to be different, we lose the privilege to
be free.
--Charles Evans Hughes (1862-1948)
US Supreme Court Chief Justice, Opinion, June 17, 1925
Return to top of this page
Return to introduction index
From: gibsonk@webtv.net
(Kevin Gibson)
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997
To: pflag-talk@casti.com
Subject: Intro
Hello everyone,
I subscribed to the list about three weeks ago, and finally decided
to jump off my butt and say something. I am a 19 year old male, still
living at home with my momma and dadda, what fun it is living here.
My parents know about me being gay, but they don't believe it, and I
don't know how I should tell them that it's who I am. I live in
Northern Va, and I have 3 brothers, who all pretty much don't have a
problem with anything. I just thought I would ask for some advise on
how to convince my parents that I am gay, and what kind of support is
out there for them. Finding out your oldest son is gay has to be a
disappointement, and I want to change that. Ok, well that is me and I
am ME so..
Thanks,
Kevin
Return to top of this page
Return to introduction index
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997
To: pflag-talk@casti.com
From: Sue Null <suenull@rice.edu>
Subject: Sue: Mini-Bio
Another "old broad," transplanted from Pittsburgh to Houston some 30
years ago. I am married 36 years to Jim, who is quiet and studious; I
am less so.
Children: Three daughters: 32, 29, 21; middle daughter is a lesbian,
which caused us no particular distress since we are members of a
Unitarian Universalist Church which has a gay minister and a women's
group with many lesbians.
One beloved "son": Ike, age 27; a sweet, depressed gay and gorgeous
Korean student, who lived at my house for 1 and 1/2 years, and is now
out on his own, but nearby; a constant challenge and worry to me. His
anguish upon realizing he was gay sent us scurrying to P-FLAG in
search of support for him.
The Worst Time of My Life: the past two years, dealing with Ike's
contagious depression and his several suicide attempts.
The Best Time of My Life: the same past two years, in a sort of
perverse way, because I've grown, learned so much about homosexuality
and depression, and have become more sensitive. A faghag in the state
of becoming. Also an activist in the state of becoming, last year in
the area of politics.
The Best Place to Be: on a great whitewater river in a canoe,
successfully negotiating a tricky manoeveur, or in breathtaking
scenery in the mountains, snowcapped backdrop, blue lake in front,
like the Tetons.
Work: ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher to international
adults; formerly a Spanish teacher.
P-FLAG background: I've been associated with our vigorous, large
Houston chapter the last two years, and have only praise for this
enthusiastic group. If it hadn't been for Ike's desperate neediness,
I would never have found P-FLAG; now I'm so grateful that I did. I
feel like I've entered a whole new world.
Like Nancy, I feel like I am a tigress; I actively search for
opportunities to dispel myths about gay people and to speak out on
gay rights. I am trying to learn to temper my enthusiasm so as not to
drive people away, but to take them across the bridge of
understanding with me.
Like Ray, I wish the anti-religionists in the recent brouhaha had
been a little more patient, a little more respectful of diverse
religious opinion, and a little more supportive of people in need,
even though it wasn't *their* need. However, I wish the strong
Christians had been also been less forceful and more willing to
recognize that much of their strong opinion belonged on
p-flag-discuss, if anywhere, and not here.
Secondly, it's nice to know what people do for a living, and that you
are educated, but enough already with the string of titles, degrees,
and positions held. Your opinions are valuable because they come from
you, a human being, not for other reasons.
Sue Null, a P-FLAG mom
Houston, Texas
"I don't want to end up simply having visited this world." Mary
Oliver
Return to top of this page
Return to introduction index
From: "Ann L Murphy" <annie.l-m@lineone.net>
To: <pflag-talk@vector.casti.com>
Subject: New member intro from UK
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997
HI to everyone at pflag-talk especially my very dear friend and
recruiting officer Patricia Mary!! These past few days I have been
*Lurking* on the list, reading and enjoying your post, it has been a
real boost for me, as I am recovering from major facial surgery-
having a rather nasty tumour removed which I fear has left me feeling
a little vunerable. So here goes with my intro...
My name is Ann Murphy, I am wife to Keith, mother of two fine sons' -
Paul & Ilan and grandmother, or affectionately known as (nana) to
darling Jade, who is now two years old and a real beauty but also a
real BUSY BODY.. and dont we all know it!!!!!!!!
We all live and work in the beautiful Border County of Northumberland
in the North East of England. Paul and his wife Nicola (parents of
Jade) live in a small Market Town just three miles south from us and
Ilan, is now for the moment, living back with us in the family home,
after his recent return from Israel, where he lived and worked for an
Anglo/US Company for two years. So once again we are complete, and
will very soon be rejoicing at the brith of our second grandchild due
in May. So thats us folks.........
Six years ago my son Ilan decided to "Come Out" to me and to my great
shame at the time of disclosure, I did not react in a positive way.
My feelings were like as if I was in a *NIGHTMARE* from which I would
never awake. I was alone that night apart from my elderly
Mother-in-Law, who was staying with me at the time, my husband was
away teaching at the time, at an army garrison in Scotland totally
unaware of what he was coming home to, when he was called back on
compassionate grounds late that night. Looking back I think that Ilan
thought that telling me his Mum, whom he knew loved him so much,
would be a breeze and lay the groundwork for telling his father, who
being a Warrant Officer in the Army was a real *Mans Man*, but Oh how
wrong he was!!!! Dad took the news like he takes everything he is so
calm, takes everything in his stride. It made not a scrap of
difference to him he told our son that he loved him just the same and
always would.. it was me who was the problem!!!!!
The few months that followed were * TOUGH * and believe me I truly
thought that I would never come through, \i know now that had it not
been for the great love and support of my wonderful husband and
family, I would not be able to stand side by side with Patricia Mary
man the helpline for P.E.N.E., but I think more importantly try to
help other parents to accept that being "Gay" is just a very small
part of what makes their son or daughter the wonderful people that
they created. During those few months, I learned a great deal about
Humankind, and I can say with pride, "Yes our son is Gay - he is an
intelligent, wonderful, hardworking human being who has a great deal
to offer this world of ours, he was made in love, and our love for
him, is as unconditional as his love for us"
I know that I am in good and safe company with you all , I look
forward to some great post!
Goodnight and God Bless from England
Love
Ann xxxxxx
Return to top of this page
Return to introduction index
From: Jo-Anne Hawrysh <hawryshj@aecl.ca>
To: "'P-FLAG'" (pflag-talk@casti.com)
Subject: Wow
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997
Group,
I am overwhelmed by the response to my "new member" posting. Thank
you all for welcoming me so passionately. It is heartwarming to have
people validate your experience and assure you that your reaction was
a good one.
To tell you a little about myself, by nature I'm what you'd call a
deep thinker, continuingly questioning our cultural reality (just
because everyone thinks a certain way, may not make it reality) and
often wondering if "All the birds are flying in the wrong direction."
My Michael is similar in this respect. he has asked me for a
'thinking chair" for his bedroom.
Career-wise, I've reinvented myself four times. I've gone from being
a registered nurse to owning a courier business to owning a fitness
business to retraining and becoming a writer.. a business
communicator for work and spiritual writing for therapy. I'm
knee-deep in a divorce from a man that I was married to for 19 years,
so I'm moving back to the big apple... Mississauga. The end of June
is D-day. Michael figures he'd better come out to his sister soon as
she may wonder why he is going to the "Gay Pride parade" with my gay
friend in Toronto. Life is definitely taking a twist.
You know, I have to tell you. The day after the big anouncement, I
parked myself on Micheal's bed to talk. "What's it been like for
you?" I wanted to know. "Well," he says, I'm pretty used to it. It's
just the way I am. But, I couldn't live like this any more. You know
why I want to be an actor, don't you? I've been acting all my life.
But, you know Mom, about God. I don't believe in him any more because
I always believed that God was about love and sin was about hate. But
the church says it's a sin to be Gay. We just love each other. How
can that be bad."
Out of the mouths of babes. "Well, Mike, God is about love. The
church, unfortunately, was created by people. And people mess up. A
lot of the people that attend churches, don't really have a grip on
real spirituality." It was the best I could come up with at the
time.
But then I got to thinking. As I understand it, God was neither a man
nor a woman, but both. And besides, we are to be made in his image.
That has to mean, any combination of the above...combined genders.
How about this for a kicker. What if the gay of the species are
closer to being in the true image of God than the rest of us.
OH GOD, I AM SCARED FOR HIM. I LOVE HIM SO MUCH.
Jo-Anne
Regards, Jo-Anne Hawrysh
Return to top of this page
Return to introduction index
From: Gabi Clayton <gclayton@earthlink.net>
To: 'PFLAG-Talk' <pflag-talk@casti.com>
Date: Wednesday, October 15, 1997 8:52 PM
(Revised Thursday, September 09, 1999)
Subject: INTRO: Gabi Clayton
My name is Gabi Clayton. I'm 46 years old and I live in Olympia,
Washington with my husband Alec (25 years!) and our best
friend/housemate Catherine, who is lesbian. Alec is a reporter for a
small group of weekly newspapers here - and a painter (wonderful
abstract paintings!) Catherine graduated from massage school this
last year. I did a lot of stuff before I went to college in my 30's.
My undergraduate college degree was in art and film/video/animation;
and then I went back for an M.A. in Counseling. But I'm not here on
PFLAG-Talk as a "professional" -- I'm here as a PFLAG mom.
I am/was mother to two wonderful sons. Noel is 23 (and straight).
He is living in Seattle after getting a degree in acting a year ago,
and he works as in theater tech. (I was SO jealous when he told me he
worked a concert at the Bumpershoot Festival and he got to watch the
Indigo Girls on his break! I saw them in Seattle in about 1989.)
Bill was our other son. He came out to us as bi-sexual when he was
14, and we assured him that we loved him. At that time we didn't seek
out PFLAG because we thought that it was for parents who were having
a hard time, and we weren't.
Bill was assaulted in a hate crime because of his sexual
orientation when he was 17. There was tons of support for him and for
us - and it wasn't enough. He committed suicide on May 8, 1995. I
know how hard it is for people to hear about that -- and even more
how hard it is for me to live with it. I miss him so much!
My parents were activists and someone once told me that having
that background was so clearly important in how I have dealt with
this. I guess that's true. Silence was not an option. I started a
homepage with a dedication to Bill, asking people to speak out
against homophobia. Then with the support of my wonderful friend
Steve Schalchlin, it became "Bill's Story" -- which is posted on my
website.
I'm a list assistant here on PFLAG-Talk and on PFLAG-Discuss. I'm
the webspinner for the Safe Schools Coalition of Washington. I do the
newsletter and website for PFLAG-Olympia.
There's much more on my homepage and the URL is below.
All my love
Gabi
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
E-mail: gclayton@earthlink.net
Gabi Clayton's homepage
http://members.tripod.com/claytoly/
Alec Clayton's Art page
http://members.tripod.com/~swoosh/
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Return to top of this page
Return to introduction index
Web versions created July 13, 1997
Revised September 19, 1998
All copyright retained by individual authors. Please contact them for
permission to reprint for other than personal use.
Your webmaster encourages you to support Youth
Guardian Services and Critical Path AIDS Project.
Visit their websites at www.Youth-Guard.org
and www.CritPath.org.
YGS hosts the PFLAG-Talk, PFLAG-Announce, PFLAG-Discuss, TGS-PFLAG,
Youth and Schools e-mail lists, and the PFLAG T-SON.
The Critical Path hosts the PFLAG-Talk/TGS-PFLAG
website.