Reflection

Unheard Voices - GLSEN

I chose this "Tool" from the category of articles because I found it extremely interesting. The people who were telling there stories were really inspirational and not only that but dealt with hard situations. All these people that are sharing their story are sharing them to be examples for classroom talks, and lessons for everyone to understand and acknowledge what its like for a person who's going through this.

I looked into a couple of the stories that were there from all kinds of people. Two stories really caught my eye, one of them was about a father Jamison Green who was once a women that had a sex change. His interviewer was his daughter, and she was asking him questions. He spoke on how hard it was for him to be a female growing up, he never thought transitioning to a male would happen to him, but he took it into consideration once he had his daughter. He felt as though he could never be an honest person to his daughter if he was being someone that he wasn't. I feel that this is inspiring for many people, especially for his daughter who at the end of the interview says "And I think that I am probably a better person for it.", shes a better person because of her fathers honesty and up front-ness of his lifestyle. 

Another story that caught my eye was Kendall Bailey's story. He was a US Marine for five years, and then was assigned to a recruiting office in Virginia, he wanted to make a career out of the marines. One of his commanding officers saw his text messages to his boyfriend and that changed his life in his office space. He then wrote a letter to his Sergeant about how he is gay, and they told him how his gayness was a phase and then he was discharged from the Marines. His discharge papers said that he could never return to the army. Which is completely ridiculous, the "Dont Ask Dont Tell" law is already removed, but even when it wasnt Kendall being gay was none of their business. I know that this situation must happen to a lot of gay, lesbian, transgender people who might happen to be in the Army. I know that no one in the army should discharge you for being gay, but it happens everyday. I feel as though discrimination towards gays, lesbians, transgenders, bisexuals still happens everywhere you go. Kendall Bailey's dreams of having a career in the marines was shattered only because he was gay, and that's sad. 

All over the website there was a lot of good stories to read. If you go to the blog page there's a whole bunch of other people blogging to the website about there motivational and great stories.


Talking Point: Should LGBTQ be addressed in elementary school classrooms?