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A Speaking and Listening Road Trip to the SouthJanuary 27, 2018On Wednesday, January 31, I will get in my Honda CRV and point it south to begin a “Speaking and Listening Road Trip” to several Southern states—Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee—and one Midwestern state, Indiana. This trip stems from me thinking about how lucky I have it, how easy it is for me—a white, educated, relatively financially secure woman who happens to be transgender and living in the very LGBTQI-friendly Twin Cities—compared to LGBTQI people in other parts of Minnesota, the Midwest, and our country. I certainly don't feel as if I've done enough to support those who live in more conservative areas and with the expanding platform I enjoy, I haven’t publicly spoken out about inequity or offered words of support as much as I could. So, I arrived at a novel idea: I would take a take a 1300+ mile road trip to a conservative part of the United States to speak on what it means to be transgender, bisexual, Buddhist and "other." I also want to listen as I make my way—we group and label Southerners here in the upper Midwest—and I’m sure that much of what we believe about them is wrong. My itinerary includes speaking at several LGBTQI-events in Florida and meeting with the diversity committee of the Birmingham, Alabama Bar Association. I’ll also present at Ole Miss Law School, Vanderbilt Law School, and McKinney Law School in Indianapolis. I’ll even be interviewed by Mississippi Public Broadcasting—as a radio host myself, I think that will be interesting!We have painful divisions in our country around one’s LGBTQI status, and about race, religion and one’s country of origin, all with messages that some are unworthy of things (marriage, service in the military, public facility or employment access or simply just living among us) that others take for granted. These divisions extend to everyone who is “other” for whatever reason humans group and label humans. As I do this work, I will humbly seek to offer something that’s in desperately short supply these days: hope for a way to make things better. I’ll speak from my heart as someone who is no one special; rather, I’m simply a survivor of the Human Condition. Just like everyone else. I’ll be blogging as I go along so please check in from time to time (or better yet, click below to Follow this blog). Please also share this with others. Thanks!ellieelliejkrug@ ................
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