Bear with me. This is more than just a slice of life entry.

Going back to Thursday night, you may recall, I had a couple of things planned. First, I was going to go to a White Knot vigil: just a gathering to demonstrate support for same-sex marriage. Then I was supposed to meet a guy at a local bar. Since I figured he wouldn't show up, I invited my friend Kat along because it was karaoke night, and we haven't sung together in ages.

Well, apparently, the guy showed up, but didn't come over to talk to me. He sent me a message saying he saw me sing, I looked beautiful, and seemed to be having a good time with friends. (A group of very nice gay guys saw me sitting alone when I walked in and invited me to join them.) I answered my "date", and asked why he didn't say "hi", and he fed me some line about having to get up early to work the next day. Yeah. Uh-huh. You drove 30 miles, so you could look at me and leave. Kat was there, our friend Homer showed up, and we had a helluva time.

But back to the Thursday night event. I'm getting into this, what Donna Rose calls "New Activism". I admittedly haven't done much yet, just showed up at a Prop 8 protest, the TDOR vigil, and now this White Knot thing. But, my heart's been in it.

Up until now, my focus on improving conditions for TGs has been on coaxing others out of the closet. The idea was that if more of us come out, at least part-time, we'll start to feel safer, the general public will become more familiar with us, and maybe tomorrow, things will be better.

I don't know that it's worked a whole lot. And as they say, if you keep doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result, you're insane. And despite my "leading by example" efforts to demonstrate it's okay to leave the house, I'm not seeing a lot of transgendered people actually leaving their houses.

I don't think cultural acceptance, job protections and civil rights can be earned by a small number of people. Instead, any changes will have to come from a groundswell of grassroots efforts.

And since that groundswell has yet to materialize, I guess I'm going to have to get involved myself.

But, why attend events promoting same-sex marriage rights? Simple: Someday I may find a guy to settle down with. I'm keeping my options open. But then, why should any transgender person support a gay-rights cause, if they're not gay?

We need the GLB community. They're bigger, they're more organized, and they've already made huge strides in gaining that elusive public acceptance. HRC leadership aside, there are many groups who've already stuck their necks out for us closeted trannies and fully-out transsexuals. If nothing else, we owe them.

But more importantly than that, (I've said it before, I'll say it again, until I don't have to any more), transgender rights are human rights. Gay rights are human rights. We're all in this together. It's about freedom of expression, when you get down to it. The freedom to express your love for someone else. The freedom to express your gender identity.

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As far as I could tell, I was the only trans-woman at the Prop 8 protest. I was also the only t-girl at White Knot. This neither surprised me, nor disappointed me. (Well, maybe a little on the latter.)

At TDOR-Cincinnati, trans-people were outnumbered by non-trans people, by probably 3 to 1.

That surprised me. Not the low number of T's, but the high percentage of non-T's. A few of them were obviously friends of trans-individuals, but most it seemed weren't. Why were they there? Did they lose someone they loved to violence? Were they just trying to escape the cold? Or, were they showing their support for a community that is still largely invisible?