In the News
Pride 2011: Letters to a Young Queer Activist
Saturday June 25, 2011
source: OutFM - WBAI 99.5
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Listen here to this 15-minute segment.
LGBT people don't have enough meaningful intergenerational conversations. For many reasons, there are stark barriers between our youth and our elders. We at Out-FM have the opportunity to interview many of the most exciting and experienced leaders of the LGBT movement, so we asked them: what advice do you have for young LGBT people? From avoiding burnout by making time to have fun together, to respecting the perspectives of the most powerless members of our community, their wisdom and insights are invaluable. Here, then, are a few of their Letters to a Young Queer Activist.
Listen here to an hour-long conversation about Rickke Mananzala's further thoughts on the state of the movement in New York after gay marriage.
We start with pioneering Korean-American transgender activist Pauline Park. Her titles include chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy, a statewide transgender advocacy organization she co-founded, and president of the board of directors of Queens Pride House, which she also co-founded. In her letter to a young queer activist, she discusses inclusion, idealism, and integrity.
Ricardo Jimenez is an openly gay Puerto Rican independentista and former political prisoner who currently works with the Latino HIV/AIDS support agency, Vida/SIDA. He encourages young LGBT people to not take their freedoms for granted, since those freedoms were hard won by previous generations of activists and organizers.
Kim Ford, an African-American lesbian, is an activist with decades of experience working with grass-roots, community-based, and national nonprofit organizations, including the Audre Lorde Project, the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice and African Ancestral Lesbians United for Societal Change. In her letter to a young queer activist, she emphasizes the importance of staying informed, and of being mentored in the transition from youth to adulthood.
Rickke Mananzala has been involved with a number of social justice organizations working on racial, economic, and gender justice issues for more than a decade. He most recently served as the Executive Director of FIERCE, an organization building the leadership and power of LGBT youth of color in New York and nationally. In his letter to a young queer activist, he emphasizes the importance of never thinking of some people and their issues as disposable.
Rickke Mananzala, who recently stepped down as executive director of the grassroots LGBT youth of color organization FIERCE in order to go back to school, also had advice about avoiding burnout while working for social justice.
Randi Anderson has been a social worker and activist whose work has taken many forms over the years, from working with LGBT foster kids to LGBT seniors. In this letter to a young queer activist, she talks about working outside of the spotlight to plant seeds of change.
Pioneering transgender activist and writer Kate Bornstein is the writer of the classic memoir Gender Outlaw, as well as editor of the new, award-winning anthology Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation. In her letter to a young queer activist she discusses the urgency of making your life worth living by any means necessary.