Obama Supports Marriage Equality

On May 9th, President Barack Obama interviewed with ABC news in support of marriage equality for the LGBT community.

Pretty awesome right? He came out to say this after VP Joe Biden supported marriage equality on Meet the Press.

In the fight for marriage equality, religion is being put before the rights of people. Obama said about the discussions he had with his wife "...in the end the values that I care most deeply about and she cares most deeply about is how we treat other people." I'm not sure that I can word it any better - the LGBT community isn't asking to be treated differently, they are asking for equality. Personally, I prefer to use the term "Marriage Equality" rather than "Same-Sex Marriage" because it's exactly what we're trying to achieve, equality.

Where does your country stand on marriage equality?

In the U.S., same-sex marriage has been passed in nine states. Thirty-one states have banned same-sex marriage through law or constitutional amendment. Just this week, North Carolina passed a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage.

In Canada, same-sex marriage has been legalized since 2005, and was legally recognized as early as 2003 in Ontario. It is also legally recognized in Argentina, Belgium, Iceland, Netherlands (who were the first in 2001), Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, and Sweden... but that means there are still over 185 countries left to legally recognize same-sex marriage.

Say Thank You to Obama
AllOut, which runs multilingual real-time campaigns to inform, educate, and engage the public, wants to thank Obama. Sign the thank you note here: Thanks Obama!

A little humour to end it off....  

A quote from Rush Limbaugh (with a little commentary) and Comedian Louis CK's view on gay marriage:

Stay Beautiful,

Lisa

Help Miss Canada Spread Her Message

Miss Canada Needs Your Help!

In February I talked about Jaclyn Miles, Miss Canada and fellow teacher-candidate at Althouse College. She was a victim of domestic abuse, and she shared her story with some of our classes.

Jaclyn was a university student studying family studies when she was in an abusive relationship. She told us how she was studying the signs of abuse but it took her a long time to realize that she was in an abusive relationship. She was embarrassed, scared, and alone.

She won the title of Miss Canada 2012 not because she's beautiful and well spoken (which she is) but because she wants to create change for victims of domestic abuse. The first step is to Break the Silence, which is the name of her campaign. While Miss Canada is helping her to travel across Canada, Jaclyn still needs to raise funds.

But What Can You Do?

Jaclyn recently entered a contest, Who Inspires U?, which is giving $10,000 to one young Canadian woman to support them in achieving their dreams. She needs over 3000 views to qualify, and only has until May 18th to get up to that number! Please help support her by watching and sharing the video... Just copy/paste this into your status to help her (and don't forget to watch the video too!):

Jaclyn Miles (Miss Canada 2012) is doing everything she can do to #breakthesilence against domestic violence. She needs 3000 views for a chance to win $10,000 to travel across Canada and share her story. http://youtu.be/dQc2ak-G-sg

You can also attend her Zumbathon on May 12th if you are in the London area - more information can be found on the facebook event by clicking here. 

Visit her campaign website at breakthesilencecampaign.ca.

 

A million thanks from Jaclyn and I... Just clicking the youtube link gets her one step closer to her dream.

Stay Beautiful,

Lisa

To My 7th Grade Self

Western University's anti-homophobia group, Get Real, recently posted a video titled "To My 7th Grade Self"

It's a really great watch because we hear the stories of students who were bullied for being gay or were bullies towards their gay peers. We see how they were affected. 

I know most of my readers are post-secondary aged, are pretty open-minded, and can probably relate to these stories, looking back to when they were in elementary and high school. For those of us who were bullied, it seemed like it would never end. For those of us who bullied, we didn't realize the impact our words had. All we ever wanted was to love and be loved, but our differences sometimes blinded us to understand what that really meant.

Share Your Stories

What I'm asking is that, just like in the video, you share your stories. If you were affected directly or indirectly by bullying, your story should be shared. Comment below, anonymously or by name, because you never know who is going to read it and who it may bring strength to.

Stay Beautiful,

Lisa

Ashley Judd's Conversation

Between social media, television, and advertisements, it's easy to forget that everyone, deep down, is human, just like you and I. 

Ashley Judd was recently ripped up from news magazines about having put on weight (or was it plastic surgery?). She wrote a letter and posted it on The Daily Beast about media, and more specifically society's view on body image. We're all guilty of it, myself included (and Ashley Judd too, as she wrote in her letter), but why is it 'normal' for us? We do it to women and men... no sex is safe. 

Ashley Judd writes:

"The insanity has to stop, because as focused on me as it appears to have been, it is about all girls and women. In fact, it’s about boys and men, too, who are equally objectified and ridiculed, according to heteronormative definitions of masculinity that deny the full and dynamic range of their personhood. It affects each and every one of us, in multiple and nefarious ways: our self-image, how we show up in our relationships and at work, our sense of our worth, value, and potential as human beings."

It is so ingrained in us to judge others (and ourselves) based on their looks, race, age, disability, and everything else. We do it to make ourselves feel better. We do it to have something to talk about with each other. On top of everything else, with the internet we feel like we are also allowed to remove any sort of filter because we can be 'anonymous.'

Some of the criticism of Judd's letter was that it was feminist and was not a topic worthy of being read. But she's trying to shed light on an issue that we are plagued with for a huge part of our lives and that we think about, consciously or not, all the time.

I don't think by any means that our society will stop functioning in this way anytime soon. It's ingrained in everything, in society and in ourselves. Stopping every once in a while to think about it is all that I can ask, and for you to read Ashley Judd's letter and share your opinion.

Stay Beautiful,

Lisa

Open Your Mind Before Your Mouth

Recently I liked Get REAL on Facebook, whose mandate is "Reaching Equality At Last" and is a student-run organization at Western University who are trying to eliminate homophobia. 

I think this is a great organization, but there was a status post that irked me a little, mostly for it's vagueness and lack of thought:

"From a good friend and out-going VP Campus Issues, Marissa Joffre: 

'I'm extremely upset and disheartened to hear that a friend of mine and his partner were treated inexcusably at Jack's last night. Shortly after embracing, my friend was asked to leave the bar without much explanation.

It is 2012, and this is inexcusable. If you feel as disgusted as I do that a bar that gets as much business as it does from Western students would treat them so poorly because of their sexual identity.. then please post your distaste in your facebook status. Jack's should be ashamed of themselves.' 

This behavior is most definitely inexcusable, on the part of Jacks and these employees involved. Feel free to share so that other students are aware of this."

When I first read this I was upset. Why would Jacks do that? Then, keeping that in mind, I re-read the post. The explanation is vague at best, we don't really know anything about what happened. Then, I read Stephen Krull's reply, stating he worked at a bar as security and he says "I eject patrons for not only being too intoxicated, but appearing intoxicated, on a nightly basis... To the patron, it may seem like they just got kicked out, and without being provided a reason, attribute it to the most recent action they can recall (which in this case was them embracing one another). To the staff members, they were kicking out a person who was, or appeared to be, intoxicated."


While we don't know the full details yet, (a full story will be appearing in the Western Gazette, the newspaper for the school. Stay tuned, I'll be on the look-out for this) if in fact this was a homophobic action, I will definitely be on board for boy-cotting Jacks. But I just can't see why or how this would happen at a bar as popular as Jacks. I'm sure this wasn't the first time two men "embraced" at the bar.


What do you think? I'll post the story from the Western Gazette when I find it!

Stay Beautiful,
Lisa

The "Natural Born" Case

I have been reading a lot about Jenna Talackova who was recently disqualified from the Miss Universe Canada competition. On their website it is written that she was disqualified "because she did not meet the requirements to compete despite having stated otherwise on her entry form." Many news articles/blog posts on the internet are making it sound as though she was disqualified because she is transgendered (although I can't find proof of that anywhere).

While you cannot see Jenna's profile anymore, I took a brief look at a few of the profiles on the Miss Universe Canada website. The majority of the girls come from supportive families, have university degrees or are in progress, travel the world, and seem to do little philanthropic work. To apply you have to submit a face photo, and a swimsuit photo.

So... what exactly is Miss Universe Canada looking for? What are these women judged on? Can't find the answers to these questions on the website. 

In the spirit of what I am trying to promote with this blog, shouldn't inner beauty be way more important than outer beauty? DTowner wrote a comment on thestar.com in reply to their article about Jenna: "...Naturally born female? Fine. But, then, do we exclude women who wear make-up? Wigs? False eyelashes, bras? None of these are 'natural'. Shaving body hair? Not 'natural', and all very cultural. So, what is natural and what is unnatural?"

Maybe I just don't understand the reasoning behind pageants. Maybe I'm crazy for thinking that what people do makes them more beautiful than what they look like. 

Stay Beautiful,
Lisa

UPDATE: April 6 2012

Jenna has been invited back to the competition and they will be changing their rules to include transgendered individuals  "provided she meets the legal gender recognition requirements of Canada, and the standards established by other international competitions"

Excellent! I was very happy to hear this :) 

DramaWay - Enriching Lives Through Creativity

In January I talked about Ability Theatre, which enables children and youth with special needs to express themselves using drama. This company is located in Vancouver, and I recently heard about DramaWay, a company with a similar mission, located in Toronto. 

DramaWay has programs for children and youth who are interested in visual arts, singing, drama, leadership, film, and music. The programs encourage the development of self-confidence, communication and social skills, focus and concentration, creative expression, vocal health, listening and aural perception skills, self-discipline, and self-awareness. There are programs for individuals and for schools and organizations.

On June 16th, DramaWay will be presenting an adapted version of Peter Pan in The PaperMill Theater in Toronto - the first time they will be performing in a full theatre! Check out the facebook event and see if you will be in Toronto to celebrate and support the company and the performers!

Amazing companies like DramaWay and Ability Theatre can bring so much to someone who wouldn't have the opportunity without them. Thank you for continuing to work so hard to make life better for children and youth with special needs!

Visit the DramaWay website here!

Like their facebook page!

Stay Beautiful,

Lisa

Am I Beautiful?

Hey, Youtube... What Do You Think?

Teens and tweens have been posting videos on youtube asking the internet world to tell them if they are ugly or pretty. Here is BeautifulAndProud's video entitled "Am I Ugly?" In the description all she wrote was "Am I?"

Remember When...

I wasn't sure how exactly to start this post without sounding too much like the article, or without asking people to stop posting negative comments and encouraging these kids to keep believing negative things about themselves.

I think we need to look past the videos themselves and look at the root of the issue. Young girls and boys don't understand what it means to be beautiful. Right now most of the people reading my blog are in upper year university, so we've kind of lost touch with our end of elementary/high school selves. There was SO much pressure from our peers to look and act a certain way. We added to that by having our own personal beliefs of what a 'perfect' person was like. For me, how I thought I looked was a huge source of stress! I'm sure many of you could relate.

No one is going to get through to these kids by telling them to take down their videos, by posting comments saying they're pretty/ugly... How can we connect with these kids? There came a time when we all realized that our looks didn't directly influence the outcome of our lives. 

So, I think we should start sharing stories from when we were in high school. Maybe, just maybe, one of these kids will come across these and realize that it's your inner beauty that shines outwards to people, not what you look like.

Comment!

PLEASE reply back to this one. Tell us a story about someone noticing your beauty (hey, you can reply anonymously), write a poem, short story, or post a drawing, post some encouraging words, anything that you would have appreciated as a teen. And you can read my story in the comments!

Stay Beautiful,

Lisa

The Stigma of Domestic Abuse

Chris Brown at the Grammys

Now, I'm not the biggest fan of award shows, so when the Grammys were on this weekend I was just surfing the web. I came across HelloGiggles post called "I'm Not Okay with Chris Brown Performing at the Grammys and I'm Not Sure Why You Are" which I highly recommend you read. It's a reminder about how the media treats domestic abuse. Less than a year after Chris Brown hit Rihanna, he came out with a new album which hit #7 on the Billboard charts. 

After his performance at the Grammys this year he won Best R&B Album. There has been some interesting reactions on Twitter, from girls tweeting "Chris Brown... Please beat me ;)" to RIP Chris Brown, celebrities and others tweeting messages to support Rihanna, Miranda Lambert tweeted "Not cool that we act like that didn’t happen. He needs to listen to Gunpowder and Lead and be put back in his place. Not at the Grammys." Many people have been wondering why he was allowed to perform at the Grammys.  

HelloGiggles says it all: "The message we sent to young women was unmistakable: You are powerless. You are worthless. You will be a victim, and that will be okay with us."

You never know...

Today in class we were talking about domestic abuse. After the break, my teacher told us that he had a guest who would like to speak to us about her experience. A girl in the back of the class stood up, Jaclyn, who I have a few classes with. I never would have imagined that she was a victim of domestic abuse. She told us her story and explained how she was recently crowned Miss Canada 2012 and will be using that platform to "Break the Silence." Miss Canada is raising funds to send Jaclyn across Canada to educate students about domestic violence.

Jaclyn was a university student studying family studies when she was in the abusive relationship. She told us how she was studying the signs of abuse but it took her a long time to realize that she was in an abusive relationship. She was embarrassed, scared, and alone.

In her bio Jaclyn writes "As a society, we criticize those who have been victims of abuse. We blame them, assuming it was their fault. We put them down and make them feel embarrassed and ashamed." Read the rest of her bio here.

Myths: 

Men are always the abuser.

Even though my two examples are about women who were victims, but abuse is not gender blind. Women can be abusive.

If there's no mark, there's no abuse.

Abuse can be mental or physical. Abusers isolate their victims from their friends and family. 

Read some more myths about domestic violence here.

What do you think?

Does society blame the victim? Why? Why are these myths ingrained in us? Let's talk about it.

Are you in an abusive relationship or do you

know someone who is? Don't know what to do? Call Kids Help Phone at 1-800-668-6868 

or call the police.

Or hey, you can email me - redcardi.love@gmail.com

Stay Beautiful,

Lisa

Marketing for Girls and Boys

A Cutie is Doing it Right!

This is Riley asking why girls have to buy pink toys and boys have to buy other coloured stuff. Many comments on YouTube point to the fact that she is probably repeating what her parents say to her... although if you read my older post (here) kids really do understand this stuff. They can come to realize that they don't have to buy into the girls have to like pink and boys have to like blue labels. At a young age, most kids want to play with the "girl" and "boy" toys - in my own experience I was babysitting a neighbour and her male friend of about 6 years old came to visit and was playing with a "girl" toy (I can't remember what it was now)... when his dad saw him playing with the toy he promptly took him away and said that it was for girls. 

This story reminded me of the House Hippo!

Stay Beautiful,
Lisa

Gay-Straight Alliances in Catholic Schools

Sorry for being away for almost a month - I got extremely busy with a musical I was putting on at school!

Now - back to business.

Taken from bornlikethis.org

GSA vs. Respecting Differences

The Ministry of Education in Ontario states that all publicly-funded schools must have clubs where students from the LGBT communities (or students who are interested) can come together to discuss anything to do with equity for LGBT students. The suggested group name is "Gay-Straight Alliance" (known by most as GSA).

Ontario's Catholic Schools have banned using the word "Gay" in the group's name, and have decided on the name "Respecting Differences" as the suggested group name. Instead of being specific to LGBT issues, the group would focus on all types of bullying.

The Catholic Church does not condone sexual acts performed out of marriage, and they accept that some people are homosexuals. However, just as heterosexuals, they should not act on their impulses. 

Share your opinion!

I've given a very brief summary of this issue. Should Ontario's Catholic schools (which are funded by all Ontarian's tax money) be allowed to ban GSAs? Or could the Respecting Differences clubs be a fair solution for Catholic schools?

Stay Beautiful,

Lisa

What You See Isn't What You Get

Girls in the Media

In one week American teenagers spend 31 hours watching TV, 17 hours listening to music, 3 hours watching movies, 4 hours reading magazines, 10 hours online. That’s 10 hours and 45 minutes of media consumption a day. (Source: missrepresentation.org)

That's a whole lot of media consumption! This seems to be the direction the world is moving to - it's easier to message or poke a friend than to call them on the phone... but at what point are youth educated on understanding what they see? 

This clip from Miss Representation demonstrates how media values women - for sex, youth, and beauty. Women role models aren't easy to come by. Even in "inspiring" tv shows like Glee, the lead female, Rachel Berry is constantly bullied for being ugly/fat/un-sexy/weird... and she has very "girly" character flaws - she's incredibly vain and thinks she can control/change her boyfriend... Almost every episode she seems to have made some mistake that she has to apologize to Finn for! Reminds me of Serena from Gossip Girl who also seems to be apologizing every few episodes to either Blair or Dan for gossiping, lying, cheating, or sneaking around. Luckily she's beautiful and otherwise perfect (cough), so she's always forgiven. In both shows I can count on one hand the female characters who are strong role models.

So what are girls to do when these are the types of role models they look up to 31 hours a week? We have to turn to teachers, parents, guardians, and family to help girls weed through the difference between media and real life.

What do you think?

I could go on and on about this... but I would rather hear what you have to say! What do you think about the role models that girls have in media (tv, internet, magazines, music)?

Stay Beautiful,

Lisa

Vancouver's Ability Theatre - Veronica Bryan

Talk about doing it right!

Veronica Bryan, a fellow York grad, submitted a paper 8 years ago about creating a theatre company for individuals with special needs. Now she's getting ready to start making it into a reality in Vancouver.

Allowing participants to explore their creative sides through dance, movement, song, theatre games, and acting, they will also perform in front of live audiences.

What seems the most important to me is that this will be an opportunity for individuals with special needs to have a new source to create friendships and get involved with their community. 

All around this seems like something amazing that Veronica's doing. Ability Theatre is collecting donations through Indiegogo (see below).

Watch the video to learn more about Ability Theatre and donate!

Visit Ability Theatre's Facebook Page & Like!

Stay Beautiful,

Lisa

Cross-dressing at School

Congrats!

I know I said I would focus mainly on North American issues, but this is a great triumph for students who don't feel right in their own bodies:

A young boy, Jamie Love, has been in the news for the last few days for having gone to school dressed as a girl and then being kicked out. The school says that he was sent home for behaviour issues, and Jamie agrees that he has had issues in the past. You can read the article on the Scottish Daily Record. I don't think we'll ever know for sure what the actual reason behind the expulsion were.... but....

Happily, after much support from other parents and peers, Jamie is back in school. You can read the article about his return here. I want to send a HUGE shout-out to his peers who supported him! I've taken here some things that peers and parents wrote on the school's Facebook page (taken from the Scottish Daily Record):

One parent wrote: “The teachers should be teaching their pupils to love themselves for who they are.
“I think ur really brave as I know it must have been hard for u n nobody had the rite to knock u for it x.”
A pupil wrote: “I just wanna cry :(, the fact of you not being in school :’( don’t worry babe near enough the full schools behind you and your friends and family, my family is all behind you sweetie so we will all fight our hardest for you.”
A girl pal posted: “Hope your ok pal! At the end of the day be yourself and who u want to be! Dnt let anyone get u down! Its great what ur doing you’ll inspire other teenagers out there and most people at ur age wudnt have the guts to do it! be your self mr !”
Another classmate said: “Well done jamie.... so proud of you! Your an inspiration to everyone, never mind what anyone else says.
“Not allowed in school for being yourself? they are supposed to encourage people to be themselves not kick them oot! that’s terrible!!”
And another pupil wrote: “He has every right to be who he wants to be and dress the way he wants to dress. Just want Jamie to know he has mine and a lot of other peoples full support and we will fight for him till the end.”

Congrats to Jamie and family, and thanks to everyone who supported him!

Stay Beautiful,

Lisa

Definitions: LGBTQ... and more

I just want to spend a bit of time defining some words that have to do with LGBTQ - Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer.

Why is this important? If we're going to be having open discussions on this blog I don't want people misinterpreting or misunderstanding what someone else is saying because they don't understand what the word means. These are unbiased definitions, I'm just stating facts here!

Definitions

Sexual Orientation: The American Psychology Association defines sexual orientation in the following way: “Sexual orientation is an enduring emotional, romantic, sexual, or affectionate attraction toward others”.  There are three main orientations: Homosexuality, Heterosexuality, and Bisexuality.

Homosexuality: sexual and romantic desire between members of the same sex or gender (see below for "Lesbian" and "Gay").

Heterosexuality: sexual and romantic desire between members of the same sex or gender (often referred to as "Straight").

Bisexuality: sexual and romantic desire for both male and females (often referred to as "Bi").

Lesbian: sexual and romantic desire between females. Also used to refer to women who identify themselves as homosexuals.

Lesbos is an island in Greece, people from there are Lesbians just like I am a Canadian. Lesbian was also an ancient Greek language they spoke.

Gay: sexual and romantic desire between males. Also used to refer to men who identify themselves as homosexuals. This word is sometimes also used to replace "lesbian" when referring to the person.

Gay is also an adjective means "joyful"or "carefree."

As a pejorative (an abusive, derogatory term) "gay" is used in phrases like "that's so gay." Generally this use is meaning to say stupid or lame, but using the word gay has a negative connotation... making it seem like gay = lame.

Bi: a person who refers to themselves as "bi" identify themselves as having sexual and romantic desires for both male and females.

Questioning: the exploration of gender, sex, sexual orientation, or all three.

Queer: a term that refers to any sexual orientation other than heterosexual. Politically, it refers to lifestyles and ideologies for LGBT communities.

Sex: distinction between male and female based on genetics and reproductive organs. Identification by others as male, female, or intersex. As a verb, it means sexual intercourse.

Intersex: biological sex cannot be completely classified as male or female. 

Gender: distinction between male and female based on the traits assigned to them. Self-identification as a woman, man, neither, or both.

Transsexual: the state of one's gender not matching one's sex. Applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles.

Transgender: often used instead of transsexual, transgender is the political component: working to create a world where greater fluidity of gender expression is welcomed and valued. Both terms describe a section of the sexual minority population seeking only to feel comfortable in their own skin. (Sarah Wilcox, University of Kent)

I hope this has helped to clear some things up. Looking these up really helped me to have a better understanding in some subjects that were a little fuzzy to me before. This is just the tip of the iceberg of words used in LGBT communities to differentiate sexual orientation, gender, and sex.

  

What do you think?

Am I missing anything? Unclear? Is there anther topic that you would like to have defined in detail that affects children and youth?

 

Stay Beautiful,

Lisa 

One Teacher's Approach to Preventing Gender Bullying in the Classroom

This teacher is doing it right! 

 

Give this article a read about a teacher's approach to preventing gender bullying in a classroom 

Link to awesome article!!

Ok... so now that you've read the article, I wanna just say, isn't Allie awesome? She's 5 and already she's doing what she wants to do even though it's not "normal" (even though she's a perfectly normal kid... even better, she just knows what she's comfortable in!)

This teacher has put in a tremendous amount of effort to make her classroom accepting of everyone. She's reading books that deal with gender stereotypes, she worked with the kids and talked about what toys are "boys" and which are "girls," but by saying it's ok to play with the toys from the other gender starts kids off with a new thought...

I'm getting ready to teach high school, so what I wonder is how can this relate in a high school setting? When I was student-teaching at in October, one teacher did a presentation for the GSA (Gay-Straight Alliance) where the students wrote down all the words that bullies use - similar to Miss Melissa there was one page for girls and one for boys. For girls we found that a lot of the words used had to do with her looks, her smarts, and sexuality. For boys, the words were 'girly' put-downs, gay-centered, and about physical strength. We talked about how these words made us feel when they were used against us. It was a great discussion - all the students were really into talking about it.

Don't forget to email me if you know of someone who's doing something right for children and youth! redcardi.love@gmail.com

And comment! What do you think? Do you have any other ideas of what teachers can do to break down gender stereotypes??

Stay Beautiful,

Lisa

Girl Scout Boycotts Cookie Sales Over Transgendered Scout

Before replying please remember that we are keeping emotions out of this! Them ain't fightin' words!

Note - she is not expressing the opinion of the Girl Scouts organization. These are her own thoughts.

The Facts

Ok. So we have here a young Girl Scout who is upset with the way the organization dealt with allowing transgendered youth into the organization. She is upset because she feels as though her privacy has been violated. Why? Isn't Girl Scouts all about having a safe, fun place to be with friends? She feels as though this has been taken away because the organization allows transgendered youth to be a part of Girl Scouts.

**What exactly does "transgendered" mean? Wikipedia says: Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles. Transgender is the state of one's "gender identity" (self-identification as woman, man, neither or both) not matching one's "assigned sex" (identification by others as male, female or intersex based on physical/genetic sex)**

So, in some Girl Scout groups there are children who are genetically male, but who live as female. In this particular case, the targeted transgender child is 7 years old. Seven! Grade 2!

"The Girl Scouts of Colorado has said that the transgender seven-year-old was admitted in October on the basis of gender identification. 'If a child is living as a girl, that’s good enough for us. We don’t require any proof of gender,' Rachelle Trujillo, vice-president for communications of the Girl Scouts of Colorado, is quoted as saying." (Taken from the Globe and Mail)

What I think

Before anyone rages on about how ignorant this 14-year-old girl is, let's stop and think for a sec. First off... she's 14. Where are these opinions coming from? I think that we are all born innocent and ready to accept and love... and I think she's scared because I have a feeling that she doesn't have any transgendered friends or has never met any children who don't understand why their brain and their body doesn't match.

Coming to her defense... technically, yes. There are "boys" in Girl Scouts, playing games, selling cookies, going camping... that doesn't seem right? I mean, 14-year-olds don't generally have sleepovers with the opposite sex. And goodness me, if I had a nickle for every time my mom warned me about what boys want... So I'm not surprised that she's scared by this prospect. But I think some of the scariness is from the unknown. What if other boys start using this as an excuse to come on sleep-away trips? What's important here is that the child is living as a girl. 

Now, I'm not transgendered so, like the girl in the video, I really can't relate to a transgendered child or youth. But, I'm pretty good at remembering what peer pressure was like in school. Pressure to be liked. To fit in. To not be made fun of, no matter what. I can't even imagine having to deal with my body and brain not being in synch on top of everything else. BUT, thank goodness. There's that one place you fit in. For me, it was on stage at a youth theatre. For this 7-year-old, it's Girl Scouts.

Finally - Shout out to Girl Scouts for doing what's right. That 7-year-old has a place where she feels safe and welcomed. Unless something changes soon, she's going to have to face a lot throughout her life. Having this support system is more important than I can put into words.

What do you think?

Alright! It's up to you! What do you think? Be kind - feel free to express your opinion but absolutely NO name calling towards anyone.

Stay Beautiful,

Lisa

Wilkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome!

This blog is all about supporting inclusiveness and acceptance for all children and youth.  

Whether it be in school, after-school activities, at work, or anywhere else.

My goal is to update this blog often with two different types of posts:

1. Things that people are doing right. This can be mom & dad, teachers, coaches, managers, organizations, actors, singers, anyone who is sending a message about love and acceptance, about any race, sexuality or gender, sex, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age or mental or physical disability.

2. Things that people aren't doing right. I'll post what needs change to benefit children and youth, no matter what race, sexuality or gender, sex, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age or mental or physical disability.

I would love to see replies on anything I post! BUT I do not want to see emotions overriding in discussions. Please consider who you are replying to or who I've blogged about. I will always keep my emotions out of what I post. (A.K.A. absolutely NO name calling)

If you find something online that you want to share with me sent it to redcardi.love@gmail.com! I will be focusing mainly on Canadian/US issues - I am located in London, Ontario, Canada - but I am happy to share anything that relates to equity for children and youth.

Finally, the song that is the inspiration for the name of this blog:

The Beatles - All You Need Is Love, 1967
There's nothing you can do that can't be done.
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung.
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game,
It's easy. 

There's nothing you can make that can't be made.
No one you can save that can't be saved.
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time,

It's easy.

All you need is love, love, love is all you need.

There's nothing you can know that isn't known.
Nothing you can see that isn't shown.
Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be,
It's easy.

All you need is love, love, love is all you need.

Stay Beautiful,

Lisa