A boost from Equality Riders

[Rick336]

I think all the news about the SoulForce Equality Riders is drawing folks to this website. I noticed that 71 new members have joined SoulForce just in the past eight days. :tup:

Rick

[Jennifer5]

that's great!!!wow, 71!

[Realityisinsane]

I just kinda stumbled onto this site lastnight... don't even remember what i was doing. I din't know about the Riders till after i joined.

[Diane Vera]

I just kinda stumbled onto this site lastnight... don't even remember what i was doing. I din't know about the Riders till after i joined.

I too stumbled across this site without knowing, at first, what it was. This site came up when I was doing a bit of web research on gay Christians. At first I thought that Soulforce was simply a group of politically active gay Christians; hence the cautiousness of my first posts here (I'm not Christian). Only later did I realize that Soulforce is an interfaith group (I was pleasantly surprised at the welcome I got here); and only later did I read up on the specific type of activism that is Soulforce's forte.

But no doubt this site is attracting a lot of new people who heard about it via the Equality Ride, or via publicity given to the Equality Ride.

[JudB]

I got here through the Gay Christian Network although I have been involved in some Soulforce direct actions. I am very glad there are message boards to help the community connections.

Talking with Soulforce members and reading about actions will probably encourage me to become more involved again.

[Sherrie Z]

I found Soulforce just recently because the President of my alma mater, Fresno Pacific, sent an email to alumni alerting us to the upcoming Soulforce visit ... he didn't know he was recruiting for Soulforce, but it turned out that way, hee hee ... I signed on immediately after hearing about it. I'm not sure how I hadn't heard about Soulforce sooner, but I'm very glad I found out now ... and I'm hoping for even more and more coverage so more people can find out about this wonderful endeavor ... Soulforce has come and gone from FPU by now, and I know that their visit there will have a positive impact for many years to come : )

What's extra cool about the timing of this for me was that the alert from Fresno Pacific came at one of those intriguing synchronistic times ... just as I'd been thinking about my alma mater (it's been over 30 years since graduation) in a more focused way than usual, just as I was wanting to expand my internet connections, just as I'd been feeling drawn to reactivate my political activism in a specific way ... that is, just as I was spending hours and hours online and reading books to learn more about the "T" of LGBT and sensing there was a purpose, but not quite knowing where it would lead ... I'm non-trans and hetero myself, but I have a history of activism, and spiritual community, with the LGBT community ... and that email about Soulforce came just as I was making some new connections with the trans community ... it all came together in a special way that, given the spiritual nature of this group, I think many of you know just what I mean ... so ... hooray for the Equality Riders and Soulforce and those "mysterious ways" ... : )

[Rick336]

I became a member of Soulforce a year ago because of an article I read in the Advocate about the Equality Riders. I clicked on the website address then immediately joined the group.

Rick

[kara speltz]

just as I was spending hours and hours online and reading books to learn more about the "T" of LGBT and sensing there was a purpose, but not quite knowing where it would lead ... I'm non-trans and hetero myself, but I have a history of activism, and spiritual community, with the LGBT community ... and that email about Soulforce came just as I was making some new connections with the trans community ... it all came together in a special way that, given the spiritual nature of this group, I think many of you know just what I mean ... so ... hooray for the Equality Riders and Soulforce and those "mysterious ways" ... : )

I call that the Holy Spirit, myself. And she knocks on my door much more often than I am aware of. But I do know that there are times that I feel so much like Jonah. I'm told to go to Ninevah, but I get on a boat going in the opposite direction, but guess where I end up, praise God!:D

[Sherrie Z]

Yup. Me too ... that would be my sense too ... though with appreciation that this group has different ways of understanding that pull ... the mysterious ways ... with an awareness that our understanding or interpretation of, or ability to follow through on the pull might have it's imperfections ... but we keep getting plenty of opportunities ... and like you say, that boat just kinda ends up there anyway doesn't it ... : ) Thanks, Kara, for your thoughtful reply!

By the way, I can add that another significant element contributed to the pull ... and this really does fit into the "mysterious ways" ... of all things, you just never know ... I saw in TV Guide that the soap opera All My Children was going to run a storyline with a transgender character coming out ... so I made a point of watching closely ... I was very moved by the portrayal ... AMC has done a fantastic job of representing the reality, thoughtfully and sensitively ... that was a major contributing element too ... (the storyline runs for a few more weeks) ... and I can see that the people at AMC were responding in their way to a call to enlighten and increase compassion ... (as did Felicity Huffman in Transamerica, as did Hillary Swank in Boys Don't Cry, and so on) ...

I'm sure I would have checked out the Soulforce website regardless, but that AMC storyline was an added push, and a very important element in the degree of time and energy and focus that I'm sensing for this endeavor. : )

[Allyson]

There definitely seems to be an upswing right now in public awareness of transgender people. :)

I've followed Soulforce and the Equality Ride for just over a year...I joined the forums recently to learn more about the community Soulforce represents (my community! :) ) and perhaps make a tiny contribution of my own to the conversation.

[Sherrie Z]

There definitely seems to be an upswing right now in public awareness of transgender people. :)

I've followed Soulforce and the Equality Ride for just over a year...I joined the forums recently to learn more about the community Soulforce represents (my community! :) ) and perhaps make a tiny contribution of my own to the conversation.


I've been very encouraged by this upswing ... : )


Last night (Monday) I was flipping through TV channels and happened to stumble upon a Tyra Banks talk show episode in progress ... on transgender issues ... they had two sibling stories where one of the siblings was transgender ... they also had a surgeon (Dr. Marci Bowers) who does transgender surgeries, and she is transgender herself. The program included an especially cool parent who had helped finance part of his son's F2M surgery.

In some ways it was the typical talk show scenario, but considering the format, I thought it was actually pretty good, in terms of Tyra's level of understanding ... even though I wish that in this case they would have spent a little more time clarifying the distinction between gay and transgender ... then again, maybe they did so during the beginning part of the show that I missed.

I've also been watching "The Riches" on FX ... a new series starring a couple with a gender variant child ... this is the Eddie Izzard program I've posted about elsewhere on this website.

A few days ago I was ordering a trans-theme book at a mainstream large bookstore, and the clerk was asking me about the book, seemed very interested, and was very cool about it ...

And on Tuesday night's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (reruns on Wednesday, April 18th) ... there was a hilarious segment making fun of the people in Largo, Florida who had voted out their city manager because she had come out as transgender ... Steve Stanton, soon to be Susan, was shown in a very positive light ...


And by the way, I love all these stories about how we found Soulforce ... : )

[Rick336]

Soulforce gained 260 new members in the month of April alone. :applause:

If this keeps up, Soulforce will have over 5,000 members by year's end.

Rick

[BrianB]

I knew about the Soulforce website for several years. Yes, I joined this forum to find out what was being said about the Equality Ride.