The Rainbow Readerie

I definitely hear you, Kåre Enga in Udon Thani . And I appreciate your rant. Since I've only been around a few months, I don't really know what the atmosphere has been like. I don't think I've got a grasp of what it is like now.

(I started a new message OT because I never really shared my story, and it feels a little relevant here.) I think I still experience a lot of female white privilege and I don't think (in my day to day life) that being gay is an issue with anything, at all. I've been really lucky. I'm a white lesbian woman whose partner's family welcomed her with open arms. I've experienced some hate but I'm sure it's minimal compared to the rest of you here.

My first real job was in Student Health/Health Education at Duke University in 1991. Two of the MDs in the medical center where I worked were out lesbians. I don't think I ever really came out to anyone at work. My partner at the time still used her given name, which was obviously female, and I just told people she was my partner. Duke also began allowing "Same Sex Spousal Equivalents" to share benefits in the mid 90's, so things were pretty forward and I was out. And my partner is the most friendly, outgoing person you can imagine and people love her despite themselves. So I also get the luck of geography being with her and her family. We're married, and it's all very matter-of-fact. We just act like a normal couple and where we live, at least, people accept that. And we've been together 30 freakin years, lol, so I sure as hell hope the world doesn't explode now.

All that is to say that I live in a place where I don't expect to be met with hate. I didn't expect to find it here, and it still baffles me.

I'm thinking about getting a signature made that's more gay-obvious (no idea about the design yet) and starting to use the supporter of the RR tag that Rhymer Reisen made. And, yeah, as Kåre Enga in Udon Thani suggested, write more E-rated les-bi-gay (lol, old phrasing) stories and get them into my portfolio. My novel is important to me and is slow going, and I have SO MUCH to learn and write! I want to make a difference and I want the gay community to find each other and have a voice here, because I like WDC and I think having our voices heard is worth pushing for.

Have y'all read the story in the March Genre list, "Some Else's Happiness" ? It's a story that needs to be shared and remembered. I don't know if the author is still hanging around WDC, but I hope he is. He has a story that is valuable and needs to be written and shared and remembered in 100 years (if, yanno, we haven't blown up the planet yet). I reviewed that short bio he wrote and told him that I want to hear the rest of his story. We can't let it die.

Okay, I need to stop. My apologies for my rant. Please, ideas, thoughts, share on!
BA