I was a Girl Scout, once upon a time, and I have always been extremely proud of the Girl Scouts continuing moves to support equality and open-mindedness. Unlike Boy Scouts, which has banned participation of anyone who doesn’t fit into their narrow and bigoted world view, the Girl Scouts have actively supported inclusiveness of all girls and diversity among their membership, no matter what, and have done so from the very beginning of the organization. However, the Girl Scouts are now under attack for the very same supportive and welcoming policies that I have always praised, and from one of their own.

A Girl Scout is calling for a boycott of Girl Scout cookies in a youtube video. Why? Because Girl Scouts allows transgirls to join and participate. (Update: Looks like the Hate-Mongering Girl Scout has now set her video to private. Maybe she learned a bit of a lesson here?)

Here’s the thing. The Girl Scout Mission? This is it:

Girl Scouting builds girls of courage, confidence and character, who make the world a better place.

And the girl in this video? She’s not making the world a better place, she’s spreading hate and bigotry and has become one of those people ensuring that the world is a more dangerous place for transwomen.  And all you have to do is read the news to know how dangerous a place it already is.  And here she is, wanting to stop one of the sources of income for an organization that has become one of the few safe places out there for a transgirl. For that, honestly, I think she should be the one banned from participating in the Girl Scouts.

Girl Scouts is all about empowering girls and turning them into strong, independent women. It’s just the sort of confidence-boosting organization and help that a girl in a particularly difficult situation might need.  Allowing transgirls to join and participate could very well save lives, by giving that child a community where she is welcomed and included.

So here’s what I propose: Let that boycott proposal have the opposite result, and let the GLBT community and our friends come out to support this organization that has been so supportive of us. So here’s the plan:

Buy All The Cookies.

I’m trying to eat healthier, but I’ll buy boxes as gifts and give them away all over the place if I have to. (While reserving one box of my favorite, Thin Mints, to stick in the freezer at home, of course.) I’ll buy what I can afford and do whatever I can to help.

To find a place where you can buy cookies, just go here: http://www.girlscoutcookies.org/ and they’ll give you the nearest cookie station, or alternatively you can contact your local Girl Scout Council to find out how to contact and help your local troop or how to donate, if you don’t want to buy cookies.

Help them out. They deserve it.

Finally, and against all odds, Congress has stepped up to the plate and given the GLBT community a first step toward equality and repealed Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

I don’t pretend to think that this changes everything, but it is a step in the right direction, the first of many.

For those of you following the Trevor Project’s It Gets Better videos, particularly those among the GLBT gaming community, EA Games has put out a wonderful  It Gets Better video from its GLBT employees.

Perhaps the most important theme these people repeat is that sometimes you learn that the things that make you different are the things that are most important – something that could apply to everything that makes you different. It’s something I’ve found to be very true, especially when it comes to my geekiness.  Non-geeks may not be able to understand what fascinates me so about computers or video games or the internet, but it is often nice to know that the very things they don’t understand are what make me essential.  Because these things make me look at the world from a different angle, through a different facet of the prism.

As much as I may disagree with EA Games general corporate practice of putting excessive and restrictive DRM on their games, these are the creators and artists involved in those games, not the distributor who publishes them. People who have had a hand in the creation of games that I have loved and enjoyed, and they could not have done what they did without being a little bit “different.”

Being normal will do nothing to set you apart from others – being different can often mean being something a bit extraordinary.

Related articles

• Lady Gaga, celebs celebrate ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ win (hollywoodnews.com)
• Lady Gaga, Neil Patrick Harris take to Twitter to celebrate DADT repeal vote (latimesblogs.latimes.com)

I’m a bit busy today, but I did want to drop a line in support of the GLBT community and those who are choosing today to come out.

Because, you see, today is National Coming Out Day, and the more of us who can stand up and be themselves and be proud, the better for all of us. The more straight people who are willing to stand by their gay friends and support them, the better. The more people willing to say they aren’t going to let the world deny people their fundamental rights, drive people to suicide or kill them, destroy lives for no other reason than that those lives are a little bit different from their own, the better this world will be.

All it takes for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.  It’s time to stop doing nothing.

Today I stand loud and proud. Today I wear my ribbons. Today I am who I am, for all the world to see. Not to show off, not to make people uncomfortable, but to show my support for those who can’t.  For those people who would get fired if they came out, for those who would be disowned, for those who would have to fear violence against their person for no crime other than admitting who they are. Because if we allow ourselves to become invisible, those who cause harm, who oppress and demean and destroy, are given free reign to spread their hate without consequence.

I don’t celebrate Coming Out day for me. I celebrate it for them . . . because the more of us who can, and are willing to stand up between those who cannot yet stand  and the oncoming tide of  bigotry and hate, the safer it will be for all of us, whether GLBT or straight, to be ourselves.

Related articles

• Happy National Coming Out Day, To One And All (towleroad.com)

How many more have to die?

How many more teens will be driven to the brink, surrounded on all sides by nothing but bigotry and hate, often coming even from their own parents, before something is done to protect them?

How many more, before schools and parents and youth organizations realize that something must be done?

And that something can’t be “We’re sending you to conversion therapy so you can hate who you are even more.”

That something can’t be telling them that the way they were born was a choice, and that choice means that God hates them, that the World hates them, that they are wrong.

This is not suicide. This is murder by proxy, and the blood is on the hands of the bullies who have convinced these children that the only option is death. Of every parent to make their gay child hate themselves, of every teacher that ignored the signs. It’s on the hands of every homophobe who has made an offhand comment or joke in the hearing of a random stranger who was struggling, on the inside, with coming to terms with who they are.

It is time to reach out to these teens, to tell them they are not alone, that others have been through the same things and survived, and thrived. Dan Savage’s It Gets Better Project is a good start.  I am, in fact, working on a video of my own for the project. The Trevor Project is a good start. But in order for these things to work, the teens out there who are struggling with their identity need to know about them.

The GLBT community needs to reach out, but more than that, the straight caregivers, teachers, counselors, school administrators – they all need to know how to deal with these issues. They all need to know what resources are out there.  And they need to start allowing representatives of the GLBT community into their schools to talk to students about these issues.

But more than that, it’s time to get angry. It’s time to fight the hate.  Too many have died.

Will you stand by and wait for more to die before you do something? Before you come out and stand proud and say “This is NOT OKAY, and I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!”

Related articles

• A Troubling Trend: Discussing Bullying and Antigay Attitudes (learning.blogs.nytimes.com)
• A Letter To Gay Youth & America From Bette Midler (perezhilton.com)
• Hot line serves as 24/7 lifeline for struggling gay youths (cnn.com)
• Gay Teen Suicides: Why We’re Honoring National Coming Out Month (gayrights.change.org)
• “Project Runway: Tim Gunn Speaks Out Against Recent Teen Suicides” and related posts (realitytvmagazine.sheknows.com)

The Tenth and Eleventh Doctors together on the TARDIS (Matt Smith & David Tennant)

To say I’ve been crazy busy lately would be an understatement. I’ve got Script Frenzy going on, and it’s going well. I’m actually close to hitting that 100 page mark (though the script will probably go a bit past that).  Work’s been crazy busy, which is a good thing. See, I work for an attorney who deals primarily in real estate, so when the real estate market died, our business pretty much died with it.  The fact that our business has suddenly gone crazy busy is a good indicator that the economy’s beginning to come back.

This, of course, is a good thing for everyone. But with my days spent scurrying around the office trying to Get Things Done and my nights spent clacking away at the computer on my script, I haven’t been able to fit in my usual blogging schedule.

Which is a bit sad, because some awesome things have happened while I’ve been away from the blog working on my silly script.

First of all, the new Doctor Who premiered. You all know that I am particularly fond of David Tennant, but Matt Smith has taken up the mantle of the Doctor even better than I could have hoped.  He had me hooked at the custard-and-fish-fingers.  If that first episode was a test – a “Can I believe this new kid is the Doctor?” test – he passed it with flying colours. And I’m hoping that his tenure will be another long one, like Baker’s or Tennant’s, because when you get right down to it, well, the Doctor doesn’t really have many regenerations left, if they’re going to stick to the Time Lords Have 13 Lives rule.

For some even better news, Obama has extended healthcare rights to gay partners, allowing visitation rights and forcing hospitals to recognize the rights of same-sex partners as next-of-kin. This should (hopefully) end one of the worst problems facing same-sex partners, something that has kept even those with the proper documentation (healthcare powers-of-attorney, etc.) from being able to be with their loved ones during their most difficult times. There is more that needs to be done, of course. There’s always more that needs to be done, but this is a big, important, and very needed step in the right direction.

So there’s my update! I haven’t forgotten about my blog, and I’m not being lazy (anything but!) – but hopefully I’ll be able to get back to my normal schedule once Script Frenzy is over.

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• Into the Frenzy! (nanowrimo.org)
• Doctor Who sets BBC America viewing record (guardian.co.uk)
• Obama Extends Healthcare Rights to Same-Sex Partners (TIME)