A Twitter Chat of My Own

Yesterday in class, our class along with some other teachers and interested parties participated in a twitter chat based around digital citizenship and what it means to us. It's really my first time using twitter, so I was a little off, but it was interesting and good to see so many ideas flowing. Yesterday's twitter chat happened on #lncdigcit, and my brand-shiny-new twitter is @LuathUidhe, for the interested.

If I could run one for myself, it'd probably be based around discussing how being MOGAI and mental health entwine. They are often closely related, especially down here in the Bible Belt, so speaking to others who deal with both on the daily would have some potential for learning and catharsis. 

Having a certain amount of people there would allow people to communicate with others both like and unlike them, connecting from places that they wouldn't perhaps have encountered otherwise. That's the power of social media in general. And as I stated before, being able to connect with other people would let them make friends and inform others about their own experiences. 

This would obviously relate to my passion project, allowing education through social media while simply catalyzing instead of directly doing it myself. I don't know how effective it would be, how many people would actually be interested, but the world's a big place, after all. Who knows?

Last week, I said I'd be searching for a mentor at TOY, and I got the email of a few people who might be willing to help. That can be further nailed down, of course, but it's a step in the right direction. Everyone I talked to was very positive and excited, especially at the prospect of starting a GSA (Gay-Straight Alliance) at our school. I'll have to look more into that- I believe there's already a movement to do so, I'm just not involved in or informed about it- but there's places I can go.

Even when other duties and distractions are shoving me down hard, there's hope.

Clarifying Projects

Oh my god, my Shark Tank presentation was so bad. It was a little bitty baby step ahead of crashing and burning. I stammered through it, forgot what I was going to say at several points, and got quite a lot of blank stares, though that last one wasn't entirely unintentional.

But you know what? I'm better for it. Practice makes perfect, as they say, and though my public speaking skills right near are nowhere as good as I'd like them to be, I'd like to think I'm getting better. Slowly. Oh-so-slowly.

Besides that, I did more research on MOGAI-positive movements and found so many cool things. I'll be the first to admit I was leaning towards my bias when I googled 'ace(1) recognition movement', but I found the dates of this year's Ace Week (October 19th-25th, for the curious) and I also found a more generalized day that promotes awareness and the fight against the constant microaggressions levied against MOGAI people, especially in school.

GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, asks students to take part in the Day of Silence(2,3) every year. It is a day in which students stay silent for their whole school day, and even in their outside life, in order to represent the forced silence of the MOGAI community. I plan to bring this day to the school administration and encourage students to participate. Of course, this may be disruptive to classes, but it may also present opportunities for learning for the participant's peers, family, and teachers.

But that's in the future. Right now, I'm still searching for a mentor, trying to add detail to my written proposal, wondering about how exactly I'm going to sketch out a proper event at the end of the year.

That's why by next Friday, I plan to go to Time Out Youth, Charlotte's major MOGAI safe space, several times so that I can interact more with both adults and my peers there. I'm almost certain I can find a mentor there, and besides, video game night is always fun. They're also probably a good place to bounce ideas off of for my year-long project. 

In addition to all this, GLSEN is giving away 2,000 Safe Space equipment boxes for schools to ensure the comfort of MOGAI students going into their new school year. I've entered their contest (drawing? I believe it's along those lines, it wasn't too clear) and I hope to get one for our school as well as letting friends at other schools know about this initiative. I'll put the link to the giveaway/contest/drawing/whatever is as link 4 down with the others, if you're interested.

Keeping my fellow students informed and comfortable in their learning environment is a top priority for me, and that can happen- it's just going to take a little work. That's work I'm willing to put in, but I'd be grateful if some others- student or teacher- stepped forward to help me pitch my idea, or even to be a sounding board for what I'm going to say.

References & Resources:

1. http://www.asexuality.org/wiki/index.php?title=Asexual_slang#Ace

2. http://www.dayofsilence.org/resources/

3. https://twitter.com/dayofsilence

4. http://action.glsen.org/page/s/ssk-giveaway

Passion Projects

This week we've begun to sketch out ideas for our passion projects. There are so many different ideas about what to do in this classroom that could make a huge impact on our community- and I plan to make mine successful. Of course, that's the plan for all of us, but I truly do believe in the importance of my own that I'm willing to throw all the time I might have into it.

My project is the education of the world about what MOGAI is and what we stand for. I have a firm belief that statistics about how many of us there are are skewed by the simple misinformation and disinformation of so many, even in pro-MOGAI areas. In the Bible Belt where I live and so many other places- even whole countries- all around the world, you can find worst-case scenarios. That's a problem, as I've discussed before, and I aim to fix it, on however large a scale I can.

But Annika, you might say, the world's so big, and your little corner of the Internet can only reach so far.

That might be so, but I believe that the phenomenon that's proved itself effective for so many causes can prove itself again through me and my classmates. Information spreads like wildfire these days- projects, webcomics, blogs like mine, they've all exploded in the past ten years and become massively popular.

This project is something very close to my heart. I identify as under the asexual umbrella- and yes, I do know my specific orientation, but for privacy reasons I don't feel comfortable sharing it- and there are so many people who've been open to learning about what that means, but before I told them they had no idea.

Of course, these people are mostly last-generation adults. My generation of teenagers in America have the massive advantage of the internet. However, there are places that the safe spaces I've found don't reach, and America isn't the only place with MOGAI people- teenagers, children, and adults alike. I want to reach them, however I can, and show them that they aren't alone, that they're not broken, that they are valid as who they are, and no one should ever tell them otherwise.

If I can even change one person's life like that, then I count it as a victory for all the work I'm going to put into this project.

This blog is the beginning of that. I'm boosting its signal through my real-life community, people who I know will support my mission, and already I've begun to realize just how many connections we can make, and the more the better. If I'm to succeed, then I'm going to need a lot of people to help me along, but I've found some in my classroom, in my school, in my home and my church and my city. 

I'm going to pitch this project to my class last week, and I hope that I can sound convincing enough to have my proposal accepted. If that happens, then the real work can start. 

I'm going to love it.

Heartbreak Maps

What breaks my heart is that there are so many people in the world who struggle with acceptance- from family, friends, peers, even themselves. There's so much hatred in this world just because of who someone is. I believe that no matter who someone is, they are worthy of having someone who loves them for who they are, not for a facade they present to the world because they feel they have to.

When someone chooses to come out- whether it be about their romantic, sexual, or gender identity- they place a great amount of trust in whoever they are addressing, because it's almost impossible to know if they're safe. I've heard so many stories about physical, verbal, and sexual abuse, people with no way to support themselves being cut off from anything they know, and "corrective" rape (1). There's no excuse for the sheer amount of hate crimes that happen every day, everywhere.

Of course, in the society I live in, not everyone knows what the prefixes pan-, demi-, a-, akio-, gray-, mean. There's so many different ways for a human being to identify, but I believe in people's ability to learn about their fellow man. There are some who refuse to learn, I'm aware of that, but they're a whole other issue that I'm not sure I want to tackle right now. 

I know that there are people- adults, teens, even kids- who don't fit into the strict gender binary and heteronormativity that's so prevalent globally, but they don't know what they do feel, because they don't know the name for it. Labels can be restricting, but they can also be freeing, because if you don't know what you are or how you feel, then that can just lead to feelings of dissociation and brokenness. If I could tell each and every person in the world that what they feel about who they are is valid, then I would. 

That's what love means.

Love isn't just sex, love isn't just romance. Love is accepting people for who they are and where they come from, no matter what, even if you think their beliefs are wrong. 

There are so many names I've heard people like me call themselves. MOGAI (2), LGBT+, queer, even the word "gay" is becoming an umbrella term. However, when those words are turned to slurs, then there's something wrong. 

I want to change that, in the tiny community around me, in my city, in my country, in the world.

That's what I'm about. What about you?

Some informative links:

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrective_rape

2. http://thedailyqueer.com/2014/10/19/what-is-mogai/

General list of orientations/identities: 

http://safespacenetwork.tumblr.com/define