Final nail in the coffin.  For this round. Courtesy of Equality Advocates:

Amen. 

Now if someone would turn their attention to the City of Pittsburgh's yet-to-be-appointed LGBT Advisory Board and the yet-to-be-named LGBT Mayoral Liaison, a few more loose ends would be wrapped up before bounding onto the newest and coolest LGBT advocacy flavor of the month issue. 

Or we can just wait to see in what new direction we are led, write our email messages and get on with not paying attention.

So I asked Vice-Chair, Kat Carrick, how the everyday Pittsburgh queer can help with the relocation of the GLCC.  Rest assured the organization has been working for many months on this very issue -- we all know they've planned to move even if we weren't aware of the impendingness of the whole situation. 

There's something very concrete you can do in the immediate future to make an impact -- help convince your City and County Council reps that the GLCC is important. 

how the community could help....one thought is to attend the august 7th squirrel hill urban coalition meeting at 7 pm in the JCC and let the developer and city council know that the programs and services that the glcc provides are necessary for the health of our community.

We are providing more programs than ever - including a new medical screening program that I'm wicked excited about --will provide free gyne exams, std tests, and basic health care screenings at the glcc....that program is due to start in september.

Those are Kat's very words.  August 7th it is folks.  Show up and be heard.  If you want to stick with posting Anonymous neighborhood bashings, you aren't really part of the solution.  If you want to make sure all of our Council reps understand the importance of this organization and that the entire community -- gay and straight -- benefits from its healthy existance, then go for it. 

Let's hope organizations like Steel City Stonewall, Gertrude Stein, Delta Foundation and so forth step up to speak up for the GLCC. 

Today, my brother's wife asked me to change my profile picture on Facebook.  You can't see my profile unless you are my friend so there's no sense my posting a link (you can search for me if you want to be my friend).  However, the image is the logo at the top of the blog.  I chose it because I think it is beautiful.  My friend Harry, himself a 20-year relationship celebrant this September, created it for me. 

It isn't the first time I've been asked to do a "don't ask, don't tell" move by someone.  Heck, I make that choice a dozen times each day -- each time I take the easy way and allow the assumption that I am heterosexual to remain unchallenged. Sometimes it is for my safety, sometimes for my comfort.  It doesn't phase me as much as it used to, but I admit that there is some small plink in my heart and/or soul each time. 

Last year, I blogged quite often about the comparison between that hetero-assumption and the gender identity issues at play in Pittsburgh's lesbian community.  None of us are above asking someone to not ask or not tell.  If Jessi Seams had been content to let assumptions about her gender identity go unchallenged, we would have lost a very important debate in our community.  I continue to think Jessi is one of the bravest people I know for acknowleding that there is an in-between gender identity during her City Paper interview.

So I told my sister-in-law no. I tried to be respectful in making my point.  There's an in-between in coming out -- that fine line between bashing it over people's heads and being true to yourself. 

The true blessing is that my little niece who is 2.5 years old does not see anything unusual that Aunt Laura kisses Aunt Sue.  It is all she has ever known and her little brother will be the same way.  I'm not sure about my brother's son.  I hope he will grow up to know and love his lesbian aunties, not his aunt and her friend.  That remains to be seen.

"Don't ask, don't tell" is noxious.  And it hurts a little bit.