Showing posts with label I'm From Driftwood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label I'm From Driftwood. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
I’m From Southborough, MA - Video Story
by ray
Today’s Video Story was collected on the 50-state Story Tour. Check out the blog where you can follow us on our adventure. If you haven’t submitted a story yet to IFD, or if you want to submit another one, I’d love to read and publish it. Write one up and send it in.
I’m Ray and I’m from Southborough, Massachusetts. And I’m transgender. Growing up I didn’t necessarily know that I was male identified, but I liked to act male. I liked to pretend I was male. In the pretend games you play when you’re little I was always the boy. And I liked it that way. As I grew older I really tried to mask it and that made it harder to transition later on because people were a little more hesitant to recognize what I was able to see. They would say “You acted like a girl.” When I was able to say, “Yeah, but I didn’t feel like a girl.”
I just heard what being transgender meant and it was this epiphany of “Wow that’s an exact description of how I feel.” And I was in the car with my mom and I turned to her and said, “Mom, I want a haircut.” Because I had hair down to about here at that point. And she said, “Okay, we can get you a haircut.” And I said, “No, mom, I want my hair cut. Like short.” And she said, “Oh, that’s fine.” And I said, “Well, can I have a boys haircut and she said, “Yes.” And I said, “Good, because I want to feel more like a boy.” And then i think I clapped a hand over my mouth, because I couldn’t believe I just said that out loud because I was just starting to acknowledge this to myself and to say it out loud, especially to another person, meant that it was real. My mom turned to me and said, “Well, do you feel like a boy?” And I said, “I don’t know.” And I think I started crying. And I got angry and really confused.
It was a process, they started calling me Ray, which was my male name, then they started using male pronouns which took a long time to train them to do that, because they’d known me, obviously, since infancy. And then finally, one day, we were in the ER, I had passed out in school for whatever reason, I don’t remember and she was talking to the receptionist, and the receptionist said, “What do you need?” And my mom said, “My son passed out.” And I just sort of turned an stared at her, and she just smiled at me. That was just the final step in knowing that my parents had really accepted me for who I was. And that it was real, it was happening and I could be who I wanted to be.
source
Today’s Video Story was collected on the 50-state Story Tour. Check out the blog where you can follow us on our adventure. If you haven’t submitted a story yet to IFD, or if you want to submit another one, I’d love to read and publish it. Write one up and send it in.
I’m Ray and I’m from Southborough, Massachusetts. And I’m transgender. Growing up I didn’t necessarily know that I was male identified, but I liked to act male. I liked to pretend I was male. In the pretend games you play when you’re little I was always the boy. And I liked it that way. As I grew older I really tried to mask it and that made it harder to transition later on because people were a little more hesitant to recognize what I was able to see. They would say “You acted like a girl.” When I was able to say, “Yeah, but I didn’t feel like a girl.”
I just heard what being transgender meant and it was this epiphany of “Wow that’s an exact description of how I feel.” And I was in the car with my mom and I turned to her and said, “Mom, I want a haircut.” Because I had hair down to about here at that point. And she said, “Okay, we can get you a haircut.” And I said, “No, mom, I want my hair cut. Like short.” And she said, “Oh, that’s fine.” And I said, “Well, can I have a boys haircut and she said, “Yes.” And I said, “Good, because I want to feel more like a boy.” And then i think I clapped a hand over my mouth, because I couldn’t believe I just said that out loud because I was just starting to acknowledge this to myself and to say it out loud, especially to another person, meant that it was real. My mom turned to me and said, “Well, do you feel like a boy?” And I said, “I don’t know.” And I think I started crying. And I got angry and really confused.
It was a process, they started calling me Ray, which was my male name, then they started using male pronouns which took a long time to train them to do that, because they’d known me, obviously, since infancy. And then finally, one day, we were in the ER, I had passed out in school for whatever reason, I don’t remember and she was talking to the receptionist, and the receptionist said, “What do you need?” And my mom said, “My son passed out.” And I just sort of turned an stared at her, and she just smiled at me. That was just the final step in knowing that my parents had really accepted me for who I was. And that it was real, it was happening and I could be who I wanted to be.
source
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Jill Bennett Contributes to 'I'm From Driftwood' True Stories by Gay People Project
We Have to Stop Now, And Then Came Lola and former SheWired video blogger with The Gloves are OFF and The Violet Underground, Jill Bennett has joined creator Nathan Manske’s ‘I’m From Driftwood,’ true stories by gay people project with a short video interview.
In her interview Jill discusses growing up in Fort Wayne, being an out actor and the power of the Internet to join people together.
The “I’m from Driftwood” project grew out of an idea Manske had after watching Milk, but more specifically, Harvey Milk holding a sign that read ‘I’m from Woodmere, NY.’ For more than a year Manske has curated stories of out and proud LGBT people from throughout the country.
Here’s Jill:
source
Friday, December 31, 2010
Gay story tour drifts into Atlanta
By Matt Hennie | Dec 30, 2010
Equipped with a pair of pink cowboy boots, iPhones with Grindr, a video camera and enough ambition to fuel a four-month journey to all 50 states, Nathan Manske and Marquise Lee arrived in Georgia on Tuesday to collect the stories of LGBT people.
It’s part of the I’m From Driftwood campaign. Think a little It Gets Better Project mixed with StoryCorps, but now complete with a book—“I’m From Driftwood: True Stories from Gay People from All Over” – that the two debuted, signed and read from during an appearance Wednesday at Outwrite Bookstore.
“We did 50 states in about four moths and that is really just scratching the surface,” Manske (top photo) told the crowd on Wednesday. “We are not representing entire states with what we’re doing.”
The two launched the Story Tour in September in Driftwood, Texas, where Manske was born. Though two others help with the website and planning the trips, it’s Manske and Lee (second photo) who have traveled the country recording the stories of LGBT people. They spend New Year’s Eve in Miami as they head into the home stretch of the effort, which wraps in mid January.
"It makes me reflect on my own life and how far we’ve come, how far I’ve come, how far society has come,” Manske said.
I’m From Driftwood started in Spring 2009, growing from an idea to give LGBT youth hope by telling the stories of other gay people into the StoryTour that is chronicled on their website. The book compiles those stories into printed form and it’s something Manske hopes to distribute to Gay Straight Alliances in schools.
The toughest state for the Story Tour? Manske says their few days in West Virginia in late December. They struggled to find people to tell their stories in Morgantown, so they turned to Grindr and recruited from the online cruising site. Let’s just say that didn’t end well.
They fared better in their journey to Alaska in early November, snapping photos with their pink boots in front of Sarah Palin’s home in Wasilla. They even had a lesbian hunter cook them moose burgers.
Not all of the book’s mostly PG stories are positive, Manske says. But they reflect the diversity of LGBT people, which is exactly the point. The stories show that gay people aren’t all that different from anyone else and if that’s the case, then why not treat them like everyone else, Manske explains.
“After hearing these stories from other people, you can’t help but compare other stories to your own and see the differences and similarities. You can’t help but compare your story to others,” he says.
And those pink boots? Manske and Lee use them at fundraisers. On Wednesday, after they wrapped up signing books, the pair headed next door to Blake’s to unwind and pull out the boots in the hopes of raising some cash to continue their Story Tour.
source
Equipped with a pair of pink cowboy boots, iPhones with Grindr, a video camera and enough ambition to fuel a four-month journey to all 50 states, Nathan Manske and Marquise Lee arrived in Georgia on Tuesday to collect the stories of LGBT people.
It’s part of the I’m From Driftwood campaign. Think a little It Gets Better Project mixed with StoryCorps, but now complete with a book—“I’m From Driftwood: True Stories from Gay People from All Over” – that the two debuted, signed and read from during an appearance Wednesday at Outwrite Bookstore.
“We did 50 states in about four moths and that is really just scratching the surface,” Manske (top photo) told the crowd on Wednesday. “We are not representing entire states with what we’re doing.”
The two launched the Story Tour in September in Driftwood, Texas, where Manske was born. Though two others help with the website and planning the trips, it’s Manske and Lee (second photo) who have traveled the country recording the stories of LGBT people. They spend New Year’s Eve in Miami as they head into the home stretch of the effort, which wraps in mid January.
"It makes me reflect on my own life and how far we’ve come, how far I’ve come, how far society has come,” Manske said.
I’m From Driftwood started in Spring 2009, growing from an idea to give LGBT youth hope by telling the stories of other gay people into the StoryTour that is chronicled on their website. The book compiles those stories into printed form and it’s something Manske hopes to distribute to Gay Straight Alliances in schools.
The toughest state for the Story Tour? Manske says their few days in West Virginia in late December. They struggled to find people to tell their stories in Morgantown, so they turned to Grindr and recruited from the online cruising site. Let’s just say that didn’t end well.
They fared better in their journey to Alaska in early November, snapping photos with their pink boots in front of Sarah Palin’s home in Wasilla. They even had a lesbian hunter cook them moose burgers.
Not all of the book’s mostly PG stories are positive, Manske says. But they reflect the diversity of LGBT people, which is exactly the point. The stories show that gay people aren’t all that different from anyone else and if that’s the case, then why not treat them like everyone else, Manske explains.
“After hearing these stories from other people, you can’t help but compare other stories to your own and see the differences and similarities. You can’t help but compare your story to others,” he says.
And those pink boots? Manske and Lee use them at fundraisers. On Wednesday, after they wrapped up signing books, the pair headed next door to Blake’s to unwind and pull out the boots in the hopes of raising some cash to continue their Story Tour.
source
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)