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Latest Voices
The Feeling
So, this is what it feels like to belong.
I found myself crying as I danced through the streets of downtown Boston, celebrating my first Pride parade since coming out. While Lady Gaga songs and rainbow costumes provided a backdrop for my ecstasy, my joy arose from the feeling of belonging, a sense of connection bringing me closer to myself and to every person within that crowd of thousands. That was the feeling of my first Pride.
Creating Understanding
I was born a Brobdingnagian in a world of Lilliputians. As a child, I towered over my classmates, both female and male, and most of my teachers. Even as an adult, I stand out in a crow-and I hate it. Being tall has contributed to my psychological angst: it has given me a negative self-image; it has made me the victim of teasing (“How’s the weather up there?”); and it has made me feel like an outsider from mainstream society.
Being a part of the LGBTQ+ community may cause its population to feel a similar sense of isolation and depression. Or, it may not.
An Editor’s Invitation: LGBTQ+
When I was a freshman in college, my closest friend told me that he was pretty sure he was gay.
I was perplexed. I knew that gay men existed, but I’d never known one. (Of course I had; I just didn’t realize it.)
Not long after, my friend began a journey of exploration, of figuring out who he was–yes, he was gay–and I had the good sense to reserve judgment, to listen and learn, and to remain his friend.
On the Frontline
There are those who speak heatedly about abortion, either for or against, from a distance, their voice hypothetical. There are those who sit with a woman, listen to her story, see her broken heart revealed and hold her hand as she cries, “I can’t have this baby.” And then there are those, truly on the frontline, who perform abortions.
On Becoming an Abortion Provider
The Making of an Activist
A Son’s Death, A Mother’s Love
On March 11, 2017 I lost my beloved twenty-five-year-old son to the disease of addiction. He was a beautiful, creative and compassionate person with enormous potential. Receiving the call from the police that he was dead from an overdose was a nightmare no parent should have to experience. Driving to his drug dealer’s apartment to identify his body was not close to any situation I had read about in parenting books as he was growing up.
Choice
It is 1989. My earliest memory of myself is of riding on my dad’s shoulders and holding a placard that reads “Pro-Choice.” Chants of “Her Body, Her Choice” reverberate around me. I’m barely four years old, but this is not my first protest. In my family, abortion has never had a question mark after it.
Two Different Choices
My boys were four and six, my husband and I had been separated three months, and I had just started college. I saw no way to continue this new pregnancy.
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