Hi everyone!
Again, here I am apologizing for not posting in forever, but life as two teachers with two kids… well… it happens.
Today, though.. wow. Today was a big one.
Tuesday evening, Sarah and I got an email from one of the founding members of GLSEN Phoenix who Sarah has become friends with, asking if we’d like to come to an event on Friday morning, albeit last minute. It was a last minute event all around. If we were interested, she’d save us two seats. Caitlyn Jenner was presenting GLSEN (Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network) Phoenix with a hefty grant, as well as a few other transgender specific programs. Sarah and I debated going… having to write sub plans, be gone last minute, I’m out a LOT this quarter for various things school related, our overall personal opinions with whether to support Caitlyn Jenner, you know… lots to weigh. At the advice of a friend, I was assured I would never regret going, so… we were like, “heck yes, sign us up!”
Sarah and I arrived this morning for the event expecting a large auditorium… after all, Caitlyn Jenner was speaking and presenting, and we expected to be two of hundreds. Well, to our surprise, we were two of about fifty. The space was small and intimate… two chairs in front, on a small stage set up similar to Ellen’s talk show. We’re the first ones in the room (yay, early-birds) and cuuuuuuuue awkwardness.
Slowly, people start trickling in… people who know people. People who do these things for a living… and then there’s us. Crap. So we make some conversations and meet some new people. Not gonna lie, I’m feeling pretty awkward in the setting, seeing as we know literally ONE person, and that one person is pretty much running the event. We sit at a table towards the back (using “the back” loosely… we were maybe twenty feet away from the action) and wait… our table fills with people who know each other, but definitely not us. We meet them, and they’re super friendly and think it’s cool that we do what we do, running our school’s GSA, being married for so long, Sarah being an out, transgender teacher and all.) We charm the crowd. We’re clearly the only people there who didn’t really know what they were getting into, and everyone assumed we worked upstairs at the GLSEN head office, despite telling them we were teachers… “oh, so you work upstairs?” “no… we work in our classrooms”. Everyone was super, super, nice.
Caitlyn and her girlfriend (partner? I don’t know…anyways…) start talking about their platform and the importance of staying visible and such, and we’re literally twenty feet away.
It was bonkers. So, cue the crazier….
Everything ends, and they say they’ll be sticking around to meet people. Cool. Probably not us. Cue our friend… the one that hooked us up with tickets. She comes over to meet me, because we’ve never met in person… and says, “I told Caitlyn about you two and she wants to meet you personally.” Wait… I’m sorry… I’m busy crapping my pants… WHAT? I think my smartwatch probably got close to exploding from how high my heart rate shot through the roof at a second’s notice. Sarah and I look at each other and give a… “Ohhhh shit. WHAT?” look at each other as I try really hard not to psych her (well no… both of us) out. In the mean time, this sweet lady comes over to meet Sarah because she was giving her amazing “I need to meet you” vibes from across the room. Again… whoa… This is the coolest thing I’ve ever done. I want this life. I want to do this. This is where I belong. So, we chat… Again… where are all these amazingly sweet people coming from?!
So we meet Caitlyn Jenner, and not gonna lie, it was a little anticlimactic because she and her girl were being whisked away to a press conference, but we got a cool photo, that none of us look amazing in, but who gives a crap… we have a photo with Caitlyn Jenner (Kelly… hug me and it will rub off on you 🙂 )
Seriously though… what a cool frackin’ morning. I’m so glad we chose to go. We were introduced to other board members and we were quickly adopted into the GLSEN family. Throughout this, we learned one major thing… We need business cards. With the amount of people who wanted our information in the “everyone has a business card” world that we’re not used to, we were left to awkwardly instantly email people who handed us their card, just so they’d have our contact information. I see some really cool experiences in our future, which seriously… I couldn’t be more excited for.
Oh, to top it off, I’m the only registered Middle School GSA in the state as far we are aware which is really, really cool and I’m so proud of. Sarah’s got her, “I’m the only out female transgender teacher” claim, and I’ve got my “I’m the only Middle School GSA” claim. Silly, but cool. We’re so excited for our potential futures with GLSEN and beyond… as our true passion lies in helping LGBTQ youth however we can (except for fostering kids because Toby squashed that in an embarrassing tantrum last year at Pride. Ha).
After, we went home quick to change for the We Exist and We Vote rally at the Capitol… Again, another social nightmare for me. When we participated in Red for Ed, it was a bazillion people, so we could blend in but there was absolutely no blending in there. We saw a friend which was cool- we haven’t spent any time with her in a while, so it made me extremely eager to reconnect, and it was really empowering to be with so many like-minded people and hear some great stories about their personal experiences. We got to meet Kathy Hoffman, who is running for State Superintendent, who stood next to us for much of the rally. I kind of had a bit of a reverse fan-girl moment when someone who follows us on Instagram, but we’d never met in real life, came over to meet us because she recognized us. That was super cool, getting to meet a follower from social media (Hi, Melissa!!).
We left from this day, feeling completely exhausted, but SO empowered and excited to take on some new challenges and adventures that may lie ahead. We’re looking forward to Sparkle Glitter GLSEN… GLSEN’s biggest fundraiser of the year, on November 14th. What a great, rewarding day!
Love you all! Thanks to everyone who watched my school kiddos today! I know most of you read this, so… THANK YOU!!!!
J
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