Lgbtq+ Academy by Out Alliance

06/01/2020

A good read! Remember, Trans Women of Color were leaders of the LGBTQ+ Movement!

Pride month 2020 is a time for q***r celebration, visibility, and above all else, protest. But when is Pride month, and why do we celebrate it when we do?

06/01/2020

We have worked hard to develop a specific training for healthcare workers and human service agencies! All of our trainings are custom fit to your organization. Check it out and share with your networks!

05/29/2020

From one of our amazing Speakers Bureau members: "Hello! My name is Alyssa Lombardi, and I am a doctoral student in the Counseling Psychology department at the University at Albany. I am conducting a research study about experiences of racism from within and outside of the LGBTQ+ community.
If you are an LGBTQ+ person of Color who is 18 years of age or older and currently live in the U.S., please consider participating. This study is an online survey that should take approximately 15 minutes. I appreciate your time, experience, and voice. Thank you!"

Description: We are interested in understanding the experiences that LGBTQ+ people of Color have with racism from others in the LGBTQ+ community as well as racism from outside of the LGBTQ+ community. We are interested in understanding potential differences in the frequency of racism dependent on th...

05/27/2020

Rest in Power, George Floyd. We are grieving and angry to learn of yet another instance of anti-black police violence. Our thoughts are with George's loved ones today. Artwork by
shirien.creates on IG.

05/27/2020

Keep COOL. Support LOCAL. Show PRIDE.

With 2 different designs and 6 different color choices, the Side By Side t-shirt sale fundraiser by Match Play Custom Apparel gives you 12 different ways to support your favorite local LGBTQ+ businesses and organizations! Simply make your selection at checkout, and they’ll receive $10 from each t-shirt sale!

This special fundraiser campaign only runs through the end of the month, so place your orders now! Don’t miss out!

Order Here: https://shop.matchplaycustomapparel.com/rochesterlgbtq

05/26/2020

The LGBTQ Academy at the Out Alliance is pleased to offer an all new training! This training is specifically designed for Healthcare Workers on the frontline or Human Service agencies to help navigate supporting LGBTQ+ Clients during COVID-19 and the barriers to care that exist. These trainings can be custom fit to meet the needs of your organization! Register with us today - [email protected]

05/26/2020

Don’t miss out on a Rochester Side-By-Side T-shirt! They come in a variety of colors including rainbow tie dye! This fundraiser is available through the end of the month, but place your orders now! Be sure to select Out Alliance at checkout!

T-Shirts Orders: https://shop.matchplaycustomapparel.com/rochesterlgbtq

Thank you to our friends at Match Play Custom Apparel!

05/26/2020

People seem to be confused so here's more wisdom from on Instagram 💚

Any unnecessarily rude comments will get you banned, thanks 💚

05/25/2020

at 8 years old i developed an acute case of trichotillomania: a compulsive urge to pull out my body hair. i would sit in class plucking out each individual arm hair like it was my job. one time my teacher noticed & asked me to stop. how curious it was that she asked me to cease, not the kids in my class who told me i looked like a monkey.

a few years later i began to use my sister’s razors & shave off all of my body hair: my body became one prolonged razor burn.

a few years later my classmates started to call me a “terrorist” because i was brown & had facial hair. i begged my father every day to let me shave my face & on my 13th birthday he gifted me a razor. that first shave — there were no visible cuts. (but that doesn’t mean they weren’t still there.) i looked in the mirror & i remember thinking: i look beautiful (by which i meant — i look more white).

a few years later i learned about a movement called “beards for peace,” to protest the war. i did not shave for a year — my beard, it was the run on sentence that taught me poetry — finding beauty outside standard grammar, creating my own definition.

a decade later when i started my transition, so many people told me that i would be more “believable” if i “just shaved.” i had spent so many years coming into myself & yet here i was, once again, being told that i was the problem.

i remembered my sister & mom being told that they were “mannish” for having arm hair & a slight mustache. i remembered all of the brown women i knew who were made to feel like they were never feminine enough. i resolved then & there not to remove my body hair because i believed in the femininity of my hairy brown foremothers.

why should we have to look like what white men have told white women to be in order to be regarded as feminine?

i would rather be beautiful.

their beauty is a razor. it disappears.
my beauty, it blooms.

Instagram.com/alokvmenon