Dear ,

Thank you for making Pride Week a raging success! Our community showed up this year in BIG ways from generous sponsors to tireless and dedicated volunteers to business owners and community partners. 

This year was by far Boulder's largest Pridefest to date. We are still counting but preliminary numbers are that we had just over 4,500 people at Central Park on Sunday not to mention the hundreds of others who attended the Pride Week events leading up to that celebration.

We are working to post all the amazing pictures of the week on our Facebook page and we've made a good start but look for more to follow this week. You can see all of the pictures on Facebook by clicking here  (even if you don't have a Facebook account). Please tag yourself and feel free to share these images or download them for yourself.

O ne of my favorite chants from the Visibility March on Saturday was " Get Up, Get Down, There's a Movement in This Town!"  And after Sunday I know that couldn' t be t ruer.

With Great Pride, 

 

Mardi Moore [she/her/hers]

Executive Director

I was recently asked to take part in a transgender visibility campaign sponsored by Out Boulder. I enthusiastically said "Yes" because I strongly believe it's important to bring visibility to transgender lives in Boulder County, even in light of recent national trans visibility. 

The photographs taken for this campaign show us as normal everyday people, which is exactly who we are; however, they also show the pride we have as transgender people. 

Being able to become who we have always seen ourselves to be is a powerful and fulfilling decision, one that allows us to finally be authentic with others.  Just as with lesbian, gay or bisexual identities, particularly in the past, this decision to come out often results in discrimination and harassment. It is also a decision that strengthens our  convictions and deepens our sense of community with each other. 

I believe that normalizing trans identities is one of the important first steps to greater acceptance and support. All of the participants in this campaign are from very different walks of life. We all have a different experience coming to terms with our identities and deciding how and when to share that identity with other people. 

We all believe in this project and know that by publicly outing ourselves, we can help craft a better future for all generations of trans people. 

For me, this project was also a way to honor the trans people who had paved the way before me. As part of the LGBTQ community, I think that endeavor has always been one of our most important - to make coming out and living out as an LGBTQ person easier, less frightening, and more supportive.

I had never been part of a photo shoot before and I was pretty nervous beforehand not knowing what to expect but Mardi had found us a photographer who was part of our community and had known a trans guy previously. 

This was such a relief to me as my experience has consistently been that I am the first trans person that people have met, or at least the first that they knew of. It's nice to be unique, but after awhile it begins to feel alienating and burdensome. It was great not feel the pressure to answer awkward and personal questions or wonder what they think about you. 

I am hoping that this campaign will create more moments like that for me and other trans folk; so that they aren't always the first trans person anyone has seen. Hopefully these photos will begin conversations among non-trans people and inspire some learning about what it means to be transgender.

All of us want to thank Mardi Moore and Out Boulder for committing to this campaign and supporting us as it rolls out. We can't wait to see the results.

Sincerely, 

Morgan Seamont [he,him,his]

Asst. Director of CU's GLBTQ Resource Center &

Out Boulder Transgender Steering Committee Chair

 

Join us for the kickoff of this year's Film Project! We will discuss the goals and timeline of the project, do some brainstorming activities, and watch some of last year's films to show where we are headed.

This meeting will be the ONLY meeting of the year open to parents and guardians, so if your folks want to know more about the project, this is a great way to get them on board. 

The 2015/16 Film project will run from September 26th, 2015 until February 27th, 2016. The class will meet weekly, starting with a lesson from 11 AM until 1 PM every Saturday and free time to work from 1 PM to 3 PM. 

Participants need to be able to commit to attendance every Saturday from 11-1, however if this is a burden, we can find a solution to make sure everyone has the ability to participate. Free work time from 1-3 is always optional, but will become more necessary further on in the year. 

The Film Project is a serious commitment, but this unique class is worth it. Once everyone's films are done, we will host a premiere event open to community members to share everyone's films! (location TBD)

For more information about the Film Project, go t o  www.outboulder.org/youthfilm