House of Representatives, coming out in 1987.
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Retired Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts served as the first openly gay member of the U.S. Army, spent decades fighting for LGBT rights in the military. Miriam Ben-Shalom, an openly lesbian sergeant in the U.S. “You’re probably the best panel in history,” she told the guests, as she invited the audience to talk individually with the panelists following the broadcast.Jeanne Manford, mother of a gay son, was a co-founder of PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) in 1973. The emotionally charged discussion ran over its allotted 90 minutes, but at its conclusion there seemed to be unanimous agreement with the assessment by moderator Kathy Greenlee, J.D., administrator of the HHS Administration for Community Living, and Assistant Secretary for Aging. As Lettman-Hicks and Cokely explored the dimensions of compounded discrimination, they reflected, sometimes bitterly, on the social and familial stress experienced by people who may be LGBT, people of color, and individuals with one or more disabilities. The personal merged with the bigger picture in presentations by Sharon Lettman-Hicks of the National Black Justice Coalition, and Rebecca Cokley of the National Council on Disability. “We had no idea how big that gender thing really was.” “We shamed our child,” she said as she tearfully recalled her child’s suicidal thoughts and self-mutilation. The couple followed advice current in the 1990s and discouraged cross-gender play. Catherine Hyde, transgender coordinator with PFLAG, and her husband realized early on that something was very different about their child, who celebrated her 20th birthday this year. While Sanchez’ parents helped him make his transition from birth gender, the next speaker, the parent of a transgender female, said she had much more to learn. Assigned female gender at birth, he said, “When I was 5, I told my parents I was born wrong.” The panelists who followed Smith developed several of his themes regarding transgender children and their family experiences.ĭiego Sanchez, director of policy for Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), described the unexpected support he received from his military family in the 1960s. When birth gender and identity gender do not match
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“I met myself anew that day, in front of a mirror that saved me.” the same person.” He described an experience in his flat in England, after years of struggling with his identity.
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“I needed to assess what I was becoming,” Smith said of his personal challenge when he entered the university. He spoke of his transition from a child blessed with an accepting family, through adolescent shame and discrimination because of his identification as a gay teen, to an epiphany during his studies at Oxford University. Keynote speaker Albert Smith Jr., Sexual and Gender Minority (SGM) Portfolio Strategist in the NIH Office of Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity, helped set the tone with a moving narrative of his coming of age. One man’s journey to affirming his identity “Let’s embrace the diversity of faces and families that make this department great.”
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“We celebrate our LGBT community,” Burwell told the audience. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia Burwell delivered opening remarks that reinforced the leadership support for LGBT equality and acceptance that was articulated by President Barack Obama and National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D., in their proclamations of LGBT Pride Month.