First New Pride Meeting

Last night I had my first meeting that I facilitated with New Pride. I was really nervous starting out I have to admit, this is my first time working with a support group. We started out with simple introductions, people could share as much or as little as they liked. A lot of really interesting topics popped up just from our introductions which lead our discussion into shame and family. We concentrated especially on the feeling of shame men (who are still not out) have who think others perceive them as too feminine which I thought was very interesting because of our conversation in class about how society reacts when someone breaks the gender norms. Specifically how it is seen to be much worse when men have feminine traits since femininity is seen as a weakness.

We also actually talked for a good while about why it is so hard for women to come out to their families because of the expectations a family has about a daughter. We talked about how parents have this view of their daughters lives, getting married and having children, and they feel like that is lost when their daughter tells them she is gay. I thought it was interesting that men did not have the same problem when coming out (not that their issues with coming out are any less important) but it seems that parents don't have the same expectations for sons, it is fine if sons don't go out and get married and have kids, they still have the option of having a good career and a fulfilling life, whereas women aren't women anymore if they can't marry a man and have babies.

We also had a speaker come talk from PFLAG who talked about politics for awhile, concentrating on how many rights LGBT still don't have in Ohio. He also spoke about ways to engage families who are having a hard time with a family member coming out.

All in all I think the meeting went extremely well. Everyone participated and we had a couple people really open up. Some people walked in looking terrified, seconds away from tears and as the meeting went on those people opened up and you could almost watch them relax and by the end of the meeting we were all laughing. It was amazing, it's an amazing feeling to know that just being there and listening and sharing stories can make such a difference. To give someone who has no where else to turn a place to open up and relax. It was genuinely inspiring and I am so thrilled I got to be a part of it.

The next meeting that I will actually be facilitating will not be until June, but I will be going to the next meeting just to participate, so I will have one more meeting to share with you about.