pam – Diary of a Gay Nerd

Last night I attended the monthly Bakersfield PFLAG meeting where their special guest was Autumn Sandeen. If anyone doesn’t know who she is, she handcuffed herself to the White House fence to protest the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy and was arrested for it along with a few other people including Lt. Daniel Choi.

Autumn Sandeen is a very wise and very intelligent woman. When the Pflag meeting was over, Chip and I got to go talk with her for a few minutes. I have learned so many things about people in the transgendered community over the years and I have come to gain a great respect for anyone who knows what their gender should be and takes the proper actions to change it for themselves. She isn’t having an identity crisis because she knows what her identity is and that is of a human being who should have been born in a different body. Plain and simple.

Autumn is a person who deserves my respect and has it. She is more of an activist than I could ever hope to be because she actually goes out there and does what she says she will do. She is doing what I wish I had the courage to do and that is what makes her a hero to me. She is standing her ground and going to jail for her beliefs and sometimes if that is what it takes to make change happen, then that is what she must do.

I am very lucky to have had the opportunity to meet her and I look forward to the world changing because of her bravery and determination.

Autumn Sandeen writes a blog for Pam’s House Blend, you can follow her on Twitter @AutumnSandeen and subscribe to her on YouTube.