Over Martin Luther King Jr. day, the LGBT+ community got to "celebrate" by hearing the news that transgender military members would not be protected from President Trump’s trans military ban.

The timing of this violation rather struck us on a day that celebrates diversity and civil rights.

So let’s talk about that...

Martin Luther King Jr. was known for his staunch belief in peaceful protest; non-violent actions and demonstrations in order to incite change and awareness.  And his arguments were often inter-sectional.  His message burned brightly and inspired LGBTQ+ activists from that point forward.

While not every activist in the 1960’s was friendly to black people, many black and white voices united for LGBTQ rights.

Before Stonewall was the BCSL protest (Black Cat Demonstration in Silver Lake).

At the time of Stonewall, kissing a same-sex person in public warranted a sexual offense in California. Activists gathered to respond to an unjust police raid on New Year’s Day where many people were arrested for kissing their partners. 

​While the Stonewall riots are only loosely connected to King in concept, it warrants discussion
when LGBTQ and black rights are on the table. Black queer people have been contributing to King’s dream of equality since day one.

Although Stonewall was not a peaceful protest, it helped build a foundation for all people to be safe regardless of color, gender or sexuality.  It started with a black trans woman's shoe.

In 1969, Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, among many others, were victims to a string of
wrongful raids in gay bars and other safe spaces.

Johnson, a black trans*woman, is most often credited with being the first to resist the police violence that night, which included exposing people’s genitals and groping lesbians.

​After the riot Johnson and Rivera founded STAR, which helped young, homeless transgender people—with a focus on black youth—get off the street.

TheTrans Therapists of Color Network carries on STARs work and specializes in inter-sectional therapy to ensure black and other under-served communities get the mental healthcare they deserve. You can find them on our resource database.

​King believed in community and non-violence to the point of being arrested and jailed several times at demonstrations where he wrote the famous Birmingham Letter.

His spirituality influenced his identity greatly as an activist. The second Selma march was punctuated by King stopping when met with state troopers to kneel and pray.  He is quoted as saying “the holy spirit revives my soul again”.

Many LGBTQ people struggle with reconciling their faith and sexuality or don’t know where to start if they come to realize they are a spiritual person.

The Unitarian Universalist Organization, a national spiritual community who championed MLK's work in civil rights as part of their doctrine, also strongly LGBTQ activism and provide a safe place for any person struggling with housing, religious conflict, or finding community.

Ricki is the Database coordinator for RESCQU.NET. She vets and establishes partnerships with organizations to ensure closet-friendly resources are in the database.

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI);

• ​Members of the LGBTQ+ community are 3 times more likely to experience mental health issues, such as depression and generalized anxiety disorder than straight people.
  
  
• LGBTQ+  youth are 3 times more likely to commit suicide and engage in self-harm. Somewhere between 38%-65% of trans individuals experience suicidal ideation.
  
  
• Between 20-30% of the LGBTQ+ community abuse hard drugs, compared 9% of the general population. 25% of the LGBTQ+ community abuses alcohol, - double the general public’s 5-10%.
  
  

​Members of the LGBTQ+ community also experience “minority stress.”

Minority stress is a kind of constant anxiety that minorities feel due to constant awareness of their actions. Are they drawing too much attention to themselves? Are they representing their community? Do they have reliable social support?

Are they in danger?

Constant minority stress (obviously) leads to worse mental health issues.

Progress has been made to reduce minority stress, but constant diagnosis’ of the LGBT+ community ignores the nature of LGBT+ people’s environmental stresses.  In other words, the discussion of mental health as a biological issue has built a stigma that has been used in turn, as a tactic by LGBTQ+ rights opponents to remove power from our identities.

Over the course of the past 6 years RESCQU.NET has been trying to get ourselves stable footing because it's hard to convince traditional LGBT+ funding organizations that closeted people can be catered to - let alone that it can greatly impact emergency organizations.

But this year is different. 

2018 marked a come-back.  We experienced an explosion in readers, viewers, and attention on the closeted, questioning, and stealth communities. Organizations have sought more connections this year than in the past two.  The quality of the organizations has also increased.

So in 2019 I'd like to take some time to put forward our plans for the 2019 year,
And it sums up with one word: STRENGTH.

Partnering with other organizations is time consuming, arduous and takes a lot of volunteers.

After hiring our resource coordinators Ricki and Charlie we spent a long time discussing the program's future.

So our plan is just going to be to fill it to make it a better resource for all of you.

Then we'll be focusing on increasing the level of partnership interaction we have with these organizations using the closet-friendly program: a program that incentivizes organizations to change the way they interact with their audiences and make it more amenable for people who want to remain anonymous for any reason. 

Why you should contribute to this goal: 
We don't collect much user data. But we do have a ticker that counts enters and exits.

So we know for a fact that we get between 150-200 hits on the database per day and each lasts between 3-6 minutes.  That means the database, in its current incomplete format is already providing one resource every 40 minutes on average.  

That's useful.  That's a LOT of people.

And if we can increase it's accuracy, it's reach, and it's support we could increase the rate at which resources are provided.

You can donate here to help us make this a reality:

One of the most sought-after programs we had in prior years was the support group program. 

But it never happened until last year.  It took years to get the technology, leadership, and facilitators in place. 

So when we did get it into place we were a little taken aback at how little it was utilized.  

We know what we did wrong though.  Advertising and reducing the hurdles to attend are our number one and number two positions.  We have to be careful with these tasks moving forward, but we genuinely feel that these support groups can make for a powerful connection to community for a great amount of people.  

So we'd appreciate your help by spreading the word about our support groups. 

Why you should contribute to this goal: 
Support groups are often one of the best ways for people to get over the hurdles that stop them from doing things emotionally.  A nonprofit can reach out and provide as many resources as possible, but you can't make a horse drink.  

At a support group people can feel more comfortable, and become a part of a community that guides them more, without pressuring them.  They are places where you can "feel" your identity - not just express it.  

So the more support groups we have for questioning, closeted, and stealth people, the more high-quality support we can put into delivering our resources.  They can be an active community.  

And there is no way that isn't worth it. 

If you've made it this far down this post, I just want to say thank you.  

It's clear that you care a lot about the impact that RESCQU.NET has made in your life.  And that is empowering to all of us.  

But what we wanted to provide more was a sense of ACTIVE community.  

Prior to 2017 our communities were a mailing list.  "interaction" happened through our youtube team on Trans Youth Channel, in emails, and private communications and you couldn't really call it empowering.  

But this year we are officially launching our upcoming Whisper community, and we'd like you to be a part of it!

It's currently up for you to join at this link, but we will officially launch it around the beginning of march :)