The Wednesday Coffee

Hi everyone out there!
I have an exciting surprise for you, an UPDATE! a NEW POST! a return to my weekly ramblings about the Valley Giblet Community (Thanks Rachel!).
Wednesday was the traditional Valley LBGT Community Coffee at Vagabond blues in Palmer. As on every Wednesday our regulars convened over steamy cups of coffee like beverages and shared news and gossip about the goings on in the valley, Alaska generally, and the State of the Union.
I suppose our top subject was the state of the Anchorage Trans Community (fair), followed by the joys of winter (few), Passport photography, cold snowmachine runs to Dawson, life on Alaskan trails and the deep wilderness. Trucks and transmissions, subarus and the blackness of coffee.
Lastly, an exhortation: Community Coffee is open to everyone, and welcomes everyone. When you sit with us, you not only get the comradarie and comfort of like minded folks, a chance to make new friends, to share about the state of your world, and ideas for the future - you also provide a needed service to us. Without you, there is no us. No community. nothing. We who are gay, lesbian, transgendered, bisexual, friendly or unsure, remain invisible, and invisibility invites repression. So long as fear prevents you attending, you feed the public fear of us. You help give the impression that LBGT people are rare, and not like "us". It's only when our friends and aquaintances find that the people they live with, love, work with, and respect are also members of the LBGT community, that the wider community can put a face to us, and dispell the myths and false notions so common here in the Valley.
We are not perverts, child molesters, freaks, sickos, and nasty promiscuous panderers. But how can anyone think otherwise if they don't know us? When the wary become aware that "those" people are just people like themselves it becomes much harder to believe hateful rhetoric, and participate in discrimination.
Just showing up for coffee is all it takes, you win, we win, they win. So, think about it. Wednesday, 5pm, Vagabond Blues. It's your chance to make the world just a little bit better.
Have a great week,
Brianne!