[blindlgbtpride] Intro

[Lyn Gwizdak]

Hi Dorene,
I'm Lyn, a Transsexual man and I'm going to be 61 in a few weeks.  I have 
some sight and use a guide dog.  I live with my sister who is also blind and 
developmentally developed.

I do pet assisted therapy with my guide dog, Landon, a red Lab/Golden cross 
who is going to be 6 next week.  We are active at our blind center and with 
the LGBT community.  I belong to our LGBT Democratic club and we live in San 
Diego.

I have met a couple of blind LGBT folks here - about seven people - some are 
Gay, some are Bi, and two of us are Trans.  We don't really meet other than 
running into each other at some function at the LGBT Center - never at the 
blind center.

What I run into is that it seems that the majority of the blind people here 
are older, christian, and somewhat conservative and  a coouple are openly 
homophobic.  The rest just accept me as I am since they've known me for so 
many years.  I have been a long time volunteer there and have held office - 
board of directors and Board President - and was the Activity Coordinator. 
So, as they find out that I'm Trans, they already know me as the good person 
they always knew.  One of the senior couples has a Lesbian daughter who is 
in the military.  They support their daughter and love her dearly and they 
accept me being Trans.

One of the things I've noticed is the lack of LGBT literature available in 
formats for the blind.  I'm so lucky that I can read print with 
magnification.  Sure, there's the Internet, but there are so many great 
books and they are NOT on tape or Braille.  I look through Talking Book 
Topics, publication from the National Library Service that lists the 
available books on tape - or is it almost all digital now.  I enjoy LGBT 
history books, and Gay male fiction and I borrow these from the library at 
our LGBT Center.  In general, I enjoy historical fiction, biographies, and 
dog books.

It seems that most stuff on tape is Westerns, religious, or other stuff very 
straight orientated - nothing Gay and not much on sexuality in general. 
Don't know how we can change this.

Cheers,

Lyn
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <dorenefc at aol.com>
To: <blindlgbtpride at acb.org>
Sent: Saturday, November 12, 2011 10:52 AM
Subject: [blindlgbtpride] Intro


> Hi All
>
> I have been reading people's introductions with interest and decided to 
> post a little about myself:
>
> My name is Dorene.
>
> I live in Seattle and identify as bi and have had relationships with women 
> since college. I listed my relationship status on Facebook as it's 
> complicated for two days and decided that was too much. I have a husband 
> from Russia who is deaf, gay and not ethnically Russian. We have been 
> separated for several years but have not gotten around to getting 
> divorced. I feel lucky to live in Seattle because it's both socialy and 
> legally easy to be open about lots of things.
>
> I just turned 50 this year. I came of age in the early 1980's when radical 
> feminist and lesbian were often mixed in people's thinking. Feminism is 
> more important to me than, say, sports. I like reading, computers, social 
> justice activism.
>
> I have had crummy vision all my life with different variations depending 
> on the sequence of surgeries. I feel lucky that I could read print allthe 
> way through my MA but I also feel frustrated not to have had more ways to 
> think iabout making some things easier, less tiring. I became legally 
> blind about 7 years ago so I have all kinds of vision dependent habits and 
> really mediocre skills of blindness. Most of the time I am okay with 
> embracing the adventure of it all. Well, most of the time.
>
> I think it was last summer I posted something wondering how many of us do 
> things to be visible for younger blind people dealing with sexual identity 
> issues. I posted the query but I still have not done much about it.
>
> But I am curious, who else is out there on this list.
>
> Dorene Cornwell
> Seattle WA
>
>
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