Coming out of darkness and into activism

Abstract

This article recounts the experiences of the author at the Women’s March that occurred in Tallahassee, Florida on 21 January 2017. As an openly transgender woman, the author was invited to speak at that March and also to represent Equality Florida, a statewide LGBTQ lobbying group. This article contains the entirety of her speech which provides some autobiographical details about the author’s journey to fully accept her transgender identity and her coming to clarity that taking on a more activist role was an important step in healing from the pain imposed by society for being transgender. In addition, the article provides both the theoretical context for that speech as well as a basic description of the march itself and the venue for the speeches.

Keywords:

• Activism
• experience
• transwoman
• Women’s March on Washington
• Women’s March in Tallahassee
• LGBTQ

Acknowledgements

The author would like to acknowledge the useful comments made by the anonymous reviewer and Pamela Moss, the editor of GPC, for their useful comments on this article. In addition, she would like to thank her wife and life-partner, Elizabeth Kamphausen-Doan, for her patient listening to the draft speech and faithful accompaniment on the Women’s March in Tallahassee as well as our collective march together through life.