The Ominous Birthday!

I remember the day I turned 16 and headed off to take my driver’s test so I could have that coveted driver’s license which would give me so much more freedom, or at least I thought. I still even remember my birthdays as a child with two parties- one for the adults and one for my friends from the neighborhood and school. My mother, who, like me, loved to bake, would always make cupcakes and take them into my grade school on my birthdays as well. The kids would all sing Happy Birthday to me on my special day. I did not mind my birthdays at all-for who would not like cake and ice cream and presents! It was my special day! As I grew older the celebrations diminished but it was my special day and one cannot ever outgrow cake and ice cream not matter what age!

When I turned 18 I remember the wild party that ensued with my high school classmates for I had reached adulthood and was now able to vote, work without restrictions, own my car and other property and for most things treated as an adult. When I turned 21and was able to legally drink everywhere and I remember my friends taking me out for a wild celebration that included each one taking turns buying me shots of their choice (and each trying to be more “creative”) with the expectation that I was to make it to 21 shots in addition to all the other alcohol I had consumed. I remember 17 shots but nothing afterward until about 5 AM in the morning when I was eating at some 24 hour diner with the few survivors. It did not matter- I was young and I was invincible. I did not need sleep and I partied like there was no tomorrow- what did I care I was young and my whole life was ahead of me!

Each birthday after that was a nice celebration of cake and ice cream and each birthday morning in my old life began with the playing on the stereo of the Beatle’s classic hit “Birthday” followed that evening by presents and cards from my family. My ex always took me out to dinner to celebrate as I did for her birthday. When I turned 30, I still felt so young and invincible and still carrying deeply buried secret so immersed in side me- but I still had so much of my life left. My daughter was only four and my son had just been born two weeks earlier. I made more money than I knew what do with as a young partner in a law firm of much prestige.

On the day I turned forty I took the day of work to spend the day with my son and daughter who were off school for some reason. By this time the secret I had been carrying had long since emerged and I had long begun struggling with my identity of who I really was underneath that shell that hid me so well for so long and my career was began to unravel as well. But I still believed I could control it- I was invincible! The day started as usual with the blaring of the Beatle’s tune and that weekend would be presents and cake and dinner with my family. My staff at the office had decided to decorate my office with tombstones and black streamers and all sorts of decorations insinuating that I was “over the hill”! I laughed at the spectacle. I was forty- I was still young and I had my whole life ahead of me and I was still a partner in a law firm and making more money in year than my father made in six or seven years! I did not give one thought to the decade that was ahead of me.

The past decade did many things to shake me from my feeling of youth and invincibility. My true self continued to emerge from the layers I had poured on her and made me feel so much more alive but also so much more vulnerable. A few years into the decade I would be faced with dealing with Alzheimer’s which had ravished my mother and the advanced age of my parents as well as the ultimate deaths of my mother and my father and the untimely death of my brother. I began to realize that I was not invincible and someday my time would come. I did not want people to remember me as the person I was not and as a coward who hid the real me from the world. The decade would bring about the decision to transition to live my life as who I really was and not someone I pretended to be. I left the law firm and began another career and then yet another. My transition brought about many changes in me and the disintegration of my family relations and rejection of my children. I met Paula and over a year fell in love with this beautiful loving woman who accepted me and embraced me for who I truly was and we began a life together but that only added more pain to others. I would be challenged physically with medications, hormones, laser and electrolysis and, of course, several difficult and physically challenging surgeries to bring my anatomy in line with my soul and essence!

Now in a couple weeks I will hit another milestone- my fiftieth birthday! 50- For God sakes that is old! I really don’t feel that old and hopefully I don’t look it either but just saying it makes me feel old. Thirty was young and forty sounded kind of young-BUT 50 is old. I face this coming birthday with some trepidation! I don’t care what you say about some of you hitting 50 or even 60 or 70 already ……turning fifty really hits you right smack in the face with a taunting message that says…”Just how invincible are you now girl!!!”I can no longer tell myself I am in my forties and still “sort of young”. No – I am about to embark on the fifties and that my friends is no longer young- no matter how you look it. I am a middle-aged woman……

Although I will enter this birthday landmark with some trepidation; I cannot stop it from coming anymore than I could all the rest of them that have come before …..it will come just like the rest of them came, with a little fanfare, some well wishes and cards, some presents from my love Paula, a nice dinner out and some cake and ice cream. It will come and I will enter a new decade of life but this decade will be at least one of living it as who I truly am and always have been! Maybe it will also include a blaring of a little Beatles tune as well….I guess I should be glad it is not “When I’m sixty-four” huh?

2009-a wild ride that got wilder!

As we come close to closing out yet another year I always take stock in what has happened in my life as we near the dawning of yet another year. 2009 will definitely go down in my memory as the most challenging and exciting years of my life. When I closed out last year I talked about the wild ride for 2008 that brought about many changes and I discussed what was to come in 2009 but that foretelling was only the tip of the iceberg in my life journey. There will probably never be another year like this one but that is good as I need to settle in a bit more although I know there are many more paths to trail in this journey and challenges ahead- at least I hope so anyway!

The beginning of this year brought about the inauguration of a new President - one that only 20 years ago would have seemed nearly impossible. An African- American was installed as our newest President although he came in under circumstances which were far from optimal and far more challenges than many other s had seen in sometime. I was driving to Boston that day with Paula for what would be the first of my surgical procedures on 2008 that would alter my body and anatomy to comport with not only my presentation but my inner essence and soul as well. We stopped in a service center in Connecticut for gas and lunch and watched the process on TV as it unfolded. I would have loved for my father to have seen this as he believed he would never see such a sight in his lifetime and he was right. He died a couple years to soon. My brother – one of the few people I know who actually admits voting for McGovern in 1972 would have loved it to but atlas his life had been cut short not long before our father.

Boston would involve about 13 days of stay in a hotel room while I recovered from the trauma and pain of having my face and head torn apart by a skilled plastic surgeon able to only eat soft foods in small bites and a routine of medicine, ice packing and even boredom relieved only by computer contacts and phone calls and a wickedly lengthy game of gin rummy with my partner, my love and my supporter – Paula! We left there to travel to Philadelphia where we both met with our surgeon to discuss the next round of surgeries as well. I returned home to find out I was had been terminated from working for a company on their planning projects because I was transgendered and people were uncomfortable working with me. I am sure that not too long ago people were uncomfortable working with African Americans and now such individual had become President of this great country of ours! I became more resolved than ever from this experience and Paula and I continued our efforts to seek justice, liberty and equality of opportunity and to pursue our happiness in life by continuing to work with groups such as TransOhio, Equality Ohio and NCTE to promote such concepts through rallies and lobbying, letter writing and meetings and workshops as we sought to have enacted Ohio HB 176 as well as ENDA and the Hate Crimes Bill. Discrimination and hatred against those of us in the LGBT community for simply being who we are and we who we want to be with must end and this struggle for dignity will endure for some time to come. We traveled to our state capital in Columbus as well as our nation’s capital in Washington, DC. There is still so much more work to do and we will continue to pursue these goals and face the challenges in the years to come.

The spring also brought about our move from Circleville to Columbus and we still are so grateful for all our friends who helped in this massive endeavor. I know there would pieces of stuff and some boxes left out in the parking lot of our complex if it was not for these wonderful people and I know simple thanks is not enough. Paula and I have always taken the position that our home is open to all who need to come just to chat or crash for a day or two or however long is needed to our friends even if that principle angered some others through our acts of kindness. We continue to maintain that principle.

By May we were making plans for the first trip to New Hope Pa for my long awaited gender confirmation surgery which others call by many other names such as GRS or SRS. However, to me it was GCS because it confirmed my true gender and being and merely altered the anatomy to comport with that true gender and the essence of who I am and always have been. New Hope is cool town and Dr. McGinn is an exceptional caring physician and my life in New Hope for two weeks again saw many challenges and more assault on my body from the GRs as well as another procedure. Even the preparation process beforehand was nothing fun to write home about! I should have invested in pain medication stocks before this year began- that is sure! I survived another long ordeal on the operating table and days in the hospital with an exceptionally caring staff and then shared a hotel with several other women like me who had undergone the ordeal the same week I did. Some great friendships were built which were not there when the year began.

In July it was time for another trip to New Hope. This time I would be the care provided as Paula underwent the GRS as well as another procedure. She had a bit more difficulty than I did in all this process but we still enjoyed our time in New Hope again. We made more friends and Paula received the same excellent care I did from the staff of the hospital. For both of us our life after these surgeries took on new challenges for us in the form of dilations! Both of us had to push our way through the legal and political process of getting new birth certificates and changing the gender markers on driver’s license and all other governmental and agency records.

Throughout this year Paula and I have become increasingly involved and active in our new spiritual home at North church – am open and affirming congregation of loving people that has extended our circle of friends and who are more like family to us. We are both actively involved in many committees and projects and community outreach endeavors. This church was also the place where Paula and I celebrated our love for each other in a same gender union ceremony in October. Paula and I were so happy to hold this service in front of our friends and “extended family”. We always will cherish the memories of this wonderful day!

This year has brought about a change for me in my career as I embark on yet another occupation. Using my experiences and education and training in government, law and business I became an instructor and embarked on teaching a generation of students that are the same age as my children. I love teaching a great deal and have found much joy and many challenges in this endeavor. Paula and I celebrated our second Christmas together and this marked yet another year that has gone by without contact from our family who have refused to even communicate with us by any means of communication currently known to humankind! It is sad and this lack of even trying on their part causes us some pain but we support each other and with the help of our friends we endure and go forward. Each day that goes by brings about the understanding that such communication and exchange may never come and while that is sad- it is something we have learned to deal with in our lives! I do not know what 2010 has in store myself or for us but after what all has gone in 2009, I don’t see how it could be any more of a wild ride then we have seen over the last couple years!

I wish each of you a beautiful and peaceful and wondrous New Year for 2010!

Holiday Cheer and the Christmas Spirit

Those of you that know me pretty well know that my favorite holiday season is Christmas. Always has been and probably always will be. I love the season for many reasons – some very silly reasons and others much more deep and complex. Some of the silly reasons include the fact there is the opportunity to decorate your home and make it much more festive than it usually is during other parts of the year and this year is no different just because Paula and I live in a townhouse apartment. Many people in our church were shocked the other day to find out in a survey our minister did during his sermon that we have four trees up in the “homestead”. Now prey tell were does one put up four trees in an apartment? Well all of them are seven feet and under and the littlest is about a foot tall.

One tree is the main one in our living room and it is red, green and white lights and decorations of ornaments I have collected from everywhere I have travelled around the world. There is a smaller tree in the alcove near our dining area which highlights the Santa’s and elves I have including one wind up Santa which was bought by my grandmother in the 1930’s. Other decorations adorn shelves and tables and some throw pillows for chairs and couches. I put lights in our kitchen window and lighted garland leads the way to the second floor where a small tree appears in our bedroom and another larger one in my office window. That one is done in blue and silver lights and ornaments. Finally, a wreath on the door and small inside door knob decorations finish off the touch along with some candles and a poinsettia. The last touch of course is the hanging of Paula and I’s stockings for the jolly old elf to fill up with goodies!

Another reason I love the season is all the parties and sharing of food, drink and fun with many wonderful friends we are blessed to have in our lives. I love sending and receiving holiday cards and greetings with friends as well. I also love to bake and Christmas means the opportunity to bake delightful treats. I usually bake between 7-9 different kinds of cookies and bars for the holidays. I am even having one of our friends’ daughters come over to help me so I can teach her how to do press cookies. I will admit that all these parties and treats do not do much for one’s waistline but life is short so take a bit of time off and enjoy and stick to diets and exercise the other 11 months of the year. I know the week of Christmas itself Paula and I will be helping prepare the Sunday dinner at the Y family shelter for 150 plus people. We look forward to this and we decided to get some small toy presents for the children there as well. Paula and I decided after some prayerful contemplation to take over the coordinating of this outreach program for 2010. Paula and I also “adopted” Anne and Marie’s children for the Christmas season and we had a blast going out buying them each a present for Christmas and we plan to have them all over with their moms to celebrate together and watch them open their presents. We also plan to take them over to the Columbus Zoo to see the holiday lights display.

That week is also a time off for me and I will relax and watch some holiday movies including Scrooged, A Christmas Story and the mother of all Christmas comedies- Christmas Vacation. I always watch my favorite holiday production- A Christmas Carol performed so admirably by the talents of George C. Scott. Paula and I are going see the production as well at our friend Lyn’s church this weekend. I will cook us a nice holiday dinner that week as well and on Christmas Eve we will go to a friend’s house for a shared meal together for those without blood families to go to on Christmas. I say blood relatives because I have a family here in Columbus but it is not related by blood (those people all rejected me) but one connected by love and friendship. I cherish these people deeply and they are my chosen family! Christmas Eve will also mean a lovely Christmas Eve service at our church and then home for “long winter’s nap” before waking up to celebrate Christmas morning with Paula. Later that day we will gather with more of our extended chosen family for a movie and dinner.

The holidays are a wonderful time also for hope, love and peace which are some mighty wonderful things. It is a time of year when humans are more inclined to “open their hearts to their fellow creatures” and show acts of kindness and love to others who are less fortunate and in need. It is not the fact that we should be doing this everyday of the year but it seems to get done a little better during the holidays. It is a time of year when people laugh a little more and feel more kindness and warmth inside. For one time a year “we become the people we always knew we could be” (again seeing how well people remember these lines from the movies). Peace on earth is a nice saying and I hold out hope that someday this may be a reality for us and not merely a wish but it is going to take a long journey to get there.

Love and hope also have special meaning for meaning I as get ready to spend another holiday season away from my children who I love so dearly. I would consider the best gift (even better than a Red Rider B-B gun) I could receive this or any Christmas is for my children to end their silence and rejection of me and to begin reconciliation with me by picking up the phone and calling me or even just sending me a card or e-mail over the holidays. We have to begin somewhere and what better time to begin then over the holidays and I will always hold out hope that I might someday receive this gift from them. If all I ever have is hope then so be it. I will not live without hope and I will work each day to be a better person and promote more love, peace and hope! That is the message of the holiday season and I will share my Christmas Spirit and good cheer with all and especially our warm, loving friends who have made us part of their family!

So all our friends out there I wish you peace, joy, hope, love and good cheer this holiday season and have your selves the “hap-happiest Christmas since Danny Kay tapped danced White Christmas with Bing Crosby” Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! Happy Hanukah! Happy Kwanza! Best wishes for a great New Year filled with much love and hope and peace!

Thanksgiving- Past and Present

This week is Thanksgiving and it is hard to believe that the holidays are upon us again. It does not seem so long ago that I was celebrating this day for the first time with my partner Paula. Actually, it does not seem so long ago that I was celebrating this day with my family who now is so distant from me. However, even then we hardly ever celebrated the event in our own home. In twenty –five plus years my ex-wife and I and later our children celebrated this day in our own home only twice. We were always packing up and heading to my parent’s house or her parent’s house to celebrate this day. Year after year after year the process was repeated but at least I got to celebrate this day with my family.

I still vividly recall the last Thanksgiving with my parents. We were coming over to pick them up to take them out for dinner but my father was in such poor condition he could not get himself ready and we found him in night clothes at noon sitting with my mother who was only months from her death and who, by virtue of the ravishing hideous disease of Alzheimer’s had forgotten we were coming although we had just called to remind them the day before and the morning of Thanksgiving. I took my son down to Kroger’s after we cancelled our dinner reservations and we bought some supplies to make for our Thanksgiving and cooked it there and ate together with my parents for the last time in their house and the only house I ever knew until I left home. I knew that day it was likely the last time we would celebrate Thanksgiving together and in that house. A few days later my parent’s time in the house ended and their remaining days were spent living in a nursing home. Mom died just a couple months later- her long battle with the disease that had taken her dignity and her mind was over.

Thanksgiving 2006 was spent at the house of mother-in-law but also with my father. A group of us had driven over to the nursing home and lifted his weak deteriorating body from the wheelchair into my car and transported him to my mother-in- law’s house so he would not be alone that day and could celebrate Thanksgiving with his family. It would be his last one as death took him from me that spring. However, I remember how happy he was that day. It may have been one of last few happy days in his life for just about two weeks after Thanksgiving of 2006, my brother was killed in an accident and I had to go to the nursing home and tell him and rip this poor aging man’s heart out – he was never the same afterward and I was soon to morn his loss with that of my mother and brother.

In November of 2007, I was celebrating what would be my last Thanksgiving with my family. Again, it would be at my mother-in law’s place and I knew myself it was likely going to be my last one with them. I had already begun transition and my ex-wife and I had drifted so far apart we were walking around in fog of mistrust and uneasiness that would lead the next spring to our demise together and the closing off of all contact with my children I love and miss so dearly. I had a feeling of an omen that day that I could not shake and it even put a damper on the day. Flashbacks to the two Thanksgivings before only added to my sadness. So much had changed since the last “normal Thanksgiving I could recall in 2004.

Last year, Paula and I were fortunate to celebrate Thanksgiving with my last surviving members of my family outside of my children who had cut off all contact with me when we traveled to Pennsylvania to spend Thanksgiving with my sister-in-law and nephew and niece. The visit also coincided with my appointment with my surgeon who the next spring would finally alter my body to reflect my true spirit and essence of who I was and end the inner conflict that had had been with me for so many troubled years since my youth. It was also my first Thanksgiving with Paula and we also visited our friend who had just had surgery that week. It was a pleasant experience but I still sensed some uneasiness. Over the last year it seems that my relationship with them has deteriorated. This saddens me further and makes the memory of 2008 Thanksgiving almost seem like a last gathering of the Alexander’s.

Now we approach Thanksgiving 2009 and it seems that I am not the only one sort of feeling, for lack of better words, out of whack about this event. Paula is having some issues I can tell and it stems for the fact she spent her Thanksgiving with her family celebrating with her family- her mother and father, her two children and her pride and joy – her two grandchildren. Her parent have rejected her and cast her out as have her children and with that goes her contact with her the grandchildren she loves so dearly. I know all this bothers her deeply. Just the other week she took down the pictures of her family we had up in our townhouse and packed them- they only serve to remind her of people she cannot see and those who had rejected her and cast her out of their lives for being who she is as a person. I still have my pictures of my children up despite the fact they do not acknowledge my existence. The pictures may be all I will ever have to remind me of them in my life.

So it is with great trepidation Paula and I will spend Thanksgiving 2009 together. We plan to celebrate it with friends of ours from our community who have also seen pain and disconnection with their families and some other people I don’t even know that well and some not at all! Please don’t get me wrong- we love our friends very dearly but with what has gone on since 2004 and the loss of contact with my children, Thanksgiving fills me with a sense of sadness I cannot stand to even have on a such a wonderful day I have fond memories of- even as a child. I still can smell the pumpkin and apple pies baking in my mother’s kitchen and the deliciously tantalizing smell of the turkey and all the fixings emanating from the oven through the house that w would be filled soon with my brother, my grandparents and even an Aunt or two. I love watching the parade and dining on my mother’s incredible culinary delights and even relished the fact that the next day we would have leftovers as we began to prepare the house for Christmas that would not be far behind.

I also know that Thanksgiving is day of thanks for the gifts and blessing we have been bestowed. I am so very grateful for all our friends we love so much and who have deeply enriched our lives. Thank you for being part of lives and sharing your love. I will give thanks for them and I will also give thanks for my life with Paula and for the fact that we survived all of our surgeries this year. These are all truly wonderful gifts we have been bestowed and for which I am so very grateful. I cannot, however dwell that day on all that I have lost as well in the past five years. I cannot help but think upon the fact I no longer celebrate this day with my mother or father, brother or even my children or any others in my family. I will celebrate it with my partner Paula who I love so much and with a few friends who I have me part of their loving family through the threads of a shared anguish and discard from their loved ones and I will be thankful we have a place to go on this Thanksgiving- even if it is a church hall. However, if you see me close my eyes for a few moments don’t disturb me – for brief few moments I plan to slip away into another time period in my past and smell the aromas emanating from my mother’s kitchen and hear the sounds of my family gathering on this day. I will also give thanks for the memories I still cherish.

Best wishes for Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Pictured above is me in 1965 at my mother's house for Thanksgiving (I really wish however the picture had been of me in a nice pretty dress and a pair of Maryjanes instead of the dress pants and tie!!)

Stream Of Consciousness II

I have been remiss in writing my blogs lately primarily because I have been busy with getting myself settled in my new career of teaching which, by the way, is going pretty well. That has not however stopped my mind from accumulating thoughts and ideas to write about. So many thoughts have come to me over the last few weeks I decided to revisit an idea I did about two years ago when I wrote a blog entitled Stream of Consciousness. This blog was a bunch of mini blogs all in one on many different subjects, most of which are not even connected. So here goes……stream of consciousness two…….

I have never understood the opposition to legalized gambling on religious grounds or moral reasons and I have always supported such endeavors. I don’t care if Ohio only gets $25,000 in new revenue from all this (they will however, get a whole lot more!) it’s $25,000 more than they would have had if they did not have it. If it creates only 500 new jobs (and it will create far more) then so bit – it’s five hundred more than we had. From a pure financial and economic perspective it makes sense. The opposition on these grounds was weak at best and mostly just a belief Ohio should have done it differently or gotten a better deal (and maybe they should have) but the real opposition in this matter was on moral and religious grounds as it always is in these cases. I am having difficulty remembering where it is in the New Testament of Bible that gambling was held up to be a great evil! Yes if one gets out of control with anything such as drinking or gambling issues can arise but for the most people it is just another form of entertainment like dining out, going to baseball game or the movies or a Broadway performance. That is all I have ever viewed it as in society. If someone is opposed to doing it on some religious grounds then don’t do it. No one is holding a gun to your head to go or not go to the casinos. It’s part of free choice in society which I am a big believer in by the way. Like my father use to say, if you don’t like what is on T.V. change the channel- no one is making you watch that station.

Same- sex marriages and same sex unions are again in the news as Maine becomes the 31^st state (OUT of 31!) to reject it. Lead by our “morally justified” friends from Salt Lake Utah who have spent millions in California and Maine and most likely soon other places like Iowa to defeat the unions of two people who love each other in a committed relationship on the basis that both happen to have the same genitalia, the religious right (which by the way is NEITHER!) prances triumphantly in defense of its worn out religious dogma! The only references (and they are obscure at best on the subject comes from the Old Testament and the New Testament (upon which the entire premise of Christianity was founded in the first place!) make no mention of it. My thinking is simple this – if Jesus, as the founder of Christianity, thought that this was such a big moral issue I am sure he would have mentioned it in at least ONE of his teachings- YET he did not do so. And yet- it is these very Christians who oppose the loving union of two people who are of the same gender. The irony of this does not escape me and I know many Christians who do not feel this way but as long as the Baptists and Mormons and Catholics keep spouting their hate rhetoric on this issue change cannot take place. The fact of the matter is this; our society is not ready for same gender unions not matter how we label them. Before we can prevail on this issue more education and enlightenment needs to place in this country. One can start by seeing if they can get it through the right wing’s thick skulls that being gay, or lesbian or bi or transgendered is NOT a “choice” or a “lifestyle” it is simply who we are as people and have been since our early time on this planet. As a closing thought I sincerely belief this issue is one which will be ultimately won in federal courts and not the ballot box. Issues such as full faith and credit, equal protection and a judge like the one in California which says “OK opponents show me the evidence that demonstrates that same sex unions somehow destroy the validity and sanctity of your heterosexual union”…..plain and simple- it cannot be demonstrated and those in the right wing know this!

I will find it quite interesting in my life if I am somehow able to live long enough to witness the election of a President of this country from the Generation Y. We have seen the Presidents of the Great Society and skipped those of the Silent Generation because many perceived them as not being leaders like those of the Great generation. My generation (the Baby Boomers) is one that produced many great leaders in society and several Presidents. Today we have in office a member of Generation X holding down the Presidency. So I guess it is plausible someday I will see a member Generation Y (around 1982-1999) become President and it will be interesting indeed. Having been involved with teaching mostly those of this generation for a few months now I wonder how any of them can stay focused on anything for more than thirty minutes. They say it is because of the technology and gadgets they have to use and have experienced since they were small that their attention span is much more limited (and people of my time thought it was bad we watched the Idiot Box). These short attention spans will be entertaining indeed to observe as in the Presidency. I just hope state department meetings and negotiations with high level diplomats can be limited to less than 20-30 minutes …..Better yet let’s see if we can arrange a texting session with the leader of hostile third world nations. I just hope the leader is fluent in “Texting” so as to not lead to great misunderstandings!

While I poke some fun at those of the Gen-Y generation, I am happy to be teaching them. I really enjoy teaching. My reviews have been good and I like interacting with the young people. Teaching really is just that – interacting and exchanging thoughts and ideas. This process has given me great joy and a second or is it third career. I guess they liked my work as my course load more than doubled for the winter quarter and that is fine with me. One of the new classes I will be teaching is Ethics and there is a whole Chapter in the course devoted to LGBT issues (Guest Speaker anyone?). Hmmmm…how ironic is this….a teacher who is both L and T and good friends with many G and B’s, and in a same sex union herself discussing the ethical dilemmas and issues pertaining to LGBT including same sex unions. Ought to be some good discussion and questions in this one…..so long as I keep them to less than 20-30 minutes I suppose!!