" Loraine Hutchins Introduces ABilly S. Jones-Hennin "Imagine Lani Ka'ahumanu right beside me cause if she were here she'd say, like we just said here at the conference, 'write the history, tell the stories.' ABilly makes you think that social justice revolution is the most NATURAL thing in the world. Like it is. In 1979, the year after Harvey Milk was assassinated, ABilly helped mobilize the first ever March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, and that SAME weekend helped convene the first people of color LGBT conference, held in Washington, DC at Howard University's Harambee House Hotel. We first met at the Wash., DC Runaway House, a few years before that when he walked in, looking hot & smart, a merry twinkle in his eyes, for a job interview as youth counselor, and ended up directing the program a few years later. We've both created and contributed to many many human service organizations and coalitions since then, to bring us to the place we are here today. From the first day we met, ABilly and I became fast friends and loyal comrades. ABilly has shown me so much about nurturing a long-term, committed polyamorous open family, that includes constellations of inter-connected families -- moveable feasts -- that embrace everyone in this room .. and beyond. ABilly has now been to the White House and the Mayor's office of DC so many times the security dudes know bi every name he calls himself, they're part of his family too. ABilly is a quiet persistent instigator who sticks up for old people and homeless people and prisoners and refugees and workers, everyone. Please join me in welcoming this man with the biggest heart in the world ... ABilly Jones-Hennin !!" ABilly S. Jones-Hennin: “If Loving You Is Wrong, Then I Don't Want Wanna Be Right”My fellow bisexuals... I stand before you as an unapologetic, outspoken, bisexual activist who has intimately loved women, men and transgender persons throughout my life span of 72 years; And in the words of a popular and soulful rhythm and blues song from the sixties and seventies by Luther Ingram and Rod Stewart, “If loving you is wrong, Then I don't wanna to be right!” I stand before you acknowledging that I have been
Then I Don't Wanna BE Right or DO Right! Coming to Minneapolis is always a HOMECOMING because it is the city that inspired me to acknowledge publicly
One key message I would like to convey to you today is that COMING OUT IS A LIFTIME AND ONGOING ADVENTURE Every day, and often many times a day, one may find yourself gently or forcefully coming out to someone or someones. Just on the plane coming here, minding my own business and trying to take a nap, my seat mate asked me if I lived in Minneapolis. My short answer was, “No.” Now I could have shut up, but I informed my seat-mate that I was going to a conference. And that response led to, “What conference?” I paused and thought to myself, how far do I want to take this. So to speed things up, I informed him that I was speaking at a bisexual conference. And guess what, he wanted to know more so that he could let his daughter know about the conference; so we talked throughout the entire trip – me talking and sharing about me; he talking and sharing about him and his daughter. He shared that his daughter had been married to a man; then announced that she was a lesbian and in a relationship with a woman; and is now again in a relationship with a man. Poor Dad was confused and I am not sure my story helped so I suggested that HE come to this conference – if not this year, next year. Like some of you here today (hopefully not too many), early in my life I identified as straight – in part because being heterosexual was all I knew; in part because in the forties and fifties when I was growing up, there were more likely to be hand signals to describe sexual minorities than words like bisexuals, lesbians, gays, and transgender persons.
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I was nineteen years old, at a party in college, and this friend of mine, Kira, had just broken up with her live-in boyfriend. I asked her if she needed a place to crash, and she looked at me for a moment, paused, and said, “Only if you know what you’re offering.” I had no idea what she meant, and blinked cluelessly at her – long enough for Kira to sigh, pat me on the head, and say “Never mind,” before going into the kitchen for another drink.
Well, I may be slow, but I’m not entirely dense – I figured it out after a few minutes, and followed her into the kitchen to stammer something about just meaning crash space on my couch. I’d had a boyfriend, after all, and had quite enjoyed the sex – at that point, I assumed I was straight. Kira told me not to worry about it; that might have been that. But I went home that night, and I thought about her. And I couldn’t stop thinking about her. A few days later, I got up all my nerve and called to ask her out. She said ‘yes.’ Kira cooked for me, an Italian eggplant dish, fried slices simmered in a dark tomato sauce, served over pasta. I didn’t tell her I hated eggplant. By the time she was done, I’d found I liked it. I liked it a lot. The morning after that night we spent together (a night where I was entirely clumsy and she was entirely kind), we walked to campus together, holding hands. I was intensely conscious of Kira’s small hand in mine, of how people might be staring at us, as I tried not to stare back at them. It was scary – and it was scary again when, not long after, I went to my first campus bisexuality group meeting. I stood outside for a minute, before knocking on the closed door, gathering my nerve. And then knocked, and was welcomed into a crowded room full of warmth and laughter. I felt like I’d come home. *** Coming out as bi wasn’t my first coming out. My parents are Sri Lankan, born and raised – I was born there myself, though we moved to the States when I was two. They had had an arranged marriage, and found love within it – they planned, expected, the same for me. I had other ideas. As a teen, I fooled around with boys in my neighborhood, though I was too nervous to let it get very far. I had carefully arranged to go to college halfway across the country, which made it possible to keep my first college boyfriend a secret from my family. But it was terrifying, keeping that secret. I was constantly afraid that I’d be caught; when I held his hand on campus, it was just as scary as holding Kira’s hand. At the end of that year, after we’d broken up, I’d decided that I was done with secrets – that I was going to tell my parents. I did tell them about the next boy I dated. (It took a while before I told them about the girls too.) |
BECAUSEBECAUSE 2024
October 4th - 6th, 2024 Murzyn Hall Columbia Heights, MN We hope you will join us for the BECAUSE Conference in fall 2024! MissionBuild, serve and advocate for an empowered bisexual, pansexual, fluid, queer, and unlabeled (bi+) community to promote social justice. Vision
Within the next five years grow Bisexual Organizing Project (BOP) into a successfully-run Upper Midwest nonprofit organization with annual funding of $100,000 that provides community building, education, and advocacy for the bisexual, pansexual, fluid, queer, and unlabeled (bi+) community and our allies.
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