Life, Interrupted

Run time: 05:05 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwji7g_VK0U   Posted on YouTube: May 09, 2007 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: May 09, 2007 By DU Member: Sapphocrat Views on DU: 2234

 

Considering everything that has been said around here lately, I am so glad to see you do this. It is about time you used your talents towards something like this. Very powerful indeed. Has me in tears, but then you would already know that!

Excellent work, Cobber. Aussie pats on the back for you!

Not that you want my opinion on anything right now. But this is too important for me to remain silent.

On edit: typo

It means a lot.

...BTW I watched it again another few times and I see what you mean by the impact. Slowing it down would remove that and that isn't what you need to do. Things like this need as much impact as possible, and you got it with this one. :)

Really excellent job. I been bragging about it all over the place today to try and get you more views. I hope my bragging pays off. :)

And there are plenty more that have to LIVE with the effects of homophobia. :\

...of the 150 or so in the video, there were three to four I couldn't include for one reason or another. And God knows how many more I don't know about.

Also kind of sad that my expecations of society are so low that I assumed you had to leave plenty out just to be able to fit all that you did in there.

was killed the same week I came out to my (now) ex-wife and my parents. More than anything else they were all frightened for my safety because of this tragedy. Needless to say, over the ensuing years i have explained to anyone that would listen that homophobia and violence against gays is still accepted in a country that claims to have made progress in this area. We won't rest until that is no longer the case

God Bless

just one comment, it goes a little bit too fast to read and look at the pictures.
otherwise, very moving and important.

...but mostly that I want the viewer to be utterly overwhelmed by too much information the first time through, so that (I hope) s/he will feel compelled to watch it more than a few times, so it really sinks in. (The first cut was much slower, but didn't have as much impact.)

Thank you for the kudos. :)

I'm straight but I <heart> my LGBT brothers and sisters, and oppressed people everywhere. I am one with all of them.

It went by too fast to catch his name. I live in Cherokee County and I don't remember hearing about it.

In short, a 15-year-old named Jonathan Miller accosted John on the schoolbus. A couple of witnesses on the bus heard Jonathan call Josh a "bitch" and a "faggot," and tell his friends that Josh was gay, and that "gay people deserve to die." He followed Josh off the bus (the lived only a couple of houses away from each other), ran after him, and took him down with a sucker-punch to the back of the head. He hit him again, and kicked him -- although the first punch was enough to put Josh in a coma. He died two days later.

they were all loving people, so full of life--and to have it cut short.....

Thats all I can say right now.

Thank you.

After all these years Im still trying to come out of a TG closet... because so many still dont understand .

but as soon as I read your comment I just had the overwhelming urge to say to you, "don't put off your personal happiness waiting for other people to stop hating you."

I'm a straight woman so I haven't had the burden of dealing with others' negative (to say the least) reaction to my sexuality/identity. Yet, I am very overweight and have struggled with it for my entire life. I know what it is to be hated viciously, though my civil rights ( well maybe hiring?) haven't been affected. I know what it is like to hate yourself based on other people's definitions of who you are and what your value is as a person to the point of suicidal thoughts.

What I have learned is to love myself despite all of the messages I receive everywhere, explicit or implicit. I have learned to define myself, value myself based on completely separate criteria. I know that it is possible to find a mentality that is so accepting and loving of yourself that anyone else's hate doesn't permeate the armor of self-love. It becomes nonsense because it isn't anything about you anymore. With so much hatred, the weapon can be wielded in our own minds and only we can free ourselves.

I don't pretend to know how frightening it must be for you, how challenging. GLB are just beginning to get some mass understanding while transgender issues are still wildly misunderstood. It involves an openness to the science of gender identity and brain chemistry and a tapestry of variables that I assume you know. All I know is, is life is short, you will never be alive long enough for it to be truly safe for anyone to be transgendered to be free from hate, often violent hate. Yet this is all of the time we have and while you wait you miss time you can spend loving yourself, loving others and being loved by others.

If I am intrusive I apologize. I just have a hard time passing somebody by who needs a reminder to love themselves.

:hug:

Very very appropriate.. and I thank you, quite deeply.

with a slightly higher level of tension worrying for him.

Thank you :hug:

I remember the movie about Teena. I think I need to watch it again, to honor those in this video.

The unfortunate boys in Iran, hanged as a public spectacle, and that's what many Americans want ...... to be just like Iran?

Thank you for sharing this.

Last week I was talking with the young gay son of a friend. He mentioned something about Matthew Shepard and I told him there were many men and women who had given their lives so he could be free and then like the dummy I am, I couldn't name anyone. I will make sure he sees this film. Thanks so much.

A very close friend of mine was murdered by bashers on August 16, 1986 as he was walking home from a gay bar in Tucson, Arizona. Not only were his murderers not brought to justice, his parents tried to file charges against me as an accomplice, claiming that their son would not be dead if I hadn't "led him into sin" and "turned" him gay. Another friend in Fresno comitted suicide on January 3 or 4, 1997, because his ultra-conservative Mormon family was trying to force him into a marriage "for his own good."

For each person mentioned in the video, I expect there are scores in the United States alone who met the same end. Who knows how many are murdered each year in countries like Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and China. Then there are allies who are murdered because they are allies, straight men who are murdered because they do not meet some expectation of masculinity, straight women who dare to question their place in society and so are assumed to be lesbians, the people who are murdered just for asking why we are being murdered, who challenged the bigots self-declared right to murder us.

My one problem is that it ran too fast in places. If this is ever redone, I hope the video is slowed down, so the viewer gets a good, long, clear look at the faces and names.

Thank you.

K n R

That was very touching, you did a great job (to the OP). :(

shame on us.

:cry: