It has been a while since having the time to write out an update and blog entry, so I’ll dive right in! Katherine and I have been progressing along in our outreach and activism. We have been working on many things in the last several months. First, we have been able to pay off some old debts, make plans for going forward in our personal life, and ground ourselves further in our outreach. The children are enjoying the spring weather. Jay received all A’s on her report card for first semester. She had assessment testing that she scored above average or highly above average on both aspects of the testing. Josh has learned to count to 100, has a birthday next month and will be turning four.
The Trans Lifeline has an up and coming family outreach. Katherine was offered and accepted the roll of the Hotline Director for the Trans Lifeline Family Line. The Family Line is a place for cis-allies to volunteer at least two hours a week, taking calls from other family members and friends of transgender people. The overall goal is to strengthen the support structure for our transgender siblings. With a rigorous, thorough, and accredited 32-hour training course, each ally volunteer becomes well versed the issues and struggles the transgender population endures. Kat has been working diligently to get volunteers oriented, trained, and ready to take calls from trans allies. She is of course still taking calls full time and working as a team lead with the Trans Lifeline as well. Recently, a mutual friend of Kat’s and my own has asked me to come on board with a non-profit called The Trans Empowerment Project-National. The project runs a program called “inTRANSition” that is a sponsor home program for homeless and abused transgender folks 18-25. The host home sponsors are all volunteers that are either directly friends with someone at The Trans Empowerment Project, or friends of friends. We network people together to house a trans person in need to a volunteer host home sponsor. We vet each trans client as well as each volunteer thoroughly. We also have rules and regulations that we have formed from learning experiences we’ve gone through with our first dozen or so clients. We’ve housed over a handful of clients with host home sponsors so far. This project began in Knoxville and I’ve been brought on as the Program Coordinator and Online Moderator. We are actively signing up sponsor home volunteers. If you or someone you know is a positive ally, a safe person, and has at least a 3 day availability to temporarily house a trans person, perhaps a partner or pet in some cases as well please let me know. Hosts can set their own ground rules for the client to abide by when staying in the sponsor residence. There is an agreement each client signs stating that they understand that if rules are breached, the housing can come to an end and we may not be able to help them again in the future. Each volunteer host home sponsor goes through a training course with required course materials to ensure they understand how to be a safe ally. We are working hard to get more allies on board with our outreaches. If you are a cis ally or a trans person that wants to get involved in a tangible way, these are two great ways to help. www.translifeline.org and www.transempowermentproject.com Check them out! We are excited as these orgs continue to grow and the outreach continues to strengthen and extend our support systems. We encourage you all to be doing volunteer work or community service in some way, the benefits and rewards are numerous! On a more personal note, today is my father and stepmother’s anniversary. It is hard to think back to memories of them and think about how things are between us now. However, after reaching out countless times only to be ignored by my father, eventually that desire to reach out faded. Over the last several years, the few times my stepmother and I have spoken, the conversation has seemed rather cold and judgmental. It leaves me feeling as if they will just hurt me to get me to leave them alone. Either by no response or replies with ill remarks. Of course, I’ve been guilty of both as well, but eventually we should have been able to set aside differences to be civil. Unfortunately, that’s not what has transpired. It’s been difficult for me to come to terms with having no family left, especially lately as I observe our little ones blossoming into beautiful little people. They are sadly missing their lives. They are such great people, although they need pruning like any other garden flower, they are simply beautiful additions that enrich our lives so much. Knowing my kids just gives me a better handle on life, the way their minds work and how they see the world is fascinating. We are very blessed with a rich family life and love spending time together just the four of us. I am extremely thankful that we are still in contact with Kat’s father, who has become my own father figure as well. We speak to him multiple times a week and he’s been right in our corner, being a listening ear, a sounding board for new ideas, a mentor, and a loving father, father-in-law, and grandfather. Thanks for reading, <3 The Blake Family
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Authors:James and Katherine are a transgender couple raising two kids. They were southerners when coming to understand themselves as trans. Ultimately it lead to a nearly three year road trip to find home. Now they are re-housed and still focused on outreach in the transgender community! Archives
October 2020
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