I should be studying right now, but I've been wanting to write this entry for a while. So what I'm going to do is write it in portions during study breaks. I apologize if it is lacking in unity and coherence as a result. 

Once in a while, we have the good fortune of meeting someone incredibly powerful simply as a result of their existence. There is something about their story, the way they've plowed on, the way they've developed that is inherently touching and inspiring. And once in a while when we encounter those people, something clicks. 

A couple of weeks ago, Carole Morton addressed my LGBT History class and immediately I knew why Daniel was so eager to sing her praises all the time. She is truly a remarkable woman. Her father was abusive, he raped her, she had anorexia, she was actively suicidal, she married an abusive man who threatened to kill her and their son, and she spent some time as a prostitute to make money after she ran away from him. This was all happening around the time that the second wave of the women's movement was emerging and women's shelters were being established, which essentially saved her life. As she became increasingly involved in the women's movement she began to open up to her own same-sex sexuality and from there got involved in the lesbian rights movement. 

She made an immense mark through her work in this movement. To hear the story of her standing up to Betty Friedan when she tried to force her off stage and her establishment of Dykes with Tykes was incredibly inspiring.

I always joke with my mom that I was born in the wrong era because I missed out on being part of the major social movements of the 60s. I can only imagine how incredible it must be to have been a part of a movement like Carole Morton was and to be able to see the progress and know that you contributed to it. I feel like my generation is a generation of talkers; we always talk about organizing and talk about collective action and effecting change, but when it comes down to it, it never happens. A handful of people turn out for a protest, maybe an online petition will make it into the right hands, but there just isn't that mass support and passion that there has been in the past. 

I really want to be a part of a movement like that and having heard Carole Morton's story the way to do that suddenly clicked for me. So I applied for a job as a legal assistant at GLAD. Gay rights is the cause that I am most passionate about at this point in my life and given the recent developments in the fight for marriage rights, I feel that the cause is on the verge of a major struggle and what better way to be involved than to work for the organization responsible for finding, framing, and fighting the legal battles? Beyond that, I'll be working in the field I was my career to be in, I'll be in a position to gain information, and I'll be working for the cause I believe in... if I get the job of course. If not, then I'm staying involved and finding the resources I need to stay informed. I might not be living in a generation of activists, but that doesn't mean that I can't be involved in an effort for change.