Growing up in Charlottesville, Virginia, the Gordon Avenue public library was a few blocks from my elementary school. Some days, rather than taking the bus home, I would hang out at the library until my parents could pick me up. I perused the shelves, discovering books and authors, and settling into a comfy chair to […]
I don’t usually make New Years resolutions, but I broke with tradition to identify 3 goals for 2023: 1) buy a hairdryer, 2) listen to a lot of Taylor Swift, and 3) write the next book. Although I accomplished the first two by the end of January 2023, it took me until December to complete […]
This summer, I had the distinction of receiving Kappa Delta’s alumnae honor, The Order of the Pearl, in recognition of outstanding contributions to society. The nomination letter, written by my sisters in the Sigma Theta chapter, detailed my decades of research on LGBTQ issues, as well as my more current work on dialogue across political […]
It was wonderful to be selected by Representative Salud Carbajal as a 2019 Congressional Woman of the Year for the California 24th District for the work I do on LGBT issues. Here’s what I said when I received the award. If you read or watch to the end, you’ll know what to ask me to […]
My hometown has become a hashtag. I grew up in Charlottesville, Virginia in the 1970’s and 80’s. It was a quiet, Southern college town. My biracial family moved there in 1968; only a year earlier the marriage of my Chinese-American mother and New York Jew father would not have been legal in Virginia, but I […]