In honor of Gay Pride Month, Atlanta’s Radial Cafe was abuzz with stories from the LGBTQ community on Wednesday evening, June 23, 2010.  Radial owner Phil Palmer generously hosted Atlanta StoryCorps and over 100 members of Atlanta’s LGBTQ community, their friends, family and colleagues.  Master of ceremonies for the evening was WABE’s own John Lemley, host of City Cafe, which airs on WABE each Tuesday.

Upon entering the event, attendees registered and received a bag of goodies donated by WABE.  They then enjoyed light fare graciously provided by Radial.

Once the program was underway, attendees listened to LGBTQ stories selected from both national and local participants.  All of the local StoryCorps Atlanta alumni whose stories we played were in attendance.

Jamie Strand, whose story aired on WABE just the day before, talked about sharing her story of being a transgender woman.  Jamie, born male, was a very popular football player, and even married a cheerleader.  After twenty-four years of marriage, he realized that he had to manifest the truth he had known about himself from the age of five.  Jim became Jamie and now lives happily and openly as a woman.  Jamie took the podium that night – emphasizing that her journey was not an easy one.  When an audience member asked what happened to the cheerleader, Jamie pointed to her and said, “She’s right here.”  The whole room exploded in applause.

Several alumni expressed their appreciation that StoryCorps was reaching out to the LGBTQ community in Atlanta.  It was clear to all in attendance that LGBTQ stories are important not only to StoryCorps, but to the city of Atlanta, the state of Georgia, the Southeast, the United States and the world.

Detroit native and Atlanta Sk8-a-Thon founder Joi Stafford (aka Queen of the South), talked about her first skating experience in Detroit, Michigan and skating “Detroit Style.” She talked about founding Sk8-a-Thon and how every Labor Day Weekend, the event brings skaters from around the world to Atlanta.

Seasoned skaters Tristina and Michael Allen came into the recording booth on Michael’s birthday to talk about finding love on skates. Chicago and Washington, D.C. natives, respectively, the couple met and fell in love on the skating rink. They now make their home in Atlanta and are an important part of the Atlanta skate community.  After their conversation, I shared my skating story with Tristina and her husband. That evening, they invited me to go skating with them. For the first time in twenty-seven years, I put on a pair of skates and, with some assistance from Tristina and Tasha, made my way successfully around the rink. I was hooked, again, and vowed to rekindle my passion for rollerskating!

At 7:30a.m. on a crisp, fall Atlanta morning, the Atlanta StoryCorps team left the StoryBooth and traveled some 40 miles north on I-75 to Woodstock (no, not New York) Georgia. Although the trip was somewhat shorter than anticipated, 40 miles in any direction from Atlanta plops one squarely in the sticks!  In this case, we were in the north Georgia mountains. The air was drier, much cooler (actually, cold) and the sunlight seemed brighter. As we left the main road and followed the smaller one that would take us to the dining hall of the Cherokee Outdoor Family YMCA, it was clear that this was not going to be a typical recording day.

Our participants today were in the Atlanta area attending the Speak OUT Camp sponsored by COLAGE. COLAGE is “the only national, youth-driven network of people with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer parents.” Today’s recording booth was a converted sleeping cabin–rustic, worn, dimly lit and cold. My very first participants, Miranda, 22, and Cara, 19, had only met the night before at the airport. They talked about their gay dads. Both women have fathers whom had been married to women but later admitted to themselves that they were gay or bisexual; thus decided to end their traditional marriages.

In Miranda’s case, her dad met and partnered with a Mexican man who “was very dark and from a different socio-economic background.” Cara’s dad on the other hand partnered with someone from a similar background and who, like he, was committed to raising his children in a warm, loving and supportive gay family environment. His approach, however, often clashed with other parents’ definition of warm, loving and supportive–causing Cara (and her sister) many challenging interactions with her peers–particularly in middle school. Miranda’s dad and his partner, however, never demonstrated their love for each other openly, as his standing in the community presented them with other challenges.

Many of the participants we recorded that day had never had this kind of conversation with each other, nor with anyone else, before sitting in front of our microphones. The candor, raw emotional expressions and genuine respect for and interest in the other person’s life and story were impressive. Once again, the dynamic humility of the human spirit shone through–its power and resilience ever-present. We left camp that night understanding even more that we are more alike than different.