Knowledge & Power

History, Compassion, and Action

Welcome to the latest ONLINE Knowledge and Power.

Knowledge and Power is an essential communication distributed exclusively to our ONLINE community.  It is designed to empower you with important information and Allyship action. 

Last Knowledge and Power we talked about how Pride Month has something for everyone and flexing our Allyship muscles. I hope you found and enjoyed some Pride activities that suited you.  

This week I thought we would explore Queer history and look at recent not well-publicized hopeful happenings.  LGBTQ+ history is an important part of U.S. history. Sadly, it is intentionally being erased through recent book bans targeting any and every library book with LGBTQ+ content.

It is widely known that Pride Month is held in June to align with the June 28, 1969 uprising that took place at the NYC gay bar Stonewall.  The Stonewall Riots are undeniably important but are not the only significant historical event in Queer history.

I created a timeline of moments from long ago and in our lifetime to help us envision the journey.   It includes victories, tragedies, and forward motion.  

This is just a snapshot. It’s impossible to include, or even know, the many singular and significant moments that have brought us to where we are today. 

In our information-rich age, we are regularly overloaded with gloom and doom. If we want to know how a news story progresses or ends, we must seek that out ourselves.

With Bursting Through, I aspire to create a culture of compassion, hope, and action while not ignoring the bad and shocking reality that often surrounds us.  This perspective inspired me to create another timeline specific to recent events.

“What do I do with this information? “ is a question continuously on my mind. I’m convinced it stems from information overload.  I’m often frustrated by the actionless nature of repetitive news.

Action comes in many forms. Throughout my lifetime, I felt actionable by joining social movements and being as active as possible. The movements I like being involved in always understood how to meet me where I was and gave me different ways to be involved. 

Sometimes my busy life only allowed me to support the movement with money. Sometimes my financial situation only allowed me to give my time, encourage others to get involved, and share their mission with my network.

I am now the founder of a social movement and find myself in an unfamiliar place where I need to ask for your action. I need you to get as involved as possible for this movement to thrive and reach more people.

Our powerful and personal Allyship stories deserve to be put into the world on a big scale. The goal is a Bursting Through book called “Allyship Awakenings” featuring your membership stories.

The current book ban climate makes it more important than ever for powerful and positive books about the LGBTQ+ experience to get into the world.

This book is possible and within our power to get published. It simply takes some money and a larger Bursting Through social media following. 

There are multiple ways you can take action. I hope these options meet you where you are.  They are varied and simple and doing any or all of them is important to our mission.

• Buy me a caffeinated beverage, in the form of a monthly membership, to keep me energized while I write.

• Help get my LinkedIn to 10,000 members.

• Help get Bursting Through’s Facebook page to 10,000 members.

• Share this Substack post and ask your network to subscribe.

• Ask your LGBTQ+ loved ones and other Allies to become a sustaining Bursting Through member and help get “Allyship Awakenings” published and in your bookstore.

Thank you for being a valuable part of the Bursting Through Storytelling Movement. Together we can put our book, “Allyship Awakenings,” into the world and become part of Queer history.