TDoR Report Part I: The Service

Last night, I went to the Metropolitan Community Church of Northern Virginia.  It wasn't easy.

The church is in an office building behind a shopping centre.  My gps seemed to think it was at the other end of the street.  The street curves around a parking lot, and it's hard to see if you're on the street or in a private lot.  I parked and only found even numbers, although they were close to what I was looking for.  I walked to the odd side, which was the shopping centre.  I saw someone in a car who was looking for a church.  I also passed someone else who was slowly driving on the street and lot and obviously looking for the church.  I don't know if either found it.

It wasn't in the shopping centre.  I walked back to my car, and tried the gps on my phone.  It led me west to the nearest street, then north about a block, then east a quarter mile, then said to turn east and it was right there.  Wrong.  It was the right street, but the numbers were too low and getting lower.  So I turned west.  Now I could follow the numbers and after crossing a street into the next lot I found it.  And after all of that walking (I figure about a mile) I was maybe 50 feet from my car!

And it was after 7.

I joined the service, already in progress.  A transsexual woman was giving a long and moving talk.  I checked the program; I had missed some of the readings and I wished I had heard all of her talk.  She spoke at length about people we're probably familiar with: Tyra Hunter and Erin Vaught, both denied medical treatment because of how they presented.  The speaker told of her own experience, being told that a local hospital "wasn't sure they could treat someone with her condition."

A candle ceremony followed, commemorating the ten people who died because of how they presented.  One was 17-month-old (yes, month) Roy Jones who was beaten to death by his mother's boyfriend to "try to make him act like a boy instead of a little girl"

I can only hope next year there is no reason to light a candle.

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