#31.03

   Today, 31st of March, is a very important day for all of our community, but especially for our transgender brothers and sisters, because today we celebrate International Transgender Day of Visibility. The holiday was founded by Rachel Crandall, transgender activist from USA, in 2009. It was founded as a reaction to the lack of LGBT holidays celebrating transgender people. Crandall was also led by the frustration that the only well-known transgender-centered holiday was the Transgender Day of Remembrance which mourned the loss of transgender people to hate crimes, but did not acknowledge and celebrate living members of the transgender community.

   Rachel Crandall did something great by founding International Transgender Day of Visibility. Celebrating holidays like this one for all of us is a great opportunity to show our pride and our support towards other members of our community. Before Crandall’s idea there was only one holiday dedicated to transgender people, which for me is unfair that people of such important and valid identity had only one holiday dedicated to them. And I also think it is important to raise people’s awareness as much of the discrimination as of the identity itself. To be honest I don’t think that majority of people know what it really means to be a transgender person, what they feel or what kind of discrimination they have to face in their everyday life. It’s also important for us as other members of LGBTQ Community to support them and show them they are not alone. I think it’s great that we form more and more holidays and we are proud of who we are and that we can show our pride. I identify as a lesbian and I fully support transgender people.

I think Andrew Blackthorn (Sebastian’s alias in that outtake from CoG) became Mark as well.

Maybe. Or Sebastian just came up with Andrew because he needed a name.

From the excerpt:

He’d researched the Blackthorns, a large family, and knew they and the Verlacs had not been in the same city for ten years.