I am the proud daughter of two wonderful women. Although today my upbringing is one of my favorite things to share with those I meet, I have not always felt so confident disclosing the uniqueness of my family to the world. Growing up, I often found myself hurt by peer’s homophobic comments or confused looks from classmates as my parents, two quirky women standing out in the sea of suburban moms and dads, came to school events or sports games. Looking back, I wish I had known more families like my own, heard more stories from children who shared my experience—been reassured from someone that everything would be better than okay in a few years. Although a resource like this did not exist for my younger self at my time of need, it does today.
The Rainbow Letters is a growing collection of open letters to the world written by people who have been impacted by the LGBTQ/family equality movement.
The purpose of The Rainbow Letters is simple: to generate empathy around the topic of LGBTQ families through the art of letter-writing. The project also empowers letter writers by inviting healing through self-expression and helping to get their voices heard. The Rainbow Letters was created by Julia Winston and Zach Wahls (the LGBTQ family rights activist), I was a letter writer and now I'm also the Communication and Outreach Specialist.
We're currently in the midst of launching the project through an awareness campaign called #ARainbowLetterADay where we publish a new letter every day until all the letters in the first collection have been released. The letters in the first collection are all written by people who are the children of LGBTQ parents, like me. We chose to hear from them first to offer an intimate, genuine look into the lives of people in the LGBTQ community whose stories are often not heard. It's important to note that, while right now we are only releasing letters written by people with LGBTQ parents, the call to action is for ANYONE who is or has LGBTQ family members who are LGBTQ to write and submit letters through our website for future collections /campaigns. Our plan is to continue releasing new letters via digital media and ultimately we aspire to publish a book of Rainbow Letters.
I hope, and believe, that The Rainbow Letters will create not only empathy, but solidarity among the LGBTQ community. I am happy to know that there is now a resource that will be incredibly powerful and supportive for kids who have shared my experience. I anticipate that as our project expands and we hear more voices from the LGBTQ community itself, The Rainbow Letters will also turn into a resource for young LGBTQ teens questioning their own self-identity. The main goals of this project is to ensure that no one feels alone, that voices are heard, and that understanding is spread in a time when our country is incredibly divided. The Rainbow Letters is unique, in that it is not inherently political. Each individual story-teller brings their own self to the project with their own viewpoints, experiences, hopes, and dreams. It allows us to help make a somewhat broad topic a little more personal, and we hope that that will help us spread love and empathy in the world.
Read, write and share letters to join the movement!!! Check out our social media pages and follow them to watch as this beautiful community art project grows.
Here is a link to the letter I wrote:
And here is a link to another one of my favorites: