RU12? Community Center celebrates, educates and advocates with and for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) Vermonters.

business of the month

Langrock Sperry & Wool

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With over 25 attorneys in our Middlebury and Burlington offices, the lawyers at Langrock Sperry & Wool can help you through almost any legal problem. We are proud to have helped win the freedom to marry in Vermont, making our state a better place for ALL Vermonters.

Read about other local businesses who support RU12?...

February 09, 2010

New Family Group and Events at RU12?

Simple family  Are you an LGBTQ parent or planning on becoming one? RU12? is excited to announce the start of regular LGBTQ family events! This spring RU12? will partner with Casey Family Services to offer monthly educational and support services for LGBTQ parents and children. This group will meet once a month to discuss various topics that affect LGBTQ families, share stories of personal experience and get to know one another. In addition to this, RU12? will begin hosting regular social gatherings for families. We'd love to hear from you about topics that are relevant to your family and experience, so please email sharon@ru12.org and share your ideas!

The first event is Wednesday, March 10th from 6:00 pm to 7:30 pm at the RU12? Community Center. Come together with LGBTQ families and hear one parent's experience with raising kids and adoption. Please RSVP to this event by February 24th and let us know you are coming and if you need childcare. For more information email sharon@ru12.org.

February 08, 2010

We were visible!

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Thank you to the over 50 community members and organizational representatives who attended Visibility Day this past Friday, February 5th at the State House in Montpelier.

You made the day a huge success! We met with our representatives, our senators and the Governor. We networked with each other, shared information at our organizations' tables, and had a chance to catch up in person.

Many issues were raised with the Governor, including our disappointment with his veto of marriage equality last year, the on-going problem of bullying and harassment in the schools, lack of health care coverage for transgender Vermonters, and concerns about cuts to services and jobs. Many brave and honest youth and adults used their voices to educate the Governor and their representatives. Not only were we visible at the State House, but we helped make change happen one conversation, one person at a time.

Thank you to Representative and community leader Bill Lippert for helping to pass a resolution honoring our community and our organizations. Stay tuned here to see a copy of this resolution once it completes its' legislative journey.

Thank you especially to all the youth who attended from Gay Straight Alliances from Brattleboro, Montpelier, Hinesburg, Milton and Burlington High Schools!

RU12? thanks Outright VT, the Samara Foundation of Vermont, VT CARES and the VT Freedom to Marry Task Force for helping to organize the day!

Thank you also to community groups VT TransAction, Pride VT, the Rutland VISTAs and the LGBT Alliance of VT Law School for joining us for the day.

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- The RU12? crew - Sharon, Dawn, Mike, Kara, Ann and Brenda

Todd’s Peek In Review:  Remembering Oscar Wilde, The Writer, and The Importance Of Being Earnest

Todd's Peek  Oscar Wilde’s famous play, The Importance Of Being Earnest is basically written as a social pun for its time.  In a manner of speaking, it’s a satirical look at humor and wit based on the characterization of a small group of aristocratic friends in England in the mid 1800’s.

 The Importance Of Being Earnest is simply fantastic, clever and amusing.  Thus the characterization of the story enfold with witty yet absurd joke about the integral role of Jack.  It the mystery and mystic of Jack, to the girl of his affections, Gwendolyn, who knows him as “Earnest “, that creates the proverbial uproar.  It’s the case of the proverbial who dun it where all his friends desire to know more of him and what and who he really desires.  The set for the play is the social occasions which allow us to see his friends become increasingly bemused and yet will see their own confines of emotions as they joke.  

Through and through Oscar Wilde makes lavish use of this particular characterization to set the cadence for the satirical look at people and the social morays of Oscar’s time.  There is really no other relevance to The Importance Of Being Earnest, for when we see this kind of social interplay between the cast and Jack go back and forth, it becomes the commonality of the age old expression, “it is what it is.”  The joke around Jack as Earnest becomes totally nonsensical and ends up taking the laughter to the rite of attrition, rather than fruition about the credibility of the whole story line from the likes of the Play.  We, the audience revel in the social nuisance for the offbeat coloring and black and white to the characterization of the play itself.

 Mr. Wilde lived in disregarding times and was considered a so-called homosexual.  But still he had the capacity to live his own lifestyle and show his own personal sentiment to the world.  In essence, he endured much social friction about being who he was and what he did best, which was to write and write well.   He wrote this play at the height of his popularity despite the social morays.  Society, at this time, did not believe in him, to be a person of human care, to have the person hood that was necessary to live the life he chose for himself. 

Living in peace was important to Oscar, but he never really did have that or live that way at all, in so much as his own life and his writings always seemed to be about the trials and tribulations of never ever really being able to be gay together as people, through and through.   This play represents that, that life is a pun and a social pun all rolled into one.  And this is at the heart of a gifted, gay man who also had the forbearance to be a  gay writer within that livelihood despite the grotesque concerns around being openly gay at the time.  You see my friends of R.U.12?, Oscar Wilde was not purported to be a great writer, really and truly, of any right.  His lifestyle was considered way too odd and enigmatic of sorts, and always ended  up being misconstrued for sure.  But still he will always be remembered as the greatest contemporary writer of His Day and Times, even still.   

To Oscar Wilde, forever I say, as a Gay Writer and a Gay Man . . .amen to that, so be sure to pick up the copy of the play at R.U.12 for the consummate read of laughter and gaiety of its own right and care, in this world of ours where the importance of being earnest is so easy come, so easy go . . .and or so it goes.

February 07, 2010

National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

The HIV/AIDS epidemic in African American communities is a continuing public health crises for the United States. African Americans represent approximately 12 percent of the U.S population and they make up almost half of the estimated 1.1 million people living with HIV today. The other issue is every year the African American community also make up half of the newly cases each year. The most important prevention tool everyone can use is to always know your status! Testing today is quick, easy, painless, and in just 20 minutes you will receive your results.

RU12? Community Center offers testing Monday-Friday from 3-6 or you can email mike@ru12.org and set an appointment up.

Literature For Your Love

Rainbow_hearts Valentine's Day is right around the corner, and let's face it: the price of flowers this month is beyond belief and chocolate - well, I can't say anything bad about chocolate! This year consider showing the loves in your life how much you care by giving the gift of a book! A book looks just as nice on your table as a vase full of flowers and there are some authors who make words on your tongue taste just as good as chocolate! Stop by the RU12? Community Center and check out our great selection of books for sale! 

*If your holiday celebrations include more than flower smelling, chocolate eating and book reading then pick up some condoms and lube to help you celebrate safely!

February 06, 2010

*THE WINTER IS A DRAG BALL XV*

Dragball2 On Saturday, February 13th from 8:00 pm to 2:00 am The House of Lemay will be producing and hosting THE WINTER IS A DRAG BALL XV at the Higher Ground in South Burlington. This year's theme is "At the Drag Ball of Good & Evil", and the evening will include six hours of entertainment in each room. Heloise & the Savoir Faire will be headlining and opening the event in the Ballroom. The Showcase Lounge will open with The House of Lemay's annual Drag Ball Cabarey accompanied by The Decoys and Craig Hilliard. Live performances and DJs with the return of the popular Diva Lounge will fill out the night. Doors open at 7:00 pm and the ticket price is $20 if purchased before Saturday and  $25 if purchased the day of the show. This event is open to all ages. THE WINTER IS A DRAG BALL XV is a benefit for the Vermont People with AIDS Coalition.

February 04, 2010

GLAFF Needs Your Help!

Recently the Gay and Lesbian Adoptive Foster Families (GLAFF) group received a small grant from the North American Council on Adoptable Children (NACAC) to offer a respite care program to its families. GLAFF wants to know what you think will be most helpful for your children, your family, and you as the parents.

The GLAFF respite program can be designed to meet various family needs, and your input on what these needs are is greatly appreciated! Examples of these needs include connecting as families for social events, providing an opportunity for parents to talk about their children and connect socially without their children, hosting supervised children's activities so parents can take a break, and paying for in-home care or out-of-home children's activities specific to each family's needs.

Please take a couple of minutes to  answer a few questions so a program can be designed to best meet the needs of LGBTQ families. Thank you!

February 01, 2010

Thank you for helping us reach thousands of LGBTQA Vermonters!

Thank you for donating to RU12? this fall and end of year, helping us raise over $11,000 to go towards reaching thousands of LGBTQA Vermonters. As a small non-profit we literally could not do it without the support of our generous community!

We are halfway through our fiscal year and we have reached 2,700 people so far! And that doesn't count all of you reading this blog, checking our web calendar for statewide events or reading about RU12? on this website, those we outreach to at tabling events, special events, or through our advertising.

Since July 1st, 2009...

The RU12? Drop-In and Resource Center and David Bohnett Cyber Center served 550 people through social support groups, information, resources, referrals, computer and internet access, lending library, and more.

The SafeSpace Anti-Violence Program at RU12? has served close to 50 survivors of domestic, sexual or hate violence or discrimination.

SafeSpace and the Health and Wellness program at RU12? provided training and technical assistance to over 650 service and health providers from across the state to increase their cultural competency in working with LGBTQ survivors, patients and people in general.

RU12? has provided rapid HIV testing to 105 people, and reached 350 young, gay and bisexual men through our HIV prevention and men's community building program, GLAM.

The What's Up, a weekly e-newsletter of RU12? and statewide happenings with and for the LGBTQ community reaches over 1,000 readers every week. (Just email Dawn@ru12.org to sign up!)

THANK YOU for making this important work possible!

New HIV Testing Schedule

Starting this week RU12? will be providing free and anonymous HIV testing, counseling, and referrals on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 3:00 pm to 6:00 pm. Appointments are greatly appreciated, so please call Mike at 802.860.7812 or email Mike@ru12.org to schedule a time to come in. Training and education surrounding HIV/AIDS is available for community organizations, educational institutions and private businesses. Please contact the center for more information.

January 30, 2010

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" makes the State Of The Union Address

_MG_0474-heroOn Wednesday night the nation watched as President Obama delivered the time-honored State Of The Union Address to members of Congress and the American people. His speech focused on health care reform, the bank bailout, creating new jobs, a government spending freeze, economic growth, Iraq, environmental policy, education affordability, earmark reform and "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". Before the address on Wednesday, White House sources revealed that the President would renew his pledge to repeal the law which mandates the discharge of openly gay, lesbian or bisexual service members. During his speech President Obama said, "This year, I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are." We'll keep you posted on the progress of the President's pledge as 2010 continues!