Allison Laureano
Did you ever notice that short Filipina chick sitting in front
corner of the Blue Muse during the TGSF End of Month Socials ?
She’s the one that usually has a laptop with her as she eats
ravioli and tries to track down vases or jars for donation collection.
Yup, you guessed it, that’s me. My name is Alli your newly elected President and it’s my turn to give
you
all a little insight about me.
Okay, briefly about me. I was born in the Philippines in 1972, but moved to rural Arkansas when I was four months old. Okay, I didn’t move, but my parents moved me. I really didn’t have any say in the matter so I went. I grew up for the first 15 years of my life in this little town, where I experienced the joys of hiking through woods and enjoying nature, to the sorrows of racial and ethnic prejudice—some of you have heard my story of walking in on a white supremacist gathering in the sticks. To this day, loud bangs like car backfires and balloons popping cause me to instinctively duck. And yes, I did have a thick Southern accent. I became very fluent in Southern, saying “Ya’ll” and even adopting Gomer Pyle’s “Golllllly.” Yet I had to persevere, doing twice as well in school and other activities to prove myself half as good to my peers. The upshot to that is it instilled in me the deep conviction of learning and education, gathering knowledge to better oneself. This deep seated passion carries through with me today. As I stated in my candidate statement earlier this year, I believe that only through education can we transcend tolerance for our community and achieve genuine acceptance that we are a part of this global community.
Okay okay, I know, you want to hear about the TG stuff. After all, this is TGSF. I transitioned in 1996, of all days on April Fool’s Day. I don’t know why I chose that day, it just sort of worked out like that. New Month, new life, etc. I did a transition education presentation at my work and found out that the entire office kinda already had a feeling, and they had absolutely no problem with it. It also just so happened that we had another person in the office who was also transitioning from female to male, so we made a morning session of it. It was perhaps the smoothest transition I have heard of, although I’m not bragging … not yet anyway, heh. Suffice it to say, I have been full time since then, and have even been stealth for the better part of 7 years, the last five of those in San Diego, where my job moved me. That was a tremendous experience as no one there knew my status, and I pretty much was just accepted as another business woman in our little corporate community … okay, well that sounds a little braggish, but oh well, we all must be somewhat proud of what little accomplishments we make in our life.
After having been laid off due to corporate cutbacks, I moved back to my adoptive home of San Francisco. I re-entered the TG community as I thought it was time to help others as I have been helped, and to facilitate the acceptance we all desperately need in our little “Mecca for transgender.” To that end, I am extremely grateful for your faith in me to be a leader in TGSF. Your confidence in voting me to be amongst the many talented and dedicated leaders of your community has inspired me to commit an energetic effort in reaching out to not just our TG community, but to the entire Bay Area community at large. As many of you know, I have been pushing hard to give awareness and sensitivity talks and presentations in our local colleges. We have plans of expanding that community educational outreach to the police departments and health care service providers of the entire Bay Area.
I am also involved in a new start-up non-profit in which we hope to provide crisis outreach and intervention services to transgenders in some sort of dilemma, be it dealing with the actual gender identity, difficult living conditions, lack of care services, or imposed violence or abuse. Please stay tuned for more upcoming information on this exciting new endeavor.
I am hopeful that with your help and support we can make TGSF the marquee organization for the SF bay area - with the mission of providing the education, outreach and social opportunities we need to the communities we live in. I am excited about our direction, and hope that y'all (there’s that word again) are too.
(Photo Courtesy of: Marina D.)