FROM RACHAEL ROSE LUCKEY | TO THE PRIDE LA: The following are solely my opinions and views and are not representative of any particular organization or community.
You called me out by name and didn’t give me the respect for comment…not cool…you do know there is more than one side to any given story, right? You have my phone number and email. You could have asked me for comment. If you had bothered to ask me, I would have been happy to set the record straight. This will give you a chance to do just that.
While I did lend my voice to #NotOurPride, they do not necessarily speak for me nor do they have the authority to control my independent actions. But the truth is, I did not act on my own. Instead of acting like an angry mob, they could just as easily simply asked me what was going on. I would have been more than happy to explain myself. I was not given that chance by them or by you.
In my capacity as an officer of Stonewall, and because Stonewall did issue a letter with recommendations to CSW, I had several conversations with Chris Classen after the release of that letter. In no way can this be construed as going behind anyone’s back or as going “rouge” as I have been accused. I have also provided timely periodic reports to Stonewall’s board, and have been praised for my leadership.
I have at no time ever said I represent the Trans Community. What I have said is I am a Transgender Advocate or Activist. Nothing more, nothing less.
It is untrue that I have acted on my own. I voiced my opinion in the meetings that one of the demands should be a change to the very foundations of CSW (their bylaws). It is my belief such changes represent potential substantive and long lasting positive effects that can ripple down through the next decades. This input fell on deaf ears. I felt strongly enough about the matter, I took it upon myself to take a look at their bylaws and came up with a number of changes that would go a long way to ease the current unrest.
After working all day and into the night, late night Sunday I sent a draft of my recommended changes to the Division Director Peter Cruz and the Senior Programs Manager Jury Candelerio at APAIT, Bamby Salcedo of the Latino Transgender Coalition, ACLU’s rep James Gilliam, and on Monday afternoon, I sent them to all of the Councilmembers in WeHo. At those times, I also let them know I was having a meeting with CSW to discuss these changes and specifically invited Bamby and James to attend. They declined. At no time did any of these folks ask me to stand down. I also informed Stonewall leadership of my plans to meet with CSW and forwarded them a copy of the changes I was proposing and no one took objection.
At the beginning of the meeting on Tuesday, I announced that I was not representing the opinions or views of any organization or community. In that meeting Chris was very gracious and we went through the items one by one. At the end of the meeting I was told that their was nothing there that jumped out at them as far as things they could not live with, that it was too late for them procedurally to look at bylaws changes before the festival but would look into this more fully when they begin their planning in the fall for next year. All of this sounded reasonable to me. WeHo City Councilmember Duran must have seen something in the changes he liked because he sent a representative to sit in on the meeting to see how it went.
Here are emails I received from Bamby and Peter regarding my scheduled bylaws meeting with CSW…the subject of the email thread is “A Potential Path To A Positive Outcome.”
Here is another from that thread…
In this meeting the subject came up about who was running the Trans Stage this year. The answer I got was nobody. In my opinion, it would be egregious for folks, after having our initial demands met, to not support planning and putting on the Trans Stage. If no one was planning the Trans Stage, I said I would. If the folks that were screaming at me in the hallway had said to me, “Rachael, Karina is in charge,” I would of said, “ok, what can I do to help?”
Diplomacy is the art of getting what you want without “bloodshed.” The original recommendations made by the Stonewall Democratic Club and the demands made by #NotOurPride have all but been granted by CSW and in my opinion, there is little to no reason to not create a fun evening for Trans folks on Friday night. We will just have to see how the vote turns out this evening.
If this were indeed a “divide and conquer” strategy, which it was not, it is those echoing voicing in the hallway that have created this divid between myself and them with their anger.
I am not mad at anyone. All of this anger really needs to stop! Creating a toxic atmosphere is not the answer to any of the problems we face as a community.
I am not mad at you either Troy, I get it, you are out to get hits on your website and I can appreciate that but when you throw someone under the bus publicly, it is only fair play that you ask that person, especially since you know me and have my phone number, that you grant me just that one modicum of respect by letting me tell my side of things. Is that really too much to ask?
For Love. For Peace. For Tolerance. For Humankind.
Rachael Rose Luckey
Troy Masters responds: Rachael was indeed not contacted for this article and nor were any others mentioned. . My reporting was done entirely based on audio I made of an event at which I was present. These events happened as they are reported.
