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TSA News May 2020 Volume 38 Issue 5
Online AIDS Candlelight Vigil To Be Held on May 17
The Southern Illinois AIDS Coalition and the Tri-State Alliance are once again taking part in the International AIDS Candlelight Vigils. Due to the Covid 19 virus, this year’s service will be held online. View it at TinyURL.com/AIDSCandlelight2020. We are inviting the public to view the service AND share the service on their social me-
dia accounts. In addition, we ask that individuals who want to remember a loved one to go to the posts about the service on Facebook pages of the Tri-State Alliance and/or the Southern Illinois AIDS Coalition, by posting your remembrances and/or or their pictures in the comments on the page.
TSA President Turns 53 on May 26 Tri-State Alliance President Wally Paynter turns 53 on May 26. Typically, TSA hosts a reception / birthday celebra-tion. However, this year there will be no in-person celebration due to the Covid-19 virus. Donations can be made online to celebrate his birthday to the TSA Youth Group at TSAGL.org/donate.html or to the Vanderburgh County Substance Abuse Council on his Facebook page. Birthday cards and checks payable to the TSA Youth Group can be sent to the Wally c/o TSA Youth Group, PO Box 2901, Evansville, IN 47728.
Help Please the Tri-State Alliance has both our weekly LGBTQIA Youth Group & Trans Support Group at our TSA Offices. Our youth group has not missed a meeting since it was created in 1998. One key to our success is our LGBTQIA inclusive space… the TSA Offices. We need YOUR help to pay the rent in our offices. Our rent does in-clude utilities. Donations can be made at: TSAGL.org/donate.html OR paypal.me/TriState Alliance OR Send a check to the TSA Youth Group, PO Box 2901, Evansville, IN 47728. PLEASE donate enough to cover even 1 day so we can CONTINUE to make a difference.
The TSA Youth Group has meet EVERY Saturday since 1998, includ-ing all holidays. We continue to meet during this crisis with the help of Zoom by having ONLINE meetings. For information on how YOU can join the meeting as an LGBTQIA teen or ally, please message the Tri-State Alliance on Facebook, or call or text 812-480-0204.
Visit TSAGL.org and click on newsletters to
read the complete expanded version of the TSA Newsletter online.
Support TSA & the Post Office: Buy Stamps!
SUPPORT THE US POST OFFICE and the Tri-State Alliance!!! Purchase stamps online to support the US post-al service, and have them delivered to the Tri-State Alliance, PO Box 2901, Evansville, IN 47728. Make a difference AND support the post office AND the LGBTQIA+ communities!
Purchase stamps at this website: https://store.usps.com/store/results/stamps/
Unity Fellowship 625 Allen Street, Owensboro, KY 42303
www.unityfellowshipowb.org 270-315-9028 ONLINE Services are on Sunday at 10:15am
TSA Wish List For the TSA LGBTQ Youth Group
• 12/24 packs of Soft Drinks for TSA Youth Group
• Bottled Water
• Potato chips and desserts in re-sealable containers (i.e. Pringles)
• Copy paper
• A copier / printer (if new an HP Officejet 8702)
• Gift cards for pizza delivery or fast food restaurants
• Tickets for Laramie Project play at the Civic Theatre.
• Pride Flags, large and small, LGBTQ, lesbian, trans, asexual, bisexual, pansexual, gender queer, polysexual, aromantic, greyromantic, demiromantic, polyamorous.
Donations can be mailed or shipped to the Tri-State Alliance, 501 John Street Suite 5, Evans-ville, IN 47713. Questions? Contact [email protected] or 812-480-0204. Online dona-tions can be sent to TSAGL.org/donate.html or paypal.me/TriStateAlliance
The Tri-State Alliance Support Groups Continue to
meet every weekend!
During this crisis we are using Zoom videoconferencing.
To participate, message the Tri-State Alliance on social media, email [email protected] OR
call or text 812-480-0204.
TinyURL.com/AIDSCandlelight2020
The Southern IL AIDS Coalition and
the Tri-State Alliance thank ALL those
who made the service possible!
TSA Thanks Rev. Bob Coons of Owensboro Unity Fellowship, Dr. Rev. Michael Knight of Madisonville Covenant Community Church, Rev. Kerry Dean of Carbondale 1st Presbyterian Church, Father Joseph Brown of the SIUC Africana Studies, Trans Activist Lagina Crim, Rev. John Holst of the Marion Zion UCC, Rev. Karen Knodt of Carbondale 1st Christian Church Disciples of Christ, Joe and Kristina Effinger of Evansville, & TSA Trans Group Facilitator Cassandra for making the online AIDS Candlelight Service a realty!
The Tri-State Alliance thanks the TSA Transgender Support Group and TSA Youth Group members who did videos and/or written posts in honor of International Transgender Day of Visibility. The TSA Youth Group meets every Saturday at 7pm for LGBTQ teens and their straight-supportive friends. The TSA Transgender Support Group meets every Sunday at 2pm. Our meetings are currently through Zoom. We will announce on social media when we start meeting in person again, at the TSA
Offices, 501 John Street Suite 5, Evansville, IN 47713. You can view the videos on the Tri-State Alliance Youtube Channel.
TSA Thanks Cassandra (she/they), Chelle Besing (they), Nia (she/her/they/them), Terry Greer (she/her), Emma Latta (she/her), Cameron Jordan (he/they), Egon Bryant (he/him), Lagina Crim (she/her), and April Barnett (she/her) for their videos, as well as Alex Kessler (he/him) and Carl Woods (he/him) for their written submissions for the International Transgender Day of Visibility! Thanks for being out and proud!
Pride Merchandise for Sale! Support the TSA Youth Group and TSA Transgender Support Groups. Pride Flags and Gay MAGA Caps are on
sale for $9.97 each plus $5 shipping. Please send a check to the Tri-State Alliance, PO Box 2901, Evansville, IN 47728. Shipping and handling costs are an extra $5 for the first item to be mailed, and $4 for each additional item to be mailed. You can also purchase these items on our secure website with a credit card and/or paypal account at TSAGL.org/merchandise.html. Please note there is an extra $1 fee for paying with a credit card. QUESTIONS? Contact 812-480-0204 or [email protected].
Tri-State Alliance Pride Merchandise Proceeds benefit the TSA LGBTQ Youth Group & the TSA Trans Support Group
Order online at TSAGL.org/merchandise.html
Lipstick Lesbian Pansexual Pride Flag Inclusive Pride Flag Lesbian Pride Flag
Gay Pride MAGA Cap Trans Pride Flag Pride Flag Bisexual Pride Flag ACE Pride Flag
TSA Campaign Responds to Indiana State Rep. Jim Lucas’ Racism
The Tri-State Alliance is accepting donations in “honor” of racist, homophobic, misogy-nist Indiana State Rep. Jim Lucas, a Republican who represents the Seymour area. Dona-tions can be made online at TSAGL.org/donation.html or sent to TSA, PO Box 2901, Evans-ville, IN 47728. Put Jim Lucas in the memo OR online under special instructions. Proceeds will benefit the TSA LGBTQ Youth Group, the TSA Trans Support Group, and TSA will do-nate a portion of the proceeds to the Indiana / Kentucky Planned Parenthood and to chap-ters in Indiana of the NAACP. A note will be sent to State Rep. Lucas each week noting how much was donated to these groups and raised in his name, and who donated (please put anonymous in the instructions if you don’t want your name shared). The Indiana State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has submitted a resolution to Gov. Eric Holcomb seeking the resignation and public censure of Rep. Jim Lu-cas, R-Seymour. “When so many Hoosiers are fighting, literally, for their very lives the time is now that divisive messages of hate, disrespect and disdain will not be tolerated by those who have taken an oath of office,” according to conference representatives. “We are better than this. We call upon you to send forth that message.” Lucas is being accused of racism after creating and posting an image of a group of black children dancing with the words “We gon’ get free money!” written on the photo on his Facebook page. The post went up at 9:04 p.m. May 11 and initially Lucas said he would not remove it. It has since been removed after Lucas was removed from the in-terim study committees on elections and public policy and demoted as vice chair of the committee on government reduction, House Speaker Todd Huston said. “I am not a racist,” said Lucas, who subsequently deactivated his Facebook page. Last year, he posted a picture of a gallows with two nooses under a WISH-TV Facebook story about a black man plead-ing guilty to rape. According to sources that wish not to be named, he has similar prejudiced attitudes about the LGBTQ communities and women.
“What did all your years in education teach you?” By Huntter Fehribach, Senior Jasper High School (Jasper, IN)
I have been a student for most of my life. I have gone to school since I was seven years old. I have learned a lot of information up to this point; some useless and some that has dramatically changed my life. If you ask me 10 years from now, “What was the most important thing you learned in high school?”, I will say the same thing that I say today. The most important thing I learned is that being yourself is hard, but you are the only one who can do it. It is the one thing that you do everyday; you wake up as yourself, you eat food as yourself, you find love as your-
self. Everything that you do in life, you do as yourself. There is absolutely no one else in this world who knows what it is like being you. I used to have so many problems with being me. I hated who I was and how hard my life was. Being a young, gay man in a small, German-Catholic community is really hard. Receiving hate for what I wear, how I look, who I love, and countless other things is really challenging to take. I al-ways thought that there was something wrong with me, that I was the problem. Somewhere along the way I discovered...all I am doing is be-ing me. What I wear, how I look, who I love, these are all parts of me, parts of who I am. It was only then that I realized that I am NOT the problem, and there is nothing wrong with me. In this life you will receive many gifts and things that are trivial and unimportant, but the most precious gift that you are given is life! Statistically, you should not have been born, so the fact that you are here in the first place is astonishing. You were given this life for a reason, and even if you feel that you are completely average and ordinary, just remember that you are the only person in this entire universe who gets to be you. You are the only “you” so you might as well be the best “you” that you can be.
