#MyMississippi

#MyMississippi is a way for all people who have ever called the Magnolia State home to make their voices heard on why LGBTQ acceptance and equality are important. GET INVOLVED WITH #MYMISSISSIPPI: Post pictures, videos, and messages across social media using #MyMississippi Create original artwork for #MyMississippi and share it far and wide Write open letters to local politicians explaining why all Mississippians need full equality and acceptance Share your story online and with the local media

[mymississippi]

#MyMississippi “United Against Hate” rally in Jackson

[mymississippi]

#MyMississippi “United Against Hate” rally in Jackson

[mymississippi]

#MyMississippi “United Against Hate” rally in Jackson

[mymississippi]

#MyMississippi “United Against Hate” rally in Jackson on December 11!

[mymississippi]

“#MyMississippi is oppressive, limiting, suffocating, yet so wonderfully complex.” - Johnny, a gay man in Mississippi

“#MyMississippi is a complicated love/hate relationship” - Todd, a gay man in Mississippi

[mymississippi]

“#MyMississippi is home” - Sham, a gay woman from Mississippi

[mymississippi]

“After cleaning up this still shot of JP Pierce and myself, I cried...I cried because this image truly supports the saying that a picture speaks a thousand words. Those of you who might know our respective stories can see why this is powerful. In this photo, you will find brokenness turned into healing and shame transformed into self-love. Pensive casting aside, hopefully you will see the sense of finally being at home with our idea of an inclusive, all-loving God couples with the support of a spiritual family. This is a picture that provides not only a glimpse of what it means to worship in spirit and in truth, but no longer having to hide under the guise of deceit and pretense...This is Joshua Generation Metropolitan Community Church. This is my tribe. This is #MyMissisippi”

[mymississippi]

“Song captures complicated love affair with Mississippi”

"’In my heart things were not simple. When I was about 5 or 6, I guess I started realizing that I didn’t feel okay with it,’ [Tena] Clark said. 'I just felt that the things I was seeing and witnessing and experiencing did not make sense to me because, for whatever reason, I had the discernment that I felt all people were created equal.’

Clark graduated from The University of Southern Mississippi in 1975. Everywhere she's lived or traveled since then — Los Angeles, Chicago, New York — she's defended Mississippi from those who only know its stereotype: backward and bigoted.

‘I am tired of defending the abuser. I am so tired of defending being on the wrong side of history,' Clark said.

After she got mad, Clark got sad. Then she did what [MS Governor Phil] Bryant did just before signing HB 1523. She picked up a pen...

Her words aren't laced in anger or disdain for Mississippi, though. Clark's got nothing but tough love to give.

‘It literally came out of my sorrow,' said Clark, who is gay. 'It is a song of warning. It is a song of pleading, of ”Do not repeat the past." If anything we should have learned from it.’" Read the full article from the Clarion-Ledger here: http://www.clarionledger.com/story/magnolia/entertainment/2016/12/05/song-captures-complicated-love-affair-mississippi/94546376/ 

[mymississippi]

“My Mississippi is not full of hate. Some of the most incredible, loving people in the world have roots here—artists, writers, musicians, activists. America and the rest of the world may only see discrimination and oppression, a state without progress. But I know we're better than that.” - Tena Clark, songwriter & producer. Read her full op-ed on #MyMississippi here: http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2016/nov/30/my-my-mississippi/

[mymississippi]

Lance Bass: “It’s more important than ever that we stand with our Mississippi LGBTQ brothers and sisters. This law HB 1523 is a very slippery slope. There will be tons of laws like this being passed in the next 4 years. We need to stop this NOW before it gets out of hand. More details to come!! #MyMississippi #NoHateInMyState”

[mymississippi]

Join HRC, GLAAD, Tena Clark, & many more in Jackson, Mississippi on Sunday, December 11 for a rally & concert to fully repeal the discriminatory HB 1523 & accelerate full LGBTQ acceptance in the Magnolia State. Make your voice heard @mymississippi. Find out more here: https://www.evensi.us/united-against-hate-rally-mississippi-governors-mansion/192458722 

[mymississippi]

“#MyMississippi is a place of strength and love, not hatred.” - Jana

[mymississippi]

“Playing for #MyMississippi means playing against discrimination.” 

[mymississippi]

“#MyMississippi is my community of love”

[mymississippi]

Nykolas Alford, HB 1523 plaintiff, reflects on how #MyMississippi treats its most vulnerable residents

When I think about #MyMississippi, I think about how far we've come and how much further we have to go. I want to see Mississippi look at its own personal struggles and acknowledge that they exist. Only then, Mississippi will be able to move forward on the road to progression.

My Mississippi refused to include domestic violence as grounds for divorce. My Mississippi thinks that education is failing in our state because women are working instead of at home. My Mississippi cuts education so bad that when jobs do come to our state, locals won't be hired because they don't have the education to do these jobs. My Mississippi is still wasting tax dollars upholding their idea of religious freedom. My Mississippi would rather teach abstinence instead of safe sex when statistics show that we are one of the leading states with higher rates of teenage pregnancy and HIV/AIDS/STDS. My Mississippi evicted an interracial military family because the landlord's neighbors would have a problem with it. My Mississippi is making national news right now because a black high school student had a noose placed around his neck in 2016!  

Mississippi is always last in areas that we should strive to be better in and right at the top in areas we should be embarrassed by and then we wonder why Mississippi is ridiculed by the rest of the country.  I am tired of hearing the "If you don't like it, leave" argument. How do we expect to become a better state when we are running everyone off? It is #mymississippi too.

My Mississippi doesn't allow me to feel comfortable with Stephen every moment that we are in public. My Mississippi doesn't give me the luxury of first class citizenship when every year the House and Senate vote and pass laws that discriminates against the LGBT community. My Mississippi is disheartening but My Mississippi is hopeful. We are all Mississippi and together we can be the change that we want to see.

http://www.glaad.org/blog/nykolas-alford-hb-1523-plaintiff-reflects-how-mymississippi-treats-its-most-vulnerable

[mymississippi]

“I’m making my voice heard in #MyMississippi” - Jamarcus

[mymississippi]

“#MyMississippi has the highest concentration of LGBTQ parents raising kids of any state in the country, according to the Williams Institute. #MyMississippi needs to protect all families, including those like mine.” - Jana Haynes