Arts & Entertainment
Orlando tribute video ‘Hands’ features survivors of attack
video honors 49 lives lost in tragedy
The official music video for “Hands,” a tribute to the Orlando shooting victims, was released on Tuesday. The release comes on the one-month anniversary of the Pulse nightclub tragedy.
In the video, Orlando survivorsĀ Patience Carter, Tiara Parker and Angel Anthony Santiago, YouTube stars and victims of gun violence all hold up their hands with lyrics from the song written across.
Behind-the-scenes footage of the song’s recording is also featured. Britney Spears, Selena Gomez, P!nk,Ā Imagine Dragons, Adam Lambert, The Trans Chorus of Los Angeles, MNEK, Alex Newell, Mary Lambert, Prince Royce, Jussie Smollett, Nate Ruess, RuPaul and more lent their vocals to the track.
Proceeds from the song benefit the Equality Florida Pulse Victims Fund, the GLBT Community Center of Central Florida and GLAAD.
Whitman-Walker Health held the 38th annual Walk and 5K to End HIV at Anacostia Park on Saturday,Ā Dec. 7. Hundreds participated in the charity fundraiser,Ā despite temperatures below freezing. According to organizers, nearly $450,000 was raised for HIV/AIDS treatment and research.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington performed “The Holiday Show” at Lincoln Theatre on Saturday. Future performances of the show are scheduled for Dec. 14-15. For tickets and showtimes, visit gmcw.org.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
Books
Mother wages fight for trans daughter in new book
āBeautiful Womanā seethes with resentment, rattles bars of injustice
āOne Day I’ll Grow Up and Be a Beautiful Womanā
By Abi Maxwell
c.2024, Knopf
$28/307 pages
“How many times have I told you that…?”
How many times have you heard that? Probably so often that, well, you stopped listening. From your mother, when you were very small. From your teachers in school. From your supervisor, significant other, or best friend. As in the new memoir “One Day I’ll Grow Up and Be a Beautiful Woman” by Abi Maxwell, it came from a daughter.
When she was pregnant, Abi Maxwell took long walks in the New Hampshire woods near her home, rubbing her belly and talking to her unborn baby. She was sure she was going to have a girl but when the sonogram technician said otherwise, that was OK. Maxwell and her husband would have a son.
But almost from birth, their child was angry, fierce, and unhappy. Just getting dressed each morning was a trial. Going outside was often impossible. Autism was a possible diagnosis but more importantly, Maxwell wasn’t listening, and she admits it with some shame.
Her child had been saying, in so many ways, that she was a girl.
Once Maxwell realized it and acted accordingly, her daughter changed almost overnight, from an angry child to a calm one ā though she still, understandably, had outbursts from the bullying behavior of her peers and some adults at school. Nearly every day, Greta (her new name) said she was teased, called by her former name, and told that she was a boy.
Maxwell had fought for special education for Greta, once autism was confirmed. Now she fought for Greta’s rights at school, and sometimes within her own family. The ACLU got involved. State laws were broken. Maxwell reminded anyone who’d listen that the suicide rate for trans kids was frighteningly high. Few in her town seemed to care.
Throughout her life, Maxwell had been in many other states and lived in other cities. New Hampshire used to feel as comforting as a warm blanket but suddenly, she knew they had to get away from it. Her “town that would not protect us.”
When you hold “One Day I’ll Grow Up and Be a Beautiful Woman,” you’ve got more than a memoir in your hands. You’ve also got a white-hot story that seethes with anger and rightful resentment, that wails for a hurt child, and rattles the bars of injustice. And yet, it coos over love of place, but in a confused manner, as if these things don’t belong together.
Author Abi Maxwell is honest with readers, taking full responsibility for not listening to what her preschooler was saying-not-saying, and she lets you see her emotions and her worst points. In the midst of her community-wide fight, she reveals how the discrimination Greta endured affected Maxwell’s marriage and her health ā all of which give a reader the sense that they’re not being sold a tall tale. Read this book, and outrage becomes familiar enough that it’s yours, too. Read “One Day I’ll Grow Up and Be a Beautiful Woman,” and share it. This is a book you’ll tell others about.
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