Why do you do the work?

It’s 6PM and I’m sitting on the floor of a hotel room in Seattle, WA with Haven Herrin. Our friends are out at restaurants, bars, and coffees hops, enjoying the rainy spring evening. Haven and I have our Bibles open—Haven’s a pocket-sized travel Bible, mine an NIV teen study one—and notepads spread out. We’re combing through Genesis, taking notes, and digging through our memories to construct a presentation for the next day.

We’re looking at Genesis for insight into gender from a queer & trans* positive perspective.

“What are you doing when you get home?” Haven asks me.

It’s a question I’m not quite prepared to answer. For the past three years, I’ve been working at USC’s television station; the past two years producing and directing entertainment news. My days are filled coordinating events with publicists, interviewing Paris Hilton, and rubbing shoulders with Steven Spielberg. My last semester was spent producing a pilot program for ION Television Networks. Now, that feels like a lifetime ago.

For the past six weeks, I’ve been visiting colleges and universities which discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students and faculty. I stood in the rain and wind waiting to talk to students when administrators refused to let us on campus. I ate lunches and dinners with students at those same schools who were terrified to tell anyone the truth about their lives for fear of ostracization or expulsion.

How do you go back to catered press junket after bailing your friends out of jail for talking about the Bible on a Christian campus?

“I don’t know,” I responded. “Working with you?”

That was the moment my life changed. When I knew in my heart and in my bones that I would forever be bound to a life of activism and advocacy. I worked at a bilingual children’s television network, focused on healthy minds and healthy bodies, for two years, volunteering on the side; then, I worked for myself doing activism full-time with a variety of visionary individuals and organizations; now, I continue to work with many of those same folks, while also working with a wider audience through my website, and most recently working at GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian, & Straight Education Network.

On the train from New York to Washington, DC for Thanksgiving weekend, I scribbled in my journal.

Why do you do the work?

• Personal gain?
• Public acclaim?
• Warm fuzzies?
• Guilt?

Yes, yes, yes, and yes.

At times, I’ve done the work for each of those reasons. In my best moments, I’m doing the work for the good of society, to leave a better world than I inherited, because my destiny is inextricably bound up in yours.

Since jotting down that question in my notebook this weekend, I have been returning to that question each day—and throughout the day. Why am I doing this work? As I begin to uncovered the layered and complex answers, I am able to more fully commit to the work.

What about you?

Why do you do the work?
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