{"id":490,"date":"2012-12-12T20:41:24","date_gmt":"2012-12-12T20:41:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aig.alumni.virginia.edu\/serpentine\/?p=490"},"modified":"2026-09-01T15:36:06","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T19:36:06","slug":"ed-strickler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aig.uvaalumni.org\/qva\/ed-strickler\/","title":{"rendered":"Ed Strickler – October 20, 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

Outstanding Service Award 2012 Award Winner – October 20, 2012<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\"Ed
Ed Strickler
October 20, 2012<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Thank you for being here this evening, thank you for helping to build a community of broader and deeper respect for diversity at the University of Virginia, and thank you for including me in your program this evening. I appreciate this honor. My partner Jim and I appreciate your welcome. Thank you.<\/p>\n

May I briefly share some considerations under our evening themes: courage and power.<\/b><\/p>\n

Power connotes strength aimed at something to accomplish, large or small, in the short term or longer term. The aims, tactics, and strategies of power may be discussed, debated, and contested. This semester I\u2019m participating in a University Dialogue Group where we\u2019ve been discussing issues of power involved with the University\u2019s Summer of 20-12<\/i>. One of President Sullivan\u2019s early innovations back in 20-10 was to support dialogue groups of faculty, staff, and students together. Now, that seems prescient. Who\u2019d have guessed that hundreds of us outside the Rotunda – singing\u00a0 the Good Old Song – would be a tactic of power.<\/p>\n

Courage is the other part of the evening\u2019s theme. Courage connotes inwardly-residing strengths that can be manifest, and witnessed, but for which there is not some standard measure. We have courage in our particular embodiment and in our particular contexts. Rosa Parks\u2019 was courageous to sit down on that bus. The courage of a gender-questioning youth to go out dressed as she or he feels deeply inwardly: that is courage. The lone man in Tiananmen Square confronting tanks with his body was courage-ous. The courage of a University student who joins the LGBT Resource Center\u2019s speakers panel: that is courage. We call all these \u2018courage\u2019. One courage is not greater than another courage. It\u2019s all courage!<\/p>\n

Power can be measured, since we can ask how well or how quickly power achieved its aim. But courage does not have a \u2018volume\u2019, a \u2018weight\u2019, or a \u2018distance\u2019. Courage is im-measurable.<\/p>\n

Among her many lovely thoughts, Maya Angelou said: \u201cCourage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently\u201c; erratically, yes, but consistently, no; not without courage. Courage is a strength that en-courages other strengths: its essential. Another lovely poet, e.e. cummings, said: \u201cIt takes courage to grow up and become who you really are\u201d. Courage makes us fully human.<\/p>\n

Courage has always been essential for the formation of LGBTQ individuals, families, and communities: questioning and knowing oneself is courageous; examining and challenging stereotypes and prejudices is courageous;\u00a0 balancing roles of outsider and insider, normalcy and deviance, depending on where we\u2019re at and who we\u2019re with is courage-ous.\u00a0 [Being queer is certainly exhausting! ]\n

Poet Angelou said that courage is the most important of all the virtues. I agree that courage is among the most important virtues that help form LGBTQ communities. May I suggest several other virtues that I believe are critical as we continue to build powerful LGBTQ communuities: (1) Defiance, (2) Connectedness, and (3) Transfiguration.<\/p>\n

Defiance means purposefully to oppose anything that harms LGBTQ persons, families, and communities out of\u00a0 bias, prejudice, fear or hate. Defiance might even be considered a synonym for \u2018queer\u2019. Queer derives from ancient roots meaning \u2018off center\u2019. Queer folks are \u2018off center\u2019 from the codes, rules, and prejudices of heterosexual normalcy. Writing about his life in Germany between the wars, Christopher Isherwood clarifies his identity under the virtue of defiance. He asks the political and cultural ideologies competing for his attention: “All right, we’ve heard your speech. Does that include us or doesn’t it?” \u2026 [we] must never again give way to embarrassment, never deny the rights of [our] tribe, never apologize for its existence \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Connectedness means loyalty among all the L-G-B-T-Q and our allies; and respect for all the differences we bring to community beyond our sexual and gender identities. The color stripes of the Rainbow Flag describe the virtue of connectedness that remembers and respects intersections of diversity. Audre Lorde describes this for herself: \u2018As a Black, lesbian, feminist, socialist, poet, mother\u00a0 \u2026 and a member of an interracial couple, I usually find myself part of some group in which the majority defines me as deviant, difficult, inferior or just plain “wrong” … but\u00a0 there can be no hierarchies of oppression.\u201d<\/p>\n

Transfiguration creates liberation out of oppression. A queer gaze may see a transfigured reality that others do not see \u2013 where we are included not hidden \u2013 and queer work may achieve wholeness and excellence in our communities \u2013 which others had abandoned. Countless LGBTQ artists, performers, writers and others have transfigured experiences that others called filthy into something glorious; ACT UP and others transfigured ostracism and despair into countless lives saved (after so many had already been lost); the Pink Triangle that meant destruction, came to mean liberation. Transfiguration often takes account of the very ordinary things.<\/p>\n

Jim and I were traveling through rural eastern Kentucky and found a small gallery with objects of a local artist Robert Morgan. Morgan had been part of a rural Southern queer collective involved with experiments in artistic and cultural forms. The room of Morgan\u2019s art was filled with assemblages of mementos, cast off items, and everyday objects, particularly and purposefully collected from young gay men that he had known in New York City. Many had been homeless, with AIDS, devastated by alcoholism and other drug abuse. The objects that Morgan used were things he remembered these men wearing, keeping, and treasuring in their lives, but that others had disregarded as worthless, or that had been thrown out by others who feared disease. Morgan assembled the objects into complex figural arrangements, as both structure and adornment. The entirety is then wrapped, glued, and nailed together and covered in a thick layer of polyurethane making them glisten, achieving a spectacular shining effect. Morgan\u2019s transfigures garbage \u2013 including garbage associated with disease, distress, and suffering \u2013 into icons that are visions of new wholeness.\u00a0 Achieving wholeness and excellence out of the everyday is one thing I mean by transfiguration, that I believe should be a virtue of LGBTQ communities.<\/p>\n

Transfiguration, connectedness, defiance, and courage. I propose these as \u2018queer virtues\u2019\u00a0 for our work ahead. Think about it.<\/p>\n

Thank you – each and all \u2013 courage!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Outstanding Service Award 2012 Award Winner – October 20, 2012 Thank you for being here this evening, thank you for helping to build a community of broader and deeper respect for diversity at the University of Virginia, and thank you for including me in your program this evening. I appreciate this honor. My partner Jim […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-speeches"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nEd Strickler - October 20, 2012 - QVA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/aig.uvaalumni.org\/qva\/ed-strickler\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ben Walter\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/aig.uvaalumni.org\\\/qva\\\/ed-strickler\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/aig.uvaalumni.org\\\/qva\\\/ed-strickler\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Ben Walter\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/aig.uvaalumni.org\\\/qva\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/17f7b092e57fdbd73235da6bc7bd9d79\"},\"headline\":\"Ed Strickler – October 20, 2012\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-12-12T20:41:24+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-09-01T19:36:06+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/aig.uvaalumni.org\\\/qva\\\/ed-strickler\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":1056,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/aig.uvaalumni.org\\\/qva\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/aig.uvaalumni.org\\\/qva\\\/ed-strickler\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\\\/\\\/aig.uvaalumni.org\\\/qva\\\/files\\\/speech_ed_strickler2.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Speeches\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/aig.uvaalumni.org\\\/qva\\\/ed-strickler\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/aig.uvaalumni.org\\\/qva\\\/ed-strickler\\\/\",\"name\":\"Ed Strickler - 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