| 1994 | Longtime ACT UP and Queer Nation activist Frank Aqueno writes to PFLAG New Orleans offering to speak to the chapter about his experience of choosing to be queer. The chapter does not respond. Frank continues writing letters periodically each year afterward, and does not receive any response whatsoever until January 10, 2000. |
early 1999 | Two queer by choice individuals, Frank Aqueno and Mark Gonzales, attend a lecture titled "Homosexuality: Choice or Biology?" presented by PFLAG New Orleans as part of its Speakers Series. The lecture is wholly on the side of biology, and speaks mockingly of choice as something that only a homophobe could believe in. This is despite the fact that PFLAG New Orleans obviously knows very well by now of Frank Aqueno's existence as a queer man in their area who celebrates his queerness as a radical choice. PFLAG New Orleans continues to completely ignore all of Frank's correspondence and his offers to give a lecture of his own offering an alternative viewpoint to the one presented by their "Homosexuality: Choice or Biology?" lecture. |
July 5, 1999 | Gayle Madwin discovers Frank Aqueno's Queer by Choice website and invites him to join the QueerByChoice mailing list, which he does. Over the next month or so, Frank tells Gayle the story of his conflict with PFLAG New Orleans. |
| October 1, 1999 | Frank Aqueno begins writing to PFLAG National to complain about the continued refusal of his local chapter in New Orleans to respond to his concerns in any way. An article titled "Choice & PFLAG" appears in the local New Orleans gay magazine Ambush, expressing sympathy for Frank's cause. Please note that even now, a full year after Frank first contacted PFLAG National about this situation, we have yet to see this chapter take the slightest step away from continuing to mock the idea of choice and deny queer by choice people the right to speak their own views and experiences of choice at PFLAG meetings. |
| January 2000 | Frank Aqueno asks Gayle Madwin to find out whether problems similar to those at PFLAG New Orleans are occurring elsewhere throughout the United States and Canada. Over the course of the next three months, Gayle corresponds individually with over 200 different PFLAG chapters, first inquiring about their current policies and then usually sending information about the resources available to help them better address queer by choice needs. (You can read excerpts from some of the responses Gayle received on our Quotes from Safe Chapters and Quotes from Unsafe Chapters pages.) PFLAG New Orleans finally gets around to replying to Frank's letters. Meanwhile, PFLAG National Board President Paul Beeman asks their Policy Statements Task Force to review PFLAG's current policy statement on choice and to report their findings and recommendations to the Board of Directors for consideration. |
March 2000 | Gayle Madwin successfully pitches the story of our protest so far to lesbian reporter Kim Ficera of the Fairfield County Weekly in Connecticut, who begins interviewing Frank Aqueno, Gayle Madwin, and members of local Connecticut PFLAG chapters. |
May 31, 2000 | Kim Ficera's fantastic article "Queer by Choice? The Notion That a Person Can Make a Conscious Decision Regarding His or Her Sexuality Throws a Wrench into the Nature/Nurture Debate" first appears in the Fairfield County Weekly. Over the course of the next month, the article also appears in the Hartford Advocate, the New Haven Advocate, the Westchester County Weekly (all Connecticut weekly newspapers), and Flipside: Canada's Alternative Daily Newspaper. |
| June 9, 2000 | Kirsten Kingdon, Executive Director of PFLAG National, issues a formal memo addressed to Frank Aqueno and Gayle Madwin, promising that PFLAG remains committed to investigating our concerns. |
| July 2000 | PFLAG National's Policy Statements Task Force discusses our concerns at a meeting but runs out of time before coming to any final decision. |
| early August 2000 | Gayle Madwin uploads the PFLAG section of this website and notifies PFLAG National of its existence. |
| August 22, 2000 | Without Gayle's knowledge or consent, and without even informing Gayle that National had any objections whatsoever to the contents of this website, Kirsten Kingdon sends a letter to every PFLAG chapter in the country falsely accusing Gayle of uploading this website without PFLAG National's "knowledge or consent." PFLAG National obviously had knowledge of it, since Gayle informed them of it right after uploading it. And as for consent, Gayle naturally assumed that if PFLAG National had any objections they would tell Gayle their objections and allow Gayle to correct any portions of the website found to be objectionable. Instead, Kirsten Kingdon sent out the letter to PFLAG chapters in secret and never notified Gayle of its existence. When Gayle heard a rumor of its existence and asked PFLAG National for details of the letter's contents, PFLAG National ignored the request. |
| August 29, 2000 | Conference call between Executive Director Kirsten Kingdon, two other representatives of PFLAG National, and Frank Aqueno and Gayle Madwin. It is during this telephone call that Gayle and Frank hear for the first time that PFLAG National objects to this website. Also during the same conversation, Frank requests that a statement be sent to all PFLAG chapters encouraging them to support queer by choice people. Gayle requests that a statement be put on the PFLAG National website to let queer by choice people who visit the site know that PFLAG recognizes their existence and is taking steps to support them. At this time, Gayle has not yet been able to obtain a copy of Kirsten Kingdon's accusations (and PFLAG National refuses to provide it), but Gayle is aware that the chapters are under some kind of instructions to not respond, so Gayle also requests that these instructions be revoked. The representatives from PFLAG National promise to email Gayle a list of things they want removed from this website before they will agree to tell the chapters they can feel free to correspond with Gayle again. This list has yet to show up. PFLAG National also asks Gayle and Frank to refrain from telling anyone what was said during the conversation or in any email correspondence with National, in exchange for which PFLAG National will release the statements supporting queer by choice people. Frank backs out of this deal first thing the next morning, feeling that it does not do enough to address his personal concerns with his local chapter. Gayle tentatively agrees to the deal. |
August 30, 2000 | PFLAG National sends out a statement to chapters in their Quarterly Affiliate Mailing encouraging them to discuss ways to provide queer by choice people with support, but National specifically refuses our repeated requests that they refer chapters to queer by choice resources for expert assistance. They refer chapters only to their Regional Directors within PFLAG, and the Regional Directors are not allowed to encourage chapters to contact real queer by choice people either. How can any chapter learn to provide good support if they're not even allowed to talk to queer by choice people and ask questions about what it means to be queer by choice? |
| September 2000 | Gayle backs out of the deal in fury at PFLAG National after receiving copies of Kirsten Kingdon's accusatory letter from multiple anonymous sources within PFLAG who were aghast at the dishonesty and unfairness of Kingdon's accusations. Gayle writes a self-defense for this website and informs Kirsten Kingdon that all chapters will be emailed a link to Gayle's words of self-defense. Meanwhile, PFLAG National posts a statement on choice to their national website, as Gayle and Frank had requested on the phone. |
| October 2000 | The old PFLAG National Position Statement denying choice was officially rescinded at the PFLAG National Annual Meeting in Portland, Oregon, on October 28, 2000. At the same meeting, the newly elected PFLAG President Arnold Drake spoke extensively and personably in his acceptance speech about his own evolving feelings about queer by choice concerns. |
| January 2001 | Email negotiations with PFLAG National look tentatively optimistic (maybe someday all this will get resolved?), and the next meeting of the Policy Statements Task Force is scheduled for mid-January. According to our contacts at PFLAG National, the Policy Statements Task Force plans to submit a new policy on choice to the Board of Directors for approval at this meeting. Please write to your Regional Director or to anyone else within PFLAG to encourage them to provide support for queer by choice identified people. |