{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/2b8v98108z/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Pastor Donna Spencer"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/255/original/Aviary_TRL_Header.png?1704389184","metadata":[],"provider":[{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Through A Rainbow Lens"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Through A Rainbow Lens"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/255/original/Aviary_TRL_Header.png?1704389184","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/224/316/small/open-uri20240105-2144458-zat7ha_1704475942.jpg?1704457946","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - open-uri20240105-2144458-zat7ha.mp4"]},"duration":3975.6717,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/224/316/small/open-uri20240105-2144458-zat7ha_1704475942.jpg?1704457946","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-unitedlynnpride.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/224/316/original/open-uri20240105-2144458-zat7ha.mp4?1704457898","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":3975.6717,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Rev. Donna Spencer Collins transcript 4-24-24 [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Andrew Darien\n\nToday's date is December 4th, 2023. My name is Andrew Darien. I'm a professor of history at Salem State University, and I'm conducting this interview as part of the Mass Humanities funded project, Through a Rainbow Lens, a Reflection on Lynn's LGBTQ+ History. I'm honored to be joined today by Reverend Donna Spencer Collins. She is a graduate of Lynn Classical, North Shore Community College, Regis College and Newton Theological Seminary and serves as the senior reverend at Groveland Congregational Church. Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed today.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=0.0,44.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Donna Spencer\n\nYou're welcome.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=44.0,46.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Andrew Darien\n\nAnd can I just confirm that I have your permission to be recorded?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=46.0,50.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Donna Spencer\n\nYou have my permission to be recorded.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=50.0,54.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Andrew Darien\n\nThanks. I thought maybe we could start off with you just telling me what it was like growing up being the oldest of six children.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=54.0,65.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Donna Spencer\n\nWell, I was raised in an Irish Catholic family. My dad is 1 of 8 and my mom was 1 of 3. My mom lost her dad when she was very young. She was 10. So my grandfather, her stepfather, was my grandfather. He was the centerpiece of our family on so many levels. My aunt, my father's side of the family, my dad went to Wentworth [Institute of Technology] couldn't finish because of work and so forth. He needed to work and he had a phobia of being on the subway. And so he tended, he owned a gas station and he worked outdoors all of his life because of that phobia of which none of us were really fully aware of. So it was typical blue collar Irish family. His side of the family there was a bunch of kids, just like my family. There was 6 of us all together. I'm the oldest of the 6. My mom worked as a nurse's aide and she also started out at Dunk[in Donuts] as a waitress and became a manager. And she was the manager most of my life that she worked. And so my siblings and I, our first jobs were pumping gas and working at Dunkin Donuts. So, it wasn't easy raising 6 kids. Financially, they did own a home and I was pretty proud of that. But we lived in the middle of, we were in West Lynn, close to the commons. So the area, I never knew it as a bad area because everybody on the street had the same amount of kids and had the same amount of, we were all the same basically. It was a lot of sameness. But it was just typical. Like I said, I went to Lynn schools. Elementary schools, where we walked to school. Our parents didn't drive us anywhere. My mom didn't even get her license until she was 36. And you walked everywhere and you could. So I had a very good childhood. There was always food on the table. And one of the hallmarks of my mom was she always made a little extra and there was always somebody coming home with one of us kids. So she's always been that way. And I think all of us emulate that in her. So being raised Catholic, I did have a religious foundation, but I wasn't, it was very typical. And when I was 18 I stopped going to church and everything. I really had no church affiliation that I could think of and I was just like all my other friends at the time. And so church never really played a major role outside of tradition, if that makes sense. And then, I was probably, I got into some trouble did the usual typical teenage stuff, drinking. And the drinking age was 18 so that meant we were drinking at 16, that kind of stuff. Saw some, lost some friends in car wrecks and stuff. And my niece, my cousin, she was hit by a car on the Lynnway and was killed. And that's really what started my religious walk. I started to ask all these questions, like, \"Where'd she go?\" Like, \"Is this the-\" It was really totally existential at a young age. But it still didn't-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=65.0,304.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Andrew Darien\n\nHow old were you at the time?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=304.0,306.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Donna Spencer\n\nI, she was 19. I was 18. I just graduated high school. So, yeah, that was probably, I would say that was really a pivotal moment in my life because it just pulled me outside of the routine Monday and helped me to look at the world through different eyes and myself in the world through different eyes. And I kind of floundered around for a while. And found my way at church. So that kind of saved me. And the church piece is important for me to talk about now because it became extremely important and as I continue to grow and understand myself as my authentic self. Which it took me [un]til I was in my 40s [un]til I finally just accepted who I always was. But never really understood that about myself, if that makes sense. The religious stuff did get in the way of that. It kept me away from that because I'm going to go to hell. I didn't want to go to hell. And then you fall in love and you start [to] question again. And finding out that God is much bigger. And much, much. It's not as the institutions portray God, if that makes sense. So, I found that God loved me just as I am and loved me beyond my wildest dreams and that actually, once I came to terms with that, and that was a long journey, I just gave you, like, 40 years of information there. It was a long, hard journey and there was a lot of unpacking, deconstructing, walking a walk of just trying to find my way. And so I'll back up a little bit. I got married when I was 28. I married a man and we were both in the church together and we both sang and we sang very well together. It just looked like we should go off into ministry. So we literally packed our bags when I was 30, he was 2 years younger than me, and went down to Oklahoma for Bible school. And down there it was an exciting time. It was Tulsa, Oklahoma. They call it the belt buckle of the Bible Belt. And I remember being in school and it was the first time I really saw what could happen to homosexuals in church. There were two guys that were kicked out of the school and they weren't just kicked out of the school, they were shunned. And they were brought before the magistrate and it was, to me, it was a terrible thing. Even to me back then, because all I kept thinking was, oh my God, that could have happened to me if I ever \"acted out\" my \"sin.\" But I knew them and I knew how much they loved God and I was so ashamed at what had happened to them. And felt my hands tied to help because we were in the system, you know, and you couldn't buck the system. So anyway, fast forward, we, my ex husband and I, started a church in Claremore, Oklahoma. I had a lot of physical medical issues over my life. I had J[uvenile]R[heumatoid]A[rthritis] as a kid, spent time in a wheelchair, in and out of a wheelchair and stuff. And, you know, kind of, this was my life. And during that particular period of time, I was in a good place. I hadn't had any medical issues for a long time. And then I fell at work and I broke my kneecap, but [that] also just aggravated all the mess that was already there. And it wasn't long when they told me I was going to need a knee replacement, but I was like, 31, 32, and they didn't do [that] at that age. And unfortunately that put me out of commission and because of the doctrine of the church regarding, so if you're in good health, you're not a sinner. If you're prosperous, you're not a sinner. If you have a problem and it doesn't go away, then you must have sin in your life. So, unfortunately I lived in that quagmire for a while. And unfortunately, they put all that on my ex-husband. Well, our ministry, what we were put to pastor on a ministry, and he became very angry at me. He wasn't, he was angry at me a lot, but the anger became abusive. And it was a major implosion and the police were called and life just turned very, very sour for me because I lost everything. I've lost my community, I lost him, I lost friends, I lost everything. But at the same time, I had gotten knee replacements and I had decided to go back to school. And so I went back to school in 1996 in September and the implosion took place on August 6th, 1996, because he was telling me I wasn't going to school. And I knew that if I had given into that, I imagined that I would have died because I don't know [if I] would've had the emotional stamina to withhold, uphold, live on that anymore. So, I stood up to him and that's what happened. Going to North Shore Community College, the first people I met were just the most incredibly-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=306.0,714.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Andrew Darien\n\nIf you don't mind, I'm going to interrupt you, in part because we've covered so much rich ground, and there's so many fascinating strands that you've already described that I'd like to explore a little more and then kind of bring it back to the chronology of starting a community college. As you yourself indicated, you covered a good 40 years there. Maybe could you say a bit more about your childhood illness and time in a wheelchair and how you think that kind of shaped you and how old you were at the time?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=714.0,758.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Donna Spencer\n\nSo, I was having issues. I was always overweight. This is a lot compact. So I was always overweight and my legs hurt and a doctor would always say, \"Oh, it's just growing pains. She's got to lose weight. She's carrying too much weight.\" And so I, obviously psychologically as a child, they made the weight issue a bigger problem than it was. Because they put me on a diet at 8 years old. And so I thought my mother was starving me to death, at 8. Because all the kids are getting regular food and none of them. So, this is kind of cool because I never thought of this. I was always a much bigger girl than my siblings. All my sisters are, they're like, 5'2 and weigh 110 pounds. Then there was me and I was a lot taller than them. In our family pictures I always stood out like a sore thumb. But it explained a lot going back in time to find out that that my weight wasn't causing the problem. And then it was a couple of years later. And it was [discovered], that I had an endocrine problem. That was polycystic ovary disease. Now, they didn't call it that. They just called it endometriosis. So, when I, I'm gonna have to jump forward and then jump back. So, when I was 40 years old at North Shore, I was diagnosed with uterine, stage 2, uterine cancer. And had a full hysterectomy, and when the oncologist talked to me about it she explained to me that I had the worst case of polycystic ovary disease that she had ever seen. She also explained to me that the arthritis and the stuff that I had suffered from all these years was more than likely attributed to that because it had so infiltrated my endocrine system. And it was such a relief that I actually got relief after I had the hysterectomy. I had like, chronic pain that I would get seasonally, went away. Now [I'm going to] go back. So when I fell in Oklahoma, I had. So from 17 [un]til I was 24. I had had several knee replacements, not knee replacements, knee surgeries. And at the time they [would] just remove all the meniscus. So I was bone on bone, but because of the arthroscopic surgery, they could really smooth the area better than they had. And I felt like a brand new person after that. So from 24 [un]til I was 31, I did very well because my pain level isn't the same as anyone else's anyway. So even though I might have had pain, it was nothing like it was. So, that's sort of how I cope. So when I fell when I was 31, I not only broke the kneecap, but the knee joint was just a mess and the doctor in Tulsa wouldn't operate on me because he felt that I needed a knee replacement. So, needless to say that knee fused into a 30 degree angle and from that point, I was in a wheelchair. So, when I was between 31 [un]til about 2002, I was in a wheelchair. And using crutches and you had a scooter for school, and different things like that. But in 1996, so in 1995, having been in a wheelchair for three years, I fell out of the wheelchair banged my head on the bathtub and I had epilepsy from the fall. And at that point in that time of my life, the doctors were pretty much just maintaining me. They weren't really offering me any help and my mother told her doctor my situation and he said, \"There's no reason why they should be just [since] she's so young, that they should just be maintaining this. So he helped me, [I] got a new neurologist, got a new orthopedic doctor, got him on board and they put me in a longitudinal study. The new neurologist got my seizures under control. The orthopedic doctor put me in a longitudinal study for these brand new knee replacements, made of titanium, which they only make them that way now. And I was in a 20 year longitudinal study. My knee replacements are 27 years old and still working pretty fine. And so I outlived not only the study, but I also, the doctor retired on me too. So anyway when I had the knee replacements and everything imploded with my ex-husband, I went back to school because I, for the first time, could see myself not as a disabled person, but just a person simply with a disability. And that I could, I needed to go find out what I could do because of my history. I thought I was going to go into gerontology because there were no real programs to really help disabled people like myself and what I had been through. And it's a long journey and there's a lot of scary stories in the middle of all that. But all of that going on really also kept me distracted by my sexuality, there was a distraction. As you can imagine with all of that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=758.0,1133.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Andrew Darien\n\nAnd can you just say a little bit about your awareness of your sexuality? You had mentioned earlier in the interview fear about sin. Was there a particular age when you remember being aware of who you were attracted to and how you felt about it?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=1133.0,1155.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Donna Spencer\n\nSo, in my day and time, I didn't know any gay people. It wasn't, there wasn't any gay people in anybody's families that we knew of, so it didn't really come up. I remember I was maybe 15 or 16 years old and my friend's sister was a lesbian and I thought, \"Well, that was interesting, but weird. Well, that's weird\" and it wasn't until, I think, I do believe I had a crush on a girl friend. And I didn't understand those feelings. I just thought, \"Wow. She's a great person. I love her.\" Looking back, I think I had a crush on her, now I can look at that. And I didn't really-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=1155.0,1202.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Andrew Darien\n\nBut by the time you were in Tulsa, you had a much stronger awareness of that?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=1202.0,1209.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Donna Spencer\n\nOh, not at all. Just the awareness was the story I told you about the two guys, it just punctuated. \"Don't you ever. No one should ever. It's a bad thing.\" I, honestly, even when I met Audrey I would tell people, \"I'm not a lesbian. I just fell in love with my best friend.\" Because we're both each [other]'s first love. And so I didn't do any experimenting, I wasn't in the community, I didn't date. And we just kind of. So, I met her at North Shore Community College. And [I was] just making new friends because all [of] the old friends were not there anymore, mostly because of my ex husband. They chose to listen to him and not me. And that was okay. Looking back, I-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=1209.0,1275.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Andrew Darien\n\nWhy did you choose to go back to Lynn specifically?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=1275.0,1277.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Donna Spencer\n\nYeah. When did we go? So, when we were in Tulsa-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=1277.0,1280.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Andrew Darien\n\nWhy did you choose to go to Lynn?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=1280.0,1283.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Donna Spencer\n\nWhy did I what?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=1283.0,1285.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Andrew Darien\n\nWhy did you choose to come back home?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=1285.0,1289.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Donna Spencer\n\nWell, I didn't. I lived in Wakefield before I, we, went to Oklahoma. And I came back and stayed with friends in Wakefield, and I needed an apartment that had, that was accessible and handicapped accessible. And this opened up at the Vamp building, 7 liberty Square, and I was able to live there. It wasn't a handicap apartment at the time but it had an elevator and I could get in and out of the building. And I was on disability. And so that's really how I ended up back in Lynn. So, I was there for nine years and then I was at, when Audrey, her divorce was final she acquired, she got the house, one of the houses. And I left there and moved in with her at Liberty Square and we were there for another ten years. So, we were 19 years old. I was 19 years old together once I got back from Oklahoma.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=1289.0,1354.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Andrew Darien\n\nAt what point did your self identity shift from someone who happened to fall in love with their best friend to someone who identified as being lesbian?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=1354.0,1367.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Donna Spencer\n\nSo, it's sort of, honestly, it was the GSA at North Shore Community College. It was, they had a program called Be Glad. And I became really good friends with, I'll name her because she's such a wonderful person, Leslie Peters. And we became, I became really good friends with her. And I had so many questions, she was a curiosity to me. Because she was known as stereotypical, how I imagined gay people to be. And I was really being educated in my 30s about what all this was. And my gosh, these are just real people, they just love other people. And so, I became really good friends with her and she was in a relationship with a girl. They had come here from England. And so she went to school at North Shore [Community College] while her partner worked. Her partner at the, when Leslie graduated from North Shore [Community College] she went to Suffolk University to finish her degree. And they split up and she had no place to go. So I invited her to come live with me. And that was really where I started really get[ing] comfortable with everything. In the meantime, Audrey and I had become friends and she and Leslie were friends. At the same time, all this is happening all at the same time, Audrey's identical twin daughters came out to Audrey. And she was freaking out that her kids weren't going to have babies and all these things. She was just so upset that both of them are gay, not one of them it had to be both. Leslie was the one who really educated Audrey and I was just in the room learning about all this and realizing what is this that two kids could become gay if they're choosing this. And they were very butch and they still are very butch. My daughter Donna, when she had her babies they did it through in vitro [fertilization] and a donor. She called herself a seahorse because she was giving birth to the babies. But Marcy, who wasn't having the babies, was the mom. So there was a lot of education was happening around me all of a sudden. And I feel like it was my Act Two, if that makes sense. There was Act One, my ex husband and all of that passed and then this Act Two. In the Act Two part, I got well. It took me a long time to walk with physical therapy and everything because they couldn't get the seizures under control. If I overexerted myself, I'd have a seizure. So, they came out, there was a new medication, Kepra, and [it] changed my life in 2003. By 2004, I had my license, I had already graduated from North Shore [Community College] and graduated from Regis College. And I did it all with honors and everything. And so people saw me like, \"Wow, look at that.\" But I believe it was also Audrey. I couldn't have done all that because Audrey really became a cheerleader to me. She kept saying, \"You can do this. Look at you. Look what you're doing. You can do this. You can do this.\" And I remember a couple of occasions saying, \"I don't know if I can do this. I don't know if I can, what is this all going to do? I can't even get a job at the end of this because they won't give me health insurance because I have preexisting conditions.\" And it wasn't until I just didn't care. All of a sudden I didn't care. I just felt this pull, if that makes sense, that I had a purpose and a plan. That's how I got to where I am today really.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=1367.0,1637.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Andrew Darien\n\nIt's so fascinating that your political awakening takes place in the mid to late [19]90s, you're I guess roughly around 11 years old in 1969 during the Stonewall Riots, so you were a little young for that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=1637.0,1656.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Donna Spencer\n\nYeah, [I] didn't know","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=1656.0,1658.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Andrew Darien\n\nYeah. But the gay liberation movement was certainly in full swing by the time you were in high school. AIDS activism was very much a part of the landscape in the 1980s. But it sounds like both in terms of who you were and where you were living a lot of that passed you by?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=1658.0,1680.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Donna Spencer\n\nOh, no, it didn't pass me by. We were in the Fred Phelps corner. So what we were, what I was witnessing is people being stopped at the door if they even looked gay, by my ushers at my church. It was the most heinous thing looking back. Stories that I have heard since then. One of the, one of my stories that is the hardest of my before and after stories. I had been at North Shore [Community College] and we had the AIDS quilt come in. And this is a total immersion in educating me on so many levels. I had at that point, I had already had two friends that had gone to the churches that I was in that died of AIDS. And one of them, his name was Michael McCarthy. And I love that guy and I remember the day he told the elders that he was gay and they basically tried to convert him and he never came back and I never heard from him. Then I found out when I was in Oklahoma that he got AIDS. And there wasn't anybody there to help except this one. His family, his own family had rejected him. I remember just thinking of how, I'm going to get emotional because he was such a wonderful man, and he was such a kind and gracious person. How could anybody treat him like that? The people who were supposed to love you, these God people, they're supposed to love like Jesus loved. So AIDS quilt came and they were explaining it to us that. Now, I had no idea what it was. I had seen it on the mall through pictures and so forth. And so to see it fill the gymnasium of North Shore Community College from stem to stern. They explained to us that the majority of people that were there were people who were from Massachusetts. And then everybody that have died of AIDS that anybody made a clue for them that there was a book with their name in it. So the book would look like a giant Bible. It was on a pedestal and I went over. And they had tagged all the, they had tags on the pages with people that were from Massachusetts, so like little sticky strips. And I got to the page with Michael McCarthy and there was his name. And the strip was there to let you know that their panel was in the room, and I remember just feeling so overwhelmed. Well, at my wedding, he wore these incredible shoes. And they were custom made. And on the top of the shoe was leopard skin with fur. And when I found his quilt and somebody had dismantled the shoe and they were on the quilt. And I told him how sorry I was. Then I told him, \"Guess what? I got a girlfriend.\" And since then have had the quilt come to my church, on more than one occasion, the last time was in 2019. The sad thing was in 2019 we were the only, anyone, on the Northeast who was even asking about the quilts, which was pretty amazing to me. So, those are the kind of unfoldings and revelations that came. Michael holds a very, I preach about him. He's in church often with me. Just to show off just because he wasn't allowed in any other church while he was here. And he's only one person. And because of that my getting more and more involved in the gay community had a lot to do with how I really could empathize with the stories of folks. The reason why I'm here is because of George Chakoutis and he had the 47 Central and Club Central and 47 Central a second time, and we're very good friends. We've been friends a long time. And I remember I had gotten hired to do karaoke to cover for somebody at the bar. And I was scared to death because I had never been in a men's gay bar ever before. And I had every stereotypical imaginational thing that happened and I went and I never left. I was there for two weeks and he hired me. He says, \"I need you to just keep coming back.\" He says, \"You're the best we've had.\" And that whole time, every Thursday and Sunday it wasn't uncommon for me to be ministering to people and people just sharing their stories. I remember one day, a man sitting at the bar, and he called me over and he says, \"You know why I come to karaoke? Because everybody calls you Mama D.\" And then he said, \"My mom threw me out and I've not seen her in a long time and today's my birthday.\" So I had a drink with him as Mama D, his mama. And I became Mama D, that's how I got my nickname. I'm kind of everybody's mama. That's from Coco Alinsug, actually, named me Mama D. So you become part of a community that you think, you were told, were the scum of the earth. You come to find out there's more love and compassion and empathy and caring there. It was the best church I'd ever been to, to be honest. They all took care of each other. I did many funerals, I did many weddings. When gay marriage [was legalized], I was the first person to ask to [officiate] marriages. I didn't get married until years [later], Audrey and I didn't want to become political. So we waited until 2010 to get married. I got very involved at N[orshore]A[lliance for]GL[BTQ+]Y[outh], because my heart for the kids was overwhelming. Especially, I could totally empathize with the young kids whose religious family members had kicked them out. We had a young kid, 13 show up. 13 years old, whose mom threw him out. And you want to go and shake them and you can't. And the blindness is, I don't even know how to undo it. I can't even explain how it got undone in me. Except that I just kept following the path I guess that I'm on. So, anyway, I didn't anticipate I was going to cry.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=1680.0,2144.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Andrew Darien\n\nWell, you're talking about some pretty heavy stuff here. Can you tell me, did you attend other gay or lesbian bars in addition to 47 Central?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=2144.0,2156.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Donna Spencer\n\nOh, of course. Once Audrey and I started dating, absolutely. So, this is kind of a funny conversation where we're having a conversation and it's like, \"So who do you know that's gay?\" We're having to cough. We used to have tea every afternoon. [We're] like, \"Who do you know is gay?\" \"Well, I have a friend Maria.\" \"Well, why don't you give her a call? Maybe she has some friends who we can hang out with.\" She went to high school with Maria, hadn't talked to Maria in years and called her up. And we ended up becoming a part of that group of women. And so Maria, she kind of treated us like we were her protege, you know, because she had to show us the ropes. So, she was the first to invite us to P[rovidence] Town. And I remember that first year going and I was excited and scared all at the same time. Because I still, in the back of my head, didn't know if I was going to hell or not. I mean, I know for sure now, but I really thought I was being reckless. I remember going down there, we [had] come down Bradford street and got on Commercial [street]. We're driving two miles an hour because everybody's in the street. And I just was so amazed to see people in public holding hands with their arms around each other. And I remember just crying, thinking that I thought this was so ugly and bad and it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. And that day, so it had to be 2004 somewhere around there because the weekend we were there, they were like all these weddings. Like people going down Commercial street in convertibles, just celebrating their marriages. And I'm thinking, \"My God, I come just in time. I've come just in time.\" And so those are the kind of things that happened. I didn't do this on my own, it wasn't on my own. I have somebody ringing the doorbell. Is it okay to pause a minute? Hello.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=2156.0,2300.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Andrew Darien\n\nDid you ever go to Fran's [Place]?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=2300.0,2304.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Donna Spencer\n\nAbsolutely. I was in Night of 100 Stars for many years as a singer. I did a lot, we did a lot, we attempted to do a lot of community service together us folks at 47 [Central] and in Fran's Place. It wasn't my primary place, 47 [Central] was, but I DJ'd there. I did karaoke there. Like I said, I sang in a lot, anytime they had any events that were, all of their events always, often had to do with charity, take care of charities and stuff. And I got to know all the drag queens through there [be]cause they would do their shows and then come over 47 [Central] at the end of the night. So, it became a whole new world for me all over, learned a whole lot of things about what the life of transgender people were like. How it's hard to find a job and why they do what they do to make money. And all of a sudden you saw, I just started seeing the world again through, when you have a political religious bent, you look at these other people, these marginalized people, and you blame them for the way they live. When the truth is society created the environment where they weren't welcome to have the same rights as other people. And I became very impassioned about those things. As a matter of fact, I started a church for the purpose of LGBTQ people up here in Haverhill called Phoenix Rising. We were going for about nine years before COVID [19] hit, but my whole point was, you are welcome here and we're here to support you, we're here to help you in any way you can. And it was a good run. It was a good run. I'm a little too far ahead now.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=2304.0,2453.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Andrew Darien\n\nThat's okay. There were [inaudible] lesbian bars in Lynn over the past 40 to 50 years, sadly many of those are gone. How would you describe those bars and the role that they served for the community at the time for maybe young generation of people who don't have the same appreciation for it?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=2453.0,2484.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Donna Spencer\n\nWell, again, this is where, if you want to call it my moral breaking point or whatever changed. As it's not as an uncommon for young kids to come in, get young kids to come in before, you know, like from 5 [pm] to 8 [pm]. Because the bar technically, they serve food and so forth, but after 8 [pm], they couldn't stay. And to talk to some of these young kids who ended up coming back later and I was a familiar face for them. And even mentor young people, my friend Kirsten Freni, she worked with Coco Alinsug and she was, we called her, The Condom Queen because she did community work with the young kids and teaching them about HIV, safe sex, she even had classes at our house and you got a certificate if you took the class. And I did it because it was important for me to know what she was doing. So I could sell it for her and encourage people to go. And it was all through the Fenway, I think it was The Game Men's something. And so what these bars did, I mean, it wasn't uncommon to, back at the very beginning when I was there, to see the Fenway truck out front on a Friday night every couple of months doing free HIV testing and education. Where do you find the people? How do you get a truck like that? So there were people in the bars that were working with the Fenway who were helping people, that's how we found out about the Fenway and their program for having babies. And my daughter, Donna and Marcy, they got the donor through the Fenway. And it was the Fenway that supported her throughout her pregnancy. And so those are the kind of community that, I don't think those things [could have happened without the bars], the connecting the dots happened in those bars. Like I said, those bars could very well have been churches. It could have been whatever community group. Because they brought people from all over. From, you know, it wasn't uncommon, the diversity, not just the sexual diversity, but just the racial diversity. And how there wasn't, you didn't have this, one of our dear friends, Sunil, he's Pakistani and came here from Zimbabwe as an engineer and found his way to 47 Central. He had just moved to Lynn and he found community and he just celebrated his 50th birthday yesterday and we're all still connected in my group, in my circle. So I think that when I think of the bars. And as I said, I know I'm kind of sanitizing a lot of this, because there's ugliness too, because there's human beings there and there are broken human beings and people suffering from homelessness. We did Toys for Tots. We did things for the community and so it just always felt like a community, we always call ourselves a community. Next week 47 Central is having a Christmas party. And we'll all be there and we had a reunion last year and the bar hasn't been open in 10 years, you know. And yet we're all still connected. The sad part is the younger generation. Now, where do they go? How do they find connection? Where's the communities that they could indeed find what we found in what was considered a bar. And I think that's my greatest struggle. I'm glad there's S[traight]G[ay]A[lliance]s in colleges, but I find that not everybody finds their way to a college to find that. And yes, indeed there's more things in schools. The N[orshore]A[lliance for]GL[BTQ+]Y[outh] program, when we started out, it was a youth group of about twelve kids in the early 2000s, and they have a huge facility right in downtown Salem now. And it's funded by grants and stuff that I would help write. So, I'm not there anymore, but the end, you know, we stoke the engine and it's still going. So I'm always sending people to any of the A[lliance for]GL[BTQ+]Y[outh]s if I run into kids.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=2484.0,2791.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Andrew Darien\n\nTell me how Mama D transitioned into Pastor Donna.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=2791.0,2797.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Donna Spencer\n\nWell, I was a minister before everything happens. I was a minister in Tulsa. I thought that was never, when everything happened with my husband, I thought that that life was over. When the seizures went away, I remember just praying one day and just feeling. I was already, I didn't go to seminary until 2005. I got involved in 47 [Central in] about 2003, 2004. So, I was just kind of living and having a good time and then the more I was there I was further and further away from what I thought \"Christianity\" was and what I know it to be now. It was my encounters with people there, it was my first funeral. And realizing these people need somebody and it was just people reaching out to me for counseling and me supporting different things, situations. It wasn't necessarily \"counseling\" it was friending. So I really came to the realization that I was to go to seminary. And it came like this. I had gotten a job, I had applied for a job at North Shore Community College. I had a graphic design background. When I left North Shore Community College, I was commencement speaker, president of Phi Theta Kappa president of this of that. I didn't work so I was involved in everything. And so when this job opened up everyone was like, \"Oh my God, you're perfect for this job. We know you're going to get it. You're alum\" and all this stuff. I really thought I was going to get this job. I had gone for a second interview and I really felt really good about it. And I was laying in bed going, \"I don't know, if I do this this is my last job there's no way I'm going to be a minister. I can't imagine it happening.\" And I said, a just kind of little flippant prayer \"Well, God, if you want me to be a minister, just close this door.\" And I didn't think it was going to. Because after that, I started thinking about [how I] needed to go clothes shopping. So, it was very flippant in the moment. Well, the next day they call me up and they said, \"We're really sorry, Donna, we're going with somebody else.\" And so I'm like, \"Why?\" and their reaction was, \"Well, we have to, we have diversity quotas. We want you to consider it.\" And as she's talking, I just remember the words just disappearing and me hearing, \"Oh, my God, you're going to seminary\" while I'm still on the phone with her. It felt like God closed that door right then and there. And I literally got off the phone with her and I applied to seminary. And I was accepted two weeks later and I was in school in that fall, in September, so that's how that happened.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=2797.0,3011.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Andrew Darien\n\nThat's a pretty remarkable transition.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=3011.0,3015.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Donna Spencer\n\nYeah, and then going to the seminary I went to, it became a major deconstruction for me. We were right next door to the Hebrew College, and we had Hebrew professors and we're learning how to read the scriptures, like, not in any way I learned before. And the diversity and the scriptures and I had 4 Psych[ology] classes on LGBTQ perspectives, rights, psychology. Gay marriage was obviously, it was still a fire brand at the time. And how do we as ministers walk that walk? I'm not going to say, when I announced that I was, in my church, because I went to Audrey's church, they were open and affirming. They weren't so open about me going because I never quite fit in there either because my theology was still tainted with my old language, if that makes sense. I really struggled. It was kind of like, I had to relearn language around how to present God to the world. It's very simple now. You belong to God, God belongs to me, and we all belong to each other. That's my entire sermon I preach all day long. And it came from my experiences in the LGBTQ \"bars,\" which is pretty cool. And it goes against everything anybody would ever assume.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=3015.0,3112.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Andrew Darien\n\nHow long have you been the pastor at Groveland Congregational Church?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=3112.0,3117.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Donna Spencer\n\nSo, I was the pastor of Phoenix Rising first. We started in 2013. We made it all the way [un]til last September. And the last three years, I took a full time job and the church was part time. I was a chaplain at Care Dimensions hospice. In that transition, we had moved our church to this church. And then COVID hit and so everything kind of, the Phoenix Rising Church didn't survive. But the [Groveland Congregational] Church is part of my denomination, so whenever they needed a minister, I would preach here. I started here last January part-time and they offered me the job in the end of May. I accepted and was hired on June 4th. I quit my job at Care Dimensions on June 28th. So I was there for 4 years full-time. I did a lot of work there in LGBTQ too.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=3117.0,3189.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Andrew Darien\n\nIt seems like one constant is your work with LGBTQ+ youth. What differences do you notice between this generation and your generation, or the generation that you grew up with?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=3189.0,3212.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/40","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Donna Spencer\n\nWell, if I look at my youth, I was clueless. There was no conversation. There was really nothing in the news that I was aware of. I'm sure that there was, like you mentioned the Stonewall [Riots]. But that wasn't anything in my circle, in my little blue collar family circle of people. I feel like these kids have so much opportunity that my generation, the generation before me, I believe it's mostly the generation before me. Starting with the feminist movement, even way back, you know. I think that they don't really know our history. They don't know, they don't have the sense [of] the freedoms that they have. And the good thing is that they're not afraid. When there's kickback from politics, they're angry. We were more scared, I'll be honest. There were a few of us that weren't and there were people that marched in solidarity. But these kids are legitimately, there's a legitimate, I have hope because they're very thoughtful. But I really think, I'm afraid that our history needs to be taught to them. I wish there were classes that could be taught to them, like historic classes. Like, you would, we know we have June is Pride [month] and you have February, I think is black history month. I wish that there was programs that we could do during Pride [month] and I have seen them and I have done them during Pride [month] both times. I brought the AIDS quilt, which is an educational piece and I get to talk about my friend, Michael. And what that was like, so I try to seize the moment for myself. But I really am concerned that there's, they're kind of like, I don't know where they find community. I don't know how you find your tribe. Where do people go? That's a question I've had. The phenomenon of gay marriage was that suddenly all the gay bars closed and why? What happens? And it's across the board and across the states, it's not just in one place. I can't help wondering how the Pulse nightclub massacre that [prevented] people [from] wanting to even open bars. And how hard it is, even for me as a gay minister, I've been accosted, I have gotten emails, threats, I've had to have the police over the last ten years. So there's that fear factor. I don't feel alone because the community that I created, that we created, we still continue. So, there's still a sense of a community, even though we don't see each other all the time. I think that is really the issue. I'm real concerned about where do people go? How do we create a homogenized social gathering place, how do you do that? So that's really my two biggest things education, history, community and connection.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=3212.0,3457.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/41","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Andrew Darien\n\nI was interviewing someone a few weeks ago, it may have even been Coco and his explanation for this, somewhat glibly, but I think with an element of seriousness, was Tinder. People now can make connection online and digitally, and in the past you were isolated if you didn't go to a bar or a club. Now, young people can find one another more easily. Something that you were kind of alluding to was the fact that there's been a little bit of a backlash against LGBTQ+ people over the last five to ten years. I'm interested in both how you make sense of that and whether or not you are optimistic about the future?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=3457.0,3516.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/42","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Donna Spencer\n\nWell, I am optimistic about the future because the arc of justice, what is it? The arc of, there's something that I know I heard it from Martin Luther King. But that the arc of justice always bends toward justice. In other words, we will get there. When I look at politics, it's a pendulum swing to me. Everything's extreme right now. You have the extreme right and you have the extreme left. The extreme left can be as obnoxious as the right. And I never felt that before. I never felt that the left was that far left. And I say this and I want to be clear about this. I think that the younger generation has given us, and we've given them, the opportunity to explore how to identify. To me, to be called queer, for instance, I think that is an incredibly derogatory statement. Not so much today, but when people started calling themselves queer [I thought] why are you doing that to yourself? Because I remember what that meant. And so to reclaim words, to really explore gender identity and he, she, they, binary, all those things. There's this great exploration happening. That's very confusing to a lot of us older people. But I look at it as, they get the freedom to do that. No one's ever done this before. You know, that's that extreme. The other extreme on the left. I'm watching and then this is the scary part for me, the people who I see in office are the people I went to church with. I know their mission. I know why they're in office. They are there to bring about Jesus's second coming. And they feel they have the right to condemn anything that they feel goes against \"God.\" I don't see it that way, as you can imagine, and it makes me even more angry, but I feel that, in a way, I feel gifted that I get that, because I've been there. I've walked in that village, I've been on that island, I know how they think. So, I'm not so much afraid of that. What scares me is that there's a lot more, when there was only one or two voices, but there's way too many now. The other thing that really I don't understand is how these religious people who believe in, and they're very self righteous, that they can allow man, who is anything but the epitome of a righteous person, and think that that they should be standing behind them because, and they do believe this, they believe that God has called Donald Trump to be president, to be something here. I don't understand it. To me, it's like [the] end times, if you take the Bible. But the opposite of that is the freedoms of these young people to really see and recognize what truth looks like. To recognize the inconsistencies and the hypocrisies and not so much to fight them, in the sense to fight, but to stand up to them and hold a merit to them. I think that's what our young people are capable of doing. And I hope that me being on this side of the proverbial pastor bench that I am also standing up for what I believe to be, standing up for social justice. Because that's what Jesus did, Jesus was a liberal. If you read the Bible, he was all for the liberal. And the people he was most angry at were the Pharisees who were the self righteous people, and the self righteous were the ones that did him harm. And so when I look at that, I get very, as you can see, I get a little passionate about it, but I have to walk this walk. The person for all people, because not only do I represent and am a member of the LGBTQ community. I've also been accepted and hired as an openly gay, same gender loving person who's been with my wife for 23 years in this little church in Groveland, Massachusetts, with a population of 600 people in a congregation of senior citizens who love us to death. And some of them have never even met a gay person before. And so I have surprised them and so I see hope. I see hope everywhere. But I also see so much work needs to be done and it can't be done by any one person, it needs to be done as a collective. And it needs to be done, not just [as] a collective but as a collective of a diverse group of people. As people who come from different backgrounds and come from different faith communities and come from different perspectives. Some of my closest friends are are atheists and, to be honest, they do more community service and serve the world more than some of my so-called Christian people who are waiting for Jesus to come. So there's my sermon for tonight. That'll be my, we'll just put that in the sermon section.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=3516.0,3913.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/43","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Andrew Darien\n\nWell, I think that was very eloquent and profound and you were searching for Martin Luther King's words, but you've sort of captured the essence of his notion that the arc of the moral universe is long, but bends toward justice.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=3913.0,3933.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/44","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Donna Spencer\n\nOh, thank you! Yes, that's what I was trying to say.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=3933.0,3933.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/45","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Andrew Darien\n\nActually I think that's probably a very fitting way to conclude our interview. Before we wrap up, I just wanted to ask if there was anything you were hoping to address that you didn't. I know we covered a lot of ground, but is there anything else you wanted to mention?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=3933.0,3954.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/transcript/66631/annotation/46","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Donna Spencer\n\nNo, I want to thank you. I thank you for throwing the questions you did at me because it did help me think of things I haven't thought about. So I appreciate that, to conceptualize outside my own head, I appreciate that opportunity.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=3954.0,3975.6717"}]},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/index/83500","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Rev. Donna Spencer Collins index [Index]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/index/83500/annotation/47","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"A typical West Lynn blue collar Irish family.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=65.865,281.115"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/index/83500/annotation/48","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"My religious walk started on my niece's 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people.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=1155.663,1210.264"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/index/83500/annotation/55","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I'm not a lesbian, just in love.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=1210.264,1464.59212"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/index/83500/annotation/56","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Leslie educated Audrey and 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.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=2305.16,2347.538"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/index/83500/annotation/63","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Impassioned about transgender lives, I started a church.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=2347.538,2621.25671"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/index/83500/annotation/64","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"47 Central brought diverse people together.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=2621.25671,2797.181"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/index/83500/annotation/65","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Mama D transitioned into Pastor Donna.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=2797.181,3015.581"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/index/83500/annotation/66","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"We belong to God and each other.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=3015.581,3117.963"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/index/83500/annotation/67","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"My Phoenix Rising church didn't survive COVID.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=3117.963,3212.0"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/index/83500/annotation/68","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Youth today are not afraid like we were.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=3212.0,3297.486"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/index/83500/annotation/69","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Our history needs to be taught.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316#t=3297.486,3346.429"},{"id":"https://througharainbowlens.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2385/collection_resources/119455/file/224316/index/83500/annotation/70","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"How do youth today find their 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