Monday, May 24, 2010

Review of CHAINED TO FREEDOM that mentions discrimination at Orlando Health

Here is a review of CHAINED TO FREEDOM, which just opened at the Orlando International Fringe Theatre Festival. In it, the oppression at Orlando Health is mentioned...

Fringe review: ‘Chained to Freedom,’ Open Door Productions, New York, NY

By Elizabeth Maupin

Alan Bounville is a man with a mission. Bounville wants to change the laws that deny gays and lesbians the same civil rights enjoyed by heterosexuals. Chained to Freedom is the story of his fight.

It’s not an especially unusual story, although it turns out that Bounville slightly knew Ryan Skipper, the gay man who was beaten and stabbed to death in rural Polk County in 2007 and has become known as Central Florida’s Matthew Shepard.

But it wasn’t Skipper’s murder that galvanized Bounville: It was the refusal of his own employer, Orlando Health, to grant domestic-partner benefits. Bounville quit his job, picketed at a corporate-sponsored event and then moved to New York to fight the fight ion a national scale.

Good activists aren’t always practiced actors, and Bounville could work on speaking up and on not making his material sound so melodramatic. (In drama, less is often more.) Still, a little agitprop theater is nearly always a good thing. I only wish Bounville weren’t preaching to the choir.

Remaining shows: 8:35 p.m. Tuesday 5/25, 10:10 p.m. Wednesday 5/26, 5:10 p.m. Friday 5/28. Yellow venue.

Review of CHAINED TO FREEDOM - Mentions discrimination at Orlando Health

Here is a review of CHAINED TO FREEDOM that is currently playing at the Orlando International Fringe Theatre Festival...

Fringe review: ‘Chained to Freedom,’ Open Door Productions, New York, NY

By Elizabeth Maupin

Alan Bounville is a man with a mission. Bounville wants to change the laws that deny gays and lesbians the same civil rights enjoyed by heterosexuals. Chained to Freedom is the story of his fight.

It’s not an especially unusual story, although it turns out that Bounville slightly knew Ryan Skipper, the gay man who was beaten and stabbed to death in rural Polk County in 2007 and has become known as Central Florida’s Matthew Shepard.

But it wasn’t Skipper’s murder that galvanized Bounville: It was the refusal of his own employer, Orlando Health, to grant domestic-partner benefits. Bounville quit his job, picketed at a corporate-sponsored event and then moved to New York to fight the fight ion a national scale.

Good activists aren’t always practiced actors, and Bounville could work on speaking up and on not making his material sound so melodramatic. (In drama, less is often more.) Still, a little agitprop theater is nearly always a good thing. I only wish Bounville weren’t preaching to the choir.

Remaining shows: 8:35 p.m. Tuesday 5/25, 10:10 p.m. Wednesday 5/26, 5:10 p.m. Friday 5/28. Yellow venue.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Orlando Health Discrimination Shared at National Conference

The discrimination happening at Orlando Health continues to be shared. This past Friday a group of New York University students presented at a conference at the University of Massachusetts Amherst discussing the multiple layers of oppression Orlando Health leaders are hurling upon their employees, patients and the public in general.

It was great to continue to spread this message - and to share here that letting more and more people know about the multiple ills this large hospital system is inflicting upon people - WILL NOT DIE!

Next month, the play CHAINED TO FREEDOM will be presented at the the Orlando International Fringe Theatre Festival. In it, great detail is taken to unpack the multiple oppressions at Orlando Health and show how they tie into a much bigger picture of oppression for queer and non queer people alike. Stay tuned (especially the Orlando Health spies and legal entities that follow this blog's every move).

Friday, March 19, 2010

CHAINED TO FREEDOM - UPLOADED ON ORLANDO FRINGE PAGE

Here is the link for my new show premiering at the Orlando International Fringe Festival, CHAINED TO FREEDOM that exposes the discrimination happening at Orlando Health among other oppressions.

A portion of the proceeds from the show will benefit direct actions for LGBTQI equality in Central Florida.

Friday, March 12, 2010

New Watchdog of this Blog...

I would like to officially welcome Thompson, Sizemore, Gonzalez & Hearing as Obsessed Blog Follower for the Week!

I wonder - did Orlando Health waste more money and hire this firm to try and build a case to defend the discrimination happening at Orlando Health? If so, wouldn't it have been better to use that money for better use like to, I don't know, maybe - PROVIDE DOMESTIC PARTNER BENEFITS TO ORLANDO HEALTH EMPLOYEES!!???

Just a question.

To learn more about the company-centered work this firm does, go to:



Thursday, February 11, 2010

Orlando Health Discrimination Presented at National Conference

The story of discrimination at Orlando Health continues to reach wider audiences. It has been announced that a section of this story will be presented at a 2010 national educational conference. More details coming soon!

Alan Bounville

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Hello Mateer Harbert PA and Orlando Health Babysitters!

I have waited a while to share the following...

It's funny - Orlando Health cannot afford domestic partner benefits for employees but they can afford to have two Orlando Health employees monitor my every move on this blog. And, it looks like they have hired law firm Mateer Harbert to also follow this blog and all Orlando Health Diversity Initiative activities. And there are a number of Orlando Health employees and many people in the community who follow this blog - and the number of viewers keeps growing!

I know all of the above because I track who comes to the blog, where they come from, etc. through a common online tracking service. This blog has seen thousands of hits in the handful of months it's been live - but two Orlando Health employees and one Mateer Harbert employees are virtually obsessed with this blog! I can't imagine how they get anything else done because they are on this blog almost every day.

So - officially - Hello Orlando Health and Mateer Harbert babysitters! How are you doing today?

Alan L. Bounville

PS - I often go on this blog to pretend like I'm updating posts just to flag my babysitters that I've done something and interrupt their work day so they can check on me. Maybe if Orlando Health would get rid of my babysitters they could afford domestic partner benefits for employees. WAIT! They could already afford this because studies show that offering domestic partner benefits costs companies very little - and draws more talented employees to a company. And, since Orlando Health is SELF INSURED - in reality it would cost them nothing at all to offer domestic partner benefits!

Thursday, January 28, 2010

IT. IS. TIME.

There is a wave coming – no – if we want it – a new ocean in the progressive movement – an ocean of real change. Not change we are promised from afar – change that I viscerally cried out for and celebrated over in November 2008 that turned into the same old goddamn fucking NOTHING bullshit. But a real change made by real people with a real yearning, desire and need to be free. And this change challenges every fiber of our current culturally, economically and politically siloed existence.

As a middle class, white gay male shackled to this failed American Dream – drowning under hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt due to this lie I have been force fed since birth – I count myself lucky. I count myself thus because I am oppressed as a gay man only. And if I, the white gay man am in this vulnerable place – imagine what it is like for our sisters and brothers with multiple intersecting oppressive forces bearing down on their shoulders. It is time we break open the silos and let the grains of humanity pile up together and create a mountain that overshadows the system that built the silos in the first place.

As of today, no more do I feel any sense of comfort or security in the crippling invisibility cloak I can wear as a queer person to cover up my queerness. I no longer see my ability to ‘pass’ as anything but a massive hindrance to what needs to happen from here. Now, I only find safety in numbers – numbers on the right side of history who are going to stand with me in solidarity making the rainbow of us queer folk a constant image that our oppressors cannot ignore.

And finally – I am committed to do more than scratch the surface of various festering soars of segregation – FINALLY I am finding spaces where I am among others who feel just as I do. And to knock it in to where ‘it’s at’ – FINALLY this week I have intersected with the same patchwork of humanity that enveloped me at a rally a little over a year ago. At that rally I was promised by then candidate Obama that the plurality present that night was what was going to be the realized vision for America at all levels of government and industry. I was promised thathe would bring the country together – that black and white, straight and bi, gay and lesbian, trans and two spirit, yellow and red and brown, female and male and every other intersection present in this ‘great’ land was going to FINALLY be afforded equal, high quality opportunities to press forward into this century.

But, ‘the change’ was a lie. The magical intersections that I crossed that night at that rally were not manifestations of real change – I was sold a big bag of false – hope.

So, what changed my thinking forever? This week I got together with a bunch of crazy mother fucking queers and allies in the hills of Tennessee - at an historic place that has been a major organizing hub since 1932 for people who want to come together from different viewpoints and different cultures – cultures that were legally not allowed to intersect in this sacred space just a half century ago – and change the world around them. I was lifted by the spirits of all those who have done critical work there – people who we all know by name, who have immensely shaped this nation and the world – people who have been part of movements of all sizes who were ready to clash and FORCE themselves to cut through the tension and get. shit. done.

So, we queers and allies got together to purposefully clash our various culture lines in the queer movement and try to get to a deeper place of connectedness and cultural competence to do something that, up until now en masse we have all failed to do - to understand the intricacies of our intersectional oppressions and USE THAT knowledge as the fuel to propel queer people forward towards liberation. To use our often polarizing differences to force a wedge into our own complex and exhausting culture to come out on the other side aligned through the power of combined cultural knowledge and DEMAND LIBERATING EQUALITY THROUGH DIRECT ACTION AND CIVIL DISOBEDEICE that is integrated into winnable local and national campaigns.

And we learned it’s going to be hard as fuck! And it’s going to take lots of patience and persistence. And it’s going to be sharply criticized from all sides – and that’s all in line with what must happen for this radical inclusivity to work.

The work to shift the queer movement into this direction did not start with this week – it’s been a long time coming. But this week potentially galvanized this new direction. And it allowed about forty people to come together to start knitting us all into a mass network of boots on the ground activists, an online army and a massive support team.

The room was filled with people from all over the country, representing a dynamic blend of ethnicities, races, socio-economic classes, political inclinations, experience levels and ages. The group did not by any stretch encompass all cultural intersections and multiple identities that exist in our queer community, because that would take getting us all in a room together – but know – the room was radically diverse.

We as queer and allied people have one of the most complicated charges in history. And in that charge, we have one of the most humbling opportunities the world has ever seen. Queer people have always been there at the forefront of social change – change that has brought cultures together for centuries. And now, at this moment it is our turn to be the center of this new spiraling movement. And here’s where it REALLY GETS EXCITING - by taking this radically inclusive approach to queer liberation we do something far greater than liberate queer people. We will press forward the unfinished work of the Civil Rights Movement. And that is fucking huge!

And we take on this seemingly impossible task no more through asking nicely, no more through disconnected means – but DIRECTLY AND UNIFIED. And in this new direction we set in motion a trajectory where we strategically look at the local and national level to find where our oppressions are most clearly manifesting themselves. Then, together we hammer more fucking wedges, this time into these oppressive systems and blast open impossible situations for our oppressors so that the wedges crack the systems of oppression so deep they blasts through our intersectional oppressions as well to create the world we not only want - but need for the human race to thrive.

And we will persist. For each target – we will not give in to failed back room negotiations. We will not start something we don’t plan on finishing. We will take the exhausting road to freedom and the whole while, with powerful pride we will sing the good ole chant…

The people united can never be defeated.

We must commit NOW to persist and build into one mass culturally combined movement until ALL segregation is obliterated for all people!

And while we do this work we will remember every step of the way to make this experience the biggest fucking ongoing party of our lives! This shit needs to be so damn exciting the clubs turn into strategizing spots. The bathhouses become recruitment stations. Every social group in town turns into a think tank. And the only way to see that world is to make sure our movement stops being so goddamn stuffy and realizes that queer and allied people are party people too!

When we gather – we MUST create space for us to get loose and sexy. We must make sure we don’t misstep trying to assimilate into an oppressive equal status with straights, but help transform equality into a new space where a stripper at a straight man’s bachelor party in Rick Warren’s church and an assless chap wearing leather daddy marching down the streets of Birmingham, Alabama are not shocks to anyone’s consciousness but potentialities in this newly invented world.

So, don’t think for a second if we ignore the sexiness of people we will be truly successful. At the same time we are fighting for our trans sisters and brothers to be safe in the world and the workplace we need to be doing lap dance parties in the streets. We need to be comfortable intersecting ALL of us – knowing that sex and sexuality is a huge part of every human being – and is a huge part of the foundation of the queer movement that has gotten us this far.

No matter where you live – you are now immediately patched into this network if so you choose. All you have to do is stand up and ask who in your area was part of this week’s gathering. I will immediately get you connected so locally you can start getting shit done – and together, along with all the other people out there already doing this work, we will start turning this country on it’s head.

Alan L. Bounville - queerrising@gmail.com

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Next Direct Action Against Orlando Health

If you would like to learn more about the next action against Orlando Health, email:

alanbounville@gmail.com - with "Next Orlando Health Action" in the subject.

I will be announcing some details here soon - but at this point, it is better the planning of the next action stays tight lipped. It is past the time for Orlando Health to have any specific knowledge about the planning of the actions that are being taken to - on the ground - expose the discrimination happening against their employees and patients.

Orlando Health - like Birmingham in the 60s, YOU are coming into the spotlight and will forever be remembered for your bigotry and oppression. This Dr. King weekend, let us all remember, as King said, "Justice too long delayed is justice denied."

The time has come.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Orlando Health Discrimination Mentioned by National Media Outlet

Read the link below that details the group I have co-founded here in New York City and see how the oppression at Orlando Health is mentioned. This is the second media mention of the oppression taking place at Orlando Health - and it is in a national LGBTQI publication, reaching thousands of people.

As this movement continues to grow and allow more and more people to feel comfortable talking openly about the bigotry and oppression at Orlando Health - the better off we all will be.


Note: The article is featured on the main New York City page and is linked from all EDGE city home pages pages nationwide.

Orlando Health - be prepared for direct action because it's coming your way as we DEMAND equality in the workplace. NO MORE EXCUSES.

If you would like to get involved in direct actions against Orlando Health, please contact me at:

Alan L. Bounville
407-484-6671
alanbounville@gmail.com

Thank you.

Alan L. Bounville

Friday, January 1, 2010

Orlando Health Silences All Facebook Fans

I wanted to let you know that it appears Orlando Health has decided since they can't get away with discriminating on their Facebook fan page, they have blocked all fans from sharing any comments, be them supporting the status quo or critical of the organization.

In one sense this is good news, since it is not right for them to have been silencing some and not all. In another sense it is bad news, since they are doing as they have been this whole time - trying to suppress the truth about the organization - that Orlando Health is a great place to work for some people and an oppressive environment for others.

Many Orlando Health employees, patients and patient family members have reached out and contacted me since I have started sharing information on this blog. If I were Orlando Health, I'd do the right thing soon to avoid being dragged into a very public light for the discrimination and censorship they have pressured onto people - not just on Facebook, but every day in this top down business environment.

One thing you may be able to do still is add your thoughts to the Facebook discussion page Orlando Health opened on the waaaaay back pages of their Facebook group about domestic partner benefits (one of a number of problems addressed in the proposal that started all of this - the well reasoned proposal Orlando Health employees presented to 'leaders' that was ignored).

If you have been following the Facebook part of this story, you will know that Orlando Health decided to create the discussion page to address the domestic partner benefits part of this much bigger discussion. But regardless, they opened up a forum to discuss their own oppression. Take advantage of that. If you are fearful of being retaliated against, ask fellow employee Mike Cherry how he is being treated, since he openly provided critical feedback on this discussion page. If he can do it - so can you - or at least, you can encourage others from the community to stand up and add their voices.

As others have done, let me know what your concerns at Orlando Health are. You have my commitment to keep your identity strictly confidential, as I have done with everyone who has come to me in private to date.

Alan L. Bounville
407-484-6671
alanbounville@gmail.com