Activism Suggestions for Multiples

Gaspard of Pandora system

I. Support each other. Go to social networking sites and form all-multiple support groups (recommended for large cities). Hold social events: bowling, picnics, whatever. Ask each other for advice. Hell, swap system members! Have an all-multiple art gallery in your house. Whenever possible, depend on each other, and not on psychiatrists. Bonus points if you can get make a career as an "out" therapist specializing in multiplicity (which is the route that Baki and I want to take ;).

II. Form your own political power. Hold meetings. Make posters! Hold panels and speaking events: "Multiples Speak Out" or something. Protest the pharmaceutical industry. Whenever you can, organize, organize, organize! When asked how he organized, Cesar Chavez responded, "First, I talk to one person. Then I talk to another." If you are afraid to speak, organizing will be more difficult for you. But even so...

III. Write about your own experiences. In books and journals. Write to psychiatric gurus who think they've got it all figured out. Write to your friends and family. As unique as you think that you're experiences have got to be, the rule stands: "The more specific, the more universal." Give other multiples a hopeful perspective that they can relate to.

IV. Know that as silenced as you may feel, you may be surrounded by other kindred souls, friends and co-workers scared to come to you. The more often Baki and I come out, the more confident we feel. Singletons will take cues from your feelings about coming out: if you accept your own system, it will be easy for other people to accept your system. We are beginning to form a critical mass, and I think in time we will be accepted as a normal aspect of human society.

"It goes one at a time.
It starts when you care to act.
It starts when you do it again
after they say no.
It starts when you say we
and know who you mean;
and each day you mean
one more."

-Marge Piercy's "The Low Road"

Gaspard
Pandora System