I stepped out of my office at Mills College where I counsel students a few hours a week and there was the Equality Ride Bus parked alongside the street. I walked over to the bus and chatted with Dondy, a wonderful straight ally who has been driving the bus for the past 2 months. Dondy said he also drove for the Equality Rides in 2006, 2008, and 2010.

The current tour presently consists of 17 young people traveling across the country who address political and spiritual oppression of LGBTQ people. Their mission is to meet with students and faculty at "the hundreds of schools in the United States that openly discriminate against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer individuals and their Allies (LGBTQA) through their policies and practices."

The aim of the Equality Ride is to get people into dialogue and to end "expulsion" of LGBTQ students and faculty, as well as, "ex-gay" or "reparative" therapy programs. Each rider is trained in non-violent techniques to assist in this dialogue.

The Equality Ride comes to an end today in Oakland, so I feel quite fortunate that I had the chance to talk with Dondy. He shared with me that he has seen a lot on the road. Since he is the only visible person on the bus, he told me that people have driven by smiling and giving him the thumbs up and he has also been flipped off and mooned.

However, this week while speaking to a mother of a transgender child, I was shocked to hear her say that she had looked extensively for therapists who had experience working with transgender clients and was unsuccessful in her search. To her - and my - dismay, she said she interviewed dozens of therapists and only one or two had any experience counseling transgender clients and in these cases, they'd only worked with one client and told her that being transgender is a rare disorder. This experience has caused her to doubt her child's desire to transition and reifies the belief that transgender people are confused or mentally ill.

Now, multiple personality disorder that's a "rare disorder," yet, I have worked with this condition at least once before. People transitioning from male to female or female to male, is totally common.

Another disturbing thing that happened this week is that a client of mine who is transitioning was challenged by their doctor about hormone therapy, and questioned if they were really in the closet about being a gay man, rather than a transgender woman. My client was, obviously, very upset by this experience.

I want to share a little about Alexis before I go into talking about my experience of the memorial. She was born October 28, 1977 and transitioned March 28, 2012.

According to her friends and family, Alexis was an amazing, courageous and fierce advocate for transgender equality. She began her activism in California's transgender community almost fifteen ago as an outreach worker for LGBT youth in Hollywood. She was hired at Children's Hospital Los Angeles' Division of Adolescent Medicine where she became a case manager and eventually became the first program director for CHLA's groundbreaking Tranny Rockstar program, where she helped hundreds of transgender youth in Los Angeles. A natural leader, she served as Commissioner for the Los Angeles County Commission on HIV/AIDS, founding board member of FTM Alliance of Los Angeles, and chair of the Transgender Service Provider Network. Alexis was also a founding member of the League of Trans Unified Sisters (LOTUS), a sisterhood for transgender women.

Transgender Law Center was honored to have Alexis join its staff as Policy Advocate in 2007. Alexis advocated for statewide policy change and trained hundreds of transgender community members to build relationships with their elected officials. During this time, Alexis was also a leader of the Transgender Law Center's Health Care Access Project and helped secure affordable transgender healthcare services in several counties across California.

Alexis received many awards and honors in recognition of her leadership, including the Trans-Unity Trailblazer and Spirit Awards, the Latino Caucus on HIV Prevention Leadership Award, and the first QUEST Advocacy Pageant sash in 2002.

"Words can barely express the grief experienced by California's trans communities this week," said Masen Davis, Executive Director of Transgender Law Center. "A proud trans Latina and natural leader, Alexis Rivera was a role model and inspiration for countless youth - and many "elders" too. She understood that we are stronger together, and she kept organizing until the very end. Alexis' death is a reminder that the fight for equality - and against AIDS - is far from over."

As you can read, Alexis accomplished and contributed so much in her 35 years of life.

According to some of the theories, the earth has a 26,000 year axis rotational cycle, called "precession" that we're completing. For 13,000 years we rotate away from the sun and for 13,000 years we rotate towards the light. The 13,000 years away we dive into masculine ways of being left brain - separation consciousness. The 13,000 back towards the sun brings back unity consciousness and oneness. I know this might sound like cosmic male bashing. It's not.

"Precessional movement of the Earth. The Earth rotates (white arrows) once a day about its axis of rotation (red). This axis itself rotates slowly (white circle), completing a rotation in approximately 26,000 years." --Wikipedia

Each one of us has our own divine feminine and sacred masculine within. In fact, LGBT people have been trying to explain this for years, at least the past 60 years or so according to the channel Tobias. Tobias, as channeled through Geoffrey Hoppe, says that 60 years ago "blended beings" began incarnating on earth.

Their book is "a collection of essays, stories, and visual images that take a multidimensional look at how opening up the traditional order of 'man and wife' to include the possibility of 'wife and wife' is altering our social landscape. Here Come the Brides! is an exploration of how the legalization of same-sex marriages has irrevocably changed the way lesbians think about their unions and their lives."

It's great to continue to see the books that contribute to the public dialogue on same-sex marriage and its impact on LGBT culture. The book includes a piece about my becoming a love warrior for marriage equality: getting engaged, fighting for marriage equality and my three weddings to my now ex-wife. It's a great snapshot into more than a decade of fighting for marriage recognition for LGBT people. Yes, bittersweet these days, and yet, as they say, I'll "always have the memories."

I hope to be joining Michelle and Audrey for the book launch at Book Soup in Los Angeles on Sunday, March 18, at 4 p.m. Come out and meet the editors and the authors and celebrate love and equality for all!

You can also order your copy now.

The case is now headed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the way the judges decided the case yesterday means that a U.S. Supreme Court ruling will likely only repeal the ban in California and not require them to rule on marriage equality for same-sex couples nationally.

One line from the decision that was particularly poignant was when the Justices pointed out that "had Marilyn Monroe's film been called 'How to Register a Domestic Partnership With a Millionaire' it would not have conveyed the same meaning as her famous movie..." Ain't it the truth!

Let's keep leaping toward equality and keep the fire for equality burning strong this month. This is a leap year, after all, and the year of the Dragon. On Valentine's Day join same-sex couples and their supporters by going to local marriage license counters across the country and ask that marriage licenses be given to same-sex couples.

You can also join same-sex couples who are already legally married and will go to their local federal building to ask for the marriage tax penalty and the right to have their marriages recognized by the federal government and access to the 1,138 federal marriage rights currently denied under DOMA.

Let's occupy love and equality and make sure that same-sex couples have the same rights as different sex couples.

Go to marriageequality.org to find out about activities in your area and how you can get involved to help repeal DOMA

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Like many of our LGBT seniors, Glenn has been denied benefits that would be granted to an opposite-sex spouse. The financial hardships on him have been immeasurable.

How many LGBT widows and widowers will face homelessness because they are denied the federal benefits associated with marriage? Every day the DOMA law goes unchallenged LGBT seniors and LGBT widows and widowers face injustices and unnecessary cruelties. We must repeal DOMA. We must not allow laws to exist that keep American citizens from having full access to equality. DOMA continues to deny same-sex couples 1,138 federal rights.

This election year we must seriously consider where we will put our resources and who we will vote for. Will we support a candidate that has already repealed an unfair ban against LGBT people serving in the military or a candidate, like Newt Gingrich, who has had multiple opportunities to exercise his freedom to marry, yet does not feel that his own sister should have that right? Nor would he feel that Glenn Schmoll and Lowell Houser deserved that right even though if they had had full marriage rights Glenn would not been in the unfortunate position of petitioning the Masons, where Lowell was a brother, for financial assistance typically afforded other spouses of brothers.

In my over ten years as a marriage equality advocate, it breaks my heart to continue to receive stories from LGBT people who have to beg unions, politicians, judges, and other organizations to recognize them as the spouses they are or have been. LGBT people should not have to beg for equality.

Leave me a comment if you would like to help Glenn Schmoll and I'll get in touch with you on Facebook.

Any day now a ruling is expected from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on the constitutionality of Prop 8. Will they agree with Judge Walker's ruling (August 2010) that "Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license" and that it is unconstitutional because "Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis"?

We can only hope that justice, long delayed in Perry V. Schwarzenegger, will not be denied. When the ruling is issued there were will be celebrations with champagne and cake or protest marches through the city streets of California - specifically in Fresno, Sacramento, West Hollywood, San Francisco, and San Diego. These events are being sponsored by Marriage Equality USA. You can contact Marriage Equality USA if you want to host a solidarity march/celebration in your city.

This Valentine's Day be a love warrior. Request a marriage license.

On February 14th, join Marriage Equality USA to raise awareness and educate the public on the importance of securing marriage equality for same-sex couples and their families. This year Marriage Equality USA is partnering with GetEqual, California Faith for Equality, Coalition of Welcoming Congregations and other grassroots leaders around the country.

It's easy. Go to your county clerk's office or city hall, step up to the marriage license counter and ask for a marriage license. All you need is two people of the same-sex.

I was re-reading a great book called Transitions by William Bridges that I'd read three years ago when I decided to leave my steady government job to open a private therapy and life coaching practice and to support LGBT people in coming out of the closet. I peeked over to see what she was reading. She was excited by my interest.

"It's a book about what kids say to Santa Claus," she said. "This man has been Santa for over 40 years."

I was immediately interested and in my therapist-speak I urged her to "tell me more."

My wife and I, along with a few other couples, wanted to get some advice. My wife and I went to Iowa and got married in September of 2010. I have three children from a previous marriage to a man. My divorce decree states that I cannot have anyone stay the night in the home who I am romantically involved with unless we are married. Because we live in Arkansas and Arkansas does not recognize our marriage, my wife cannot stay the night in our home when the kids are home. For a long time we rented 2 places, but because of financial reasons (we have been in the middle of a custody case over the kids for a year and a half. We have spent $20,000 so far) can no longer do that. She now spends the night with my parents or grandparents on the nights when the kids are home. At this point, we are in the middle of the appeal process for custody of my kids and I am a little scared about making it too public.

I'd been introduced to Rev. Jimmy Creech by Mel White, Soulforce Founder. Mel was so proud to tell me about this Straight Methodist Minister who'd been defrocked for marrying same-sex couples. "You must interview him," Mel insisted. After our interview, I was equally smitten by his courageous actions blessing the unions of same-sex couples before same-sex marriage was legal anywhere in the world.

Rev. Jimmy Creech began performing blessings of same-sex unions in 1990. He believed he was answering to a higher calling by supporting and affirming the love of same-sex couples. Although this was at odds with the politics of the United States Methodist Church, he continued to bless same-sex couples' unions even after he was told by Methodist church officials to stop. Soon he was told he was "no longer welcome to serve churches in North Carolina." However, in 1996, he was invited to serve as the senior pastor at the First United Methodist Church in Omaha, Nebraska.

The day where we all get to declare who we are and who we love. Sometimes coming out is more than just revealing our sexual orientation. Sometimes we need to come out about other aspects of who we are that others may not agree with. But as Rev. Deborah Johnson, Author of Sacred Yes and Your Deepest Intent, told me in a recent interview I did with her, she learned early on from a PFLAG mom that if we share our truth and people turn away from us, then they never really loved us in the first place.

My friend, Pastor Marcos Apolonio, experienced a devastating loss in his own life when he came out to his church community. In fact, he thought he had lost it all. At the time he was a married man with children living in Brazil and leading a congregation of 3,000 7^th Day Adventists. He had been living a closeted life and finally the closet door could no longer hold his authentic self in. Marcos has had a powerful "hero's journey" in the words of Joseph Campbell.

You probably know what I did this summer.

I filed for divorce.

The news of my divorce appeared in the Huffington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Bay Area Reporter, CBS News, and many local radio stations. It also appeared all over my soon-to-be ex-wife's Facebook page. She has 2000 plus friends, so you can imagine word travels fast. It was the same time former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's marriage to Maria Shriver was imploding, a great reminder that marriage equality includes divorce equality.

Needless to say, it was surreal. It is one thing to have your joy and advocacy for marriage equality out there in the public eye, quite another when it's your personal pain being publicly paraded. I did not answer media queries during that period as I felt the need to process the ending of my marriage privately.

Ending my marriage has not been an easy process. The other day someone told me that they were one of the 18,000 couples who were married in California before Prop 8 passed. I responded that I was one of the 18,000 couples who were married in California and one of an unknown number of those 18,000 couples now going through divorce.

For over a decade, I've devoted my life to marriage equality. Now like over 50% of married heterosexuals I am going through the Big D. I'm trying to understand what it means to be a marriage equality advocate going through a divorce.