I was so fortunate to be there in San Francisco in 1983, in my nineteenth year of life, to see all the strong efforts and struggles for our freedom to become who we were without fear of bigotry.  For the  first time in my life, I felt the empowerment of women.  I lived on Treasure Island, affiliated with the California Conservation Corps.  Now I know how unique the situation was and feel blessed to have known the pioneers of LGBT equal rights and shook their hands.  I admired the women in their thirties that had come into their own, like my boss there.  I remember Valencia and 16th had the bar for transsexuals, and coming from a small rural town in Northern California, I had never seen people like me at all.