Tag: asexual

Special K -and- O Canada

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

From October of 2003.

I got an e-mail from someone who works at ExxonMobil the other day, interested because I mentioned being an out lesbian and working there in the same weblog.

So I talked a little about my experiences in Fairfax, both the good and the bad. I started with Kathleen and I walking in Dupont Circle and picking up a copy of The Washington Blade, then nearly dropping our ice cream on the pavement as we read a quote from senior media advisor, Tom Cirigliano. I’ll paraphrase it here: “ExxonMobil does not support domestic partner benefits, but in countries that allow LEGALLY BINDING gay marriage…” We started planning our trip to Vermont that afternoon.

But the real fun began after we came home.When Kathleen presented our certificate to Human Resources, they acted like they had never heard of civil unions, and to be fair, they probably hadn’t. We were assigned a caseworker and given a possible date at which we might be given more information. That date came and went. We finally called back. We were given another date at which we might possibly be given information. We went to church. We prayed. We crossed fingers.

Another month went by, and the date at which they said they’d call us back came and went, and we were assigned another date at which they might possibly give us more information. It was a nightmare of bureacratic red tape. What we didn’t know is that the senior media advior had spoken without any clear definition of what he was talking about. They were literally having to write a proposal for how they were going to include us from the moment we presented them with our certificate. No advance planning had gone into it, presumably because they thought no one would take them up on it.

Another few months went by, and I was hired by ExxonMobil Research & Engineering, which alleviated our concerns about joint health coverage. Now that I had my own, we weren’t concerned about my getting ill- but it was still a justice issue in that each of us wanted to be listed as the other’s spouse in case of a true emergency.

Another two or three months went by, and we finally sent a letter that was very kind but firm- something to the effect of “if the next time we meet we are only given another date at which we might possibly be given more information, we would like to seek legal counsel.” It was worded more diplomatically than that, but our intentions were clear nonetheless. I sent copies of every e-mail and every transcription of every voice mail to the ACLU, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and sincerely thought about the Washington Post. In retrospect, I would have had a lot of compassion for the people in HR if they had just e-mailed us and said, “we didn’t really think anybody was going to use this, so be patient with us while we write this thing from the ground up.” Wading through months and months with no inkling that any information would ever be forthcoming was the hardest part.

This morning as I sat down to write I didn’t particularly feel like writing about anything. But people who work on the assumption that you only write when you feel like writing don’t get book deals. So with that in mind, I went to Yahoo! and searched for “writing prompts.” The first site that came up was a writing resources page for people who teach junior high. Most of them were pretty inane, but this one just cracked me up: “What does Canada mean to you?”

I’m assuming that this prompt was meant for Canadian teachers wanting to bring out a small bit of patriotism in their students. But in the interest of having a good laugh, I’m going to attempt it anyway. So here it is, for your viewing pleasure:

What Canada Means to Me
by Leslie Lanagan

I am pretty sure that if Canada weren’t around, it would have taken the world a lot longer to realize just how ignorant and egocentric Americans can be. For instance, when I was in high school, I dated a girl from Fort St. John. Her accent was so thick you could cut it with a knife, so when we would go out together, people would instantly start in on this conversation in various forms:

Random person: Hey, that’s a great accent. Where are you from?

Girl I Dated: I’m from Canada.

RP: Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever met someone from there. Do you guys have Christmas on the same day?

GID: (flustered) Of course.

RP: Say out and about. Come on, please!

GID: Ok, let’s just get this out of the way: Out, about, house, mouse, boot, shoe, sorry. Is there any other word in the English language that you’d like to hear me pronounce before we move on?

RP: End a sentence with “eh.” Come on, you know you want to.

GID: (turning to me) That guy is a total fucking hoser, eh?

As an American citizen, Canada also means easy access to good Cuban cigars and cheap European imports. Hey, let’s not forget that even though I am sympathetic to the fact that Canadians have little to no identity outside their own country, I am also one of the egocentric bastards they do their best to avoid.

The end.

The Secret Lives of Puppets, by TJ Klune

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

What book are you reading right now?

I can’t tell you anything about this book, really, because I just started it last night. It’s not as fast a read as “House in the Cerulean Sea” or “Under the Whispering Door.” However, I am encountering my first ace character and we are not dissimilar. When I’m not thinking about it, it’s not important. Obviously. There were seven years between Dana and Zac because I was delusional. I wish I could put it better than that, but it was ridiculous to think I could make a mistake like that because it would be something she’d struggle to forgive. That being said, she also made a mistake I’m struggling to forgive, because it changed the course of my life in a way that I wouldn’t necessarily have chosen for myself knowing so much now that I didn’t then. What is important to me is that I have absolutely no problem with the entire world knowing I was straight up out of my fuckin’ mind, because that’s what made the mistake possible. I was in autistic meltdown and taking it out on her.

Then, I literally got burnout for seven years.

My executive function cratered because I felt so horrible. This is what I mean about her having a husband that can spoil her in a way I would’ve wanted, because I owe her a lot more than he does. She should have gotten all the best parts of me, and she didn’t. People can and do change, but not without a backbreaking amount of emotional work. I loved her so hard, I was willing to sit in the pain of rejection until it didn’t hurt anymore; I wanted us both to forgive each other and move on. I wrote her long letters into the night explaining my feelings to that end.

When they didn’t work, I had to stop the pattern of me needing her so much without her securing our attachment. It felt creepy because at the time I didn’t know I was autistic. I didn’t know I was a monotropic thinker and that every time I fall in love that woman becomes my entire special interest. Additionally, I didn’t love her because she was perfect, I loved us in our imperfections because I felt so powerful virtually “standing next to her.” I was a fool, but it was worth it and it always will be.

I don’t know why she wants me to carry the weight of her indecision, but I don’t have to love it. I just have to live it. It is perfectly ok to stop a toxic cycle and cry myself to sleep until it gets better. 10 years is not nothing, and everyone can tell I’ll never get over it because I won’t shut up about it. One of the friends I consider to be the most precious in my mind gave me that line…. “Leslie, you don’t have to love it. You just have to live it.” After that, I called her “the poet laureate of Skidmore Street.” What I do know is that “It Gets Better.” I don’t ruminate over the women in my past as much as I do Dana and Supergrover because they’re the most recent. The immediate reaction is that she’s my Achilles’ Heel. Over time, this will relax. I just have to let it happen because she seems bound and determined to let it.

This may not be the entire reason, but part of it is that my beautiful girl is so goddamn stubborn. She vows not to respond and does. We have done it to each other so much that it doesn’t mean anything anymore and I’ve stopped trying to make it. What I know for sure is that it could go either way based on past history and I’m prepared for every eventuality. That’s what I meant about being able to see living together (the spinster in the attic) to never speaking again. It’s a wide spectrum because we are as people. We are both so brilliant and so stupid about this. I thought yesterday about writing to her, “I wish you’d take it in that I love you like most people love babies…. that wild, crazy love no matter what their future holds.” I realized that’s how most autistic people I’ve met love others. I hope she sees that I’m trying to social mask the right way, but sometimes things are going to get lost in translation. Neurotypical and neurodivergent are two different languages. She’s speaking Hebrew, and it’s all Greek to me (little Biblical humor for you there). Autistic rage and burnout are tangible, they’re so loud. I don’t mean to be rude or avoidant. I am trying to cope with as much as I can handle, which as it turns out is a smaller amount than I’ve been led to believe.

I have covered my social masking until now. Writing is the only way I knew it existed. Being disconnected from Supergrover’s facial expressions while I talked cost me dearly, but writing letters to each other all the time drew me in, because you can’t social mask if you’re not adjusting at every eye twitch. I have said this before, but virtually it’s easy to go a long way down the wrong road very fast.

I have said that we looked before we leapt, but it wasn’t a bad move. It just needs to be managed, and I’m the only one that wants to manage it. It is unfathomable to me that she doesn’t see my point, so I’m done worrying what she thinks if she’s ignoring all my warning signs. That I am trying to tell her something without telling her something. But I can’t hold it over her head that she’s obstinate. I just have to wait it out and wear the wound on my skin until it becomes healthy, stronger scar tissue.

It’s not hard not knowing how she feels. It’s hard not knowing her reactions to what I write. At the same time, she wasn’t here when she was here, only once telling me I was too close to the hard out and making me afraid I’d ever do it again. I’ve seen her warning rattle enough for a lifetime. She has never seen mine, but mine is not about biting her. It’s about trying not to bite her. I am sure that I have made mistakes that I would absolutely regret in publishing anything, much less about this. But I don’t get to feel regret if you don’t tell me you were hurt and why.

Only strangers respond to my writing because it’s not personal. I respect that and like it very, very much because it means that I can be off in my own little world with my own silly observations and no one cares. The only time my friends respond to my writing, really, is when they’re so angry that they can’t see straight. Every deep, intimate, positive portrayal goes out the window because no one can see their own bullshit or respect that I did and have an opinion about it. This has been true since 2003.

There are only two exceptions to this. Bryn tells me when I’ve written something beautiful, and I love when she loves how I’ve portrayed her. She is the 3D character that sees she’s a 3D character. If we got in a fight, she wouldn’t give two shits what I said here, because talking it out personally is more important. She actually would say “what can I do to ease your mind about that?” The same is true of Supergrover, or was until 2014. After that, I was rightfully “PNG’d back to Langley” (slang at CIA for being demoted to a desk jockey- persona non grata).

I just hate it because we used to be Jack and Greer.

“The Secret Lives of Puppets” touches on this because since the protagonist is ace, the story revolves around deep platonic relationships. Sometimes, the universe sends you the book you need to read at the time you need the words most. Finding this book was a godsend in terms of learning about myself. That I focus on deep relationships whether they’re romantic or not. In fact, in this book, the “puppets” are mostly androids and robots.

Using androids and puppets doesn’t mean that I didn’t already pick up the message that friendship is valuable… and being a writer may not make our friendship continue, but it does make it immortal. She will live in me for a lifetime, and after we pass, our words to each other will still be here.

If people know me at all, they know that I might be a mess sometimes, but I love my friends and want to make all of us live forever.

………even without new dialogue.

To Emote -or- The Letter of the Law

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 19 Comments

Why do you blog?

Being raised as a preacher’s kid caused me to alternate between carrying my heart on my sleeve and shutting down so that my real emotions remained hidden. This is due in a small way to my dad’s congregation and trying constantly to be the one who doesn’t need anything from anyone. I was actively trying for perfection in this area, because according to my mother, I needed to be the perfect child. But she didn’t say that in words. It was more that we had a job to do. Stiff upper lip and all that. It was bonkers, because my dad was the one with the actual job and he never expected any of that crap. My mother was the puppet master, and I don’t know that she knew that, but we did. We all lived in fear of rocking the boat.

This is going to sound horrible, but you’ve never known me to do anything but tell the truth. I never told my mother to shut the hell up and get with the program, and I desperately needed to do it for my own sanity. And, of course, she’s not here to defend herself, but on this one, she really can’t. It’s the one time in my life where I thought, “I will never forgive her ever in my lifetime.” I was just angry, of course. I did indeed get over it. But it took a very, very, very, very, very long time.

When I came out, my mother cornered me in my room and told me “I will not embarrass this family that way.” There’s more to it than that, but thankfully I’ve blocked it out. Only that one line remains, a scar on my skin healed over with time, but never forgotten.

Here’s what she never really took in:

Everyone already knew and talked shit behind her back. They knew before I DID. People with eyes recognize baby queers, even if their parents don’t. When I was 14, they thought I was being molested and at least two people cornered her and told her she needed to get me the hell out of that situation. It was too late, because I was already gone. It was a Supergrover kind of love at the wrong place and wrong time. However, if that hadn’t been a factor, I do think I would have been stuck in a miserable relationship considering how I think marriage is working out for her partner. I wouldn’t be her for cold hard cash. I am sure that she professes her love to everyone no matter the case…… because she has more in common with my mother than she would ever admit. She’s the puppet master, and I don’t know that she knew that, but we did.

Actually, that’s bullshit. Of course she fucking knew. I had all the rights and responsibilities of a partner, listening to all the crap going on in her life that was wildly inappropriate for a teenager. But I didn’t have her. She wanted me to be the one that wanted her while she played blissfully ignorant. I didn’t get laid, but I was well and truly fucked. The situation didn’t have to be romantic for it to be terrible. Supergrover is actually a tiny, tiny bit older than this woman, and I’m picturing her at her age when I was 14, and that was my BAZINGA! moment. I couldn’t picture her telling me jack shit for anything in the world….. to protect me, the very thing that I thought was happening and it turns out it, in fact, was not.

At some point, I’m going to go see about a boy. He’s already married, so it’s not like that. It”s that he was my boyfriend before Ryan, so, seventh grade, the one that was there every single Sunday and could probably tell me a lot more than I could tell him about what was going on if he remembers at all. It’s not that I was insignificant to him, it’s that it’s been 31 years now.

If he doesn’t remember, his dad could have written the dissertation. He was one of the ones that really saw through the bullshit, and he didn’t stop anything, but he was really the first person that made me absolutely lock down.

Unfortunately, the F is no longer with us.

Contrast my mother’s reaction to everyone else’s, including the actual pastor in the family.. My dad told the United Methodist Annual Confereence to shut the hell up and get with the program. Very politely, of course. He went to the floor, where there were hundreds of his colleagues gathered to vote on whether “homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.” You could wake up a Methodist in the middle of the night and the only thing they know from The Discipline is that one line.

I would have been an incredible Methodist pastor. The best, really, because I learned from the best. I would have brought something new and completely different to them if they hadn’t taken me out like it was Trash Day in Harris County.

Here is a paraphrase of what he said, made all the more brave, crazy, and stupid because it was 1995. The other thing you should know is he did not tell me what he was going to do beforehand. He didn’t tell anyone. He stepped out on a ledge, and he flew:

“It’s really easy to say that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching…. to group everyone together and call them ‘the homosexuals.’ But it looks different when it’s Carol’s niece. Bob’s nephew. David’s daughter.”

The vote did indeed pass, but it was closer than it had ever been.

I went to the church that day seeking God. They weren’t there until my dad finished.

The Bible says in Matthew 18:20 “where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in the midst of them.” In that moment, no one else was in the room except my dad and me. It wasn’t the first time I had a spiritual experience. Life is full of them. But that’s the moment “Jesus wept” became extremely loud and incredibly close. The church itself was just an expensive building….. as if no one had bothered to invite him. He wept in sorrow for some of his followers, and elation for others.

Jesus wasn’t crying because I’m queer and therefore bad or unworthy. He was crying because these supposed “fishers of men” were trying to lift the net after they got into it. But they will certainly spend queer money……. because they love you…….. when you tithe. Otherwise, good luck. You can belong to a church for 30 years and give them millions, but they still won’t do your wedding or ordain you.

When I could have been a “contenduh.” I know I talk a lot of shit, but not about this. When I’m on fire, I’m unstoppable. It just doesn’t happen all the time…… but that’s not being a bad preacher/pastor. That’s being a perfect human.

My dad didn’t quit his job because of me. He acknowledged his divinity and his humanity. It is both too complicated to explain and above your pay grade to know why. But on the way out, he raised hell in front of THE PEOPLE WHO FUCKING DESERVED IT.

Not me.

But everything was fine.

You can completely ignore me and I will be totally fine until I explode, angry at the world because NO ONE IS PAYING ATTENTION TO ME. It seems so ridiculous on my part to feel like a toddler, but sometimes I do. It’s okay for no one to notice that I’m sad or hurt or depressed or whatever… but if they love me, what should happen when I fade into the woodwork and am not noticed for years? I can keep it up flawlessly right up until I can’t.

How I have turned needing other people into not needing them at all is knowing that everything in the world would disappear and it would take a lot for me to notice if I was in the middle of an entry. I am now in charge of taking care of me, and I am much better about expressing a full range of emotions, especially when I am sitting alone and writing here, because nothing is directed. It is not my job to have a reaction when I’m finished.

Again, I don’t need friends. I want them. I cannot be dependent on them for validation, however.

It is to acknowledge that writing itself is a spiritual experience, and you (plural) becomes you (singular) in my mind…………

Where two or three are gathered, and Christ walks into the room.

If I know Christ as well as I think I do, here’s what Jesus would have said to the Annual Conference that day, actually the words of “Paul” in the second letter to the Corinthians:

You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts. known and read by everyone. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the Living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

Such confidence we have through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant- not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.

The letter of the law killed me…….. and resurrection happens in the middle of the mess.

There is nothing more responsible for that rebirth than you are.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Coffee and doughnuts will be served in the Fellowship Hall. 😉

The One That’s Mostly About My Sister

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

It’s the middle of the night and I just randomly woke up. I can’t get back to sleep, so I’m going to tell you about a funny conversation I had with Sam and then start reading. If I’m not hooked, I’ll go back to bed. If I am, I can’t think of a better way to spend a few hours than blissed out on the dopamine of a good book.

So, Sam wished me a happy Pride. We were talking about the events, and I asked her when the parade was. Then, I said, “I used to feel embarrassed about having to ask straight people when the parade was, but then I realized that no introvert willingly knows when events this size happen. We know it’s coming up, but we’ll wait until we know the approximate date and time before asking the exactly details.” I think it’s because we’ll spend time being anxious about the crowd- it’s sensory overload on every level imaginable. I like to be surprised with answers like “it’s tomorrow” or “it’s three days from now.” I do not want to know that the Pride parade is in three months. That’s three months of worrying about how to participate in the smallest increment of time possible.

She replied by telling me when it was (I don’t remember now…. I’ll have to look it up….. again), and then said that straight people like to be asked when the Pride parade is because they like proving they’re in the know. They like being thought of as “hip.”

Fine with me. I am not hip. I am the worst gay who ever gayed.

I’ve really only had one Pride parade that was so fun I never wanted the night to end. My sister marched with me, and we were both really young. I think she was 15-16, so that would have made me 20 or 21. There is nothing better than seeing the Pride parade through a kid’s eyes, because they notice everything and their perspective is just, well….. It’s better. They’re blown away by the floats, beads, flags, etc. and they just want to love you up and make you feel appreciated. They GET IT. Kids understand better than most adults, because they don’t like it when they feel like their loved ones are being attacked for something they can’t change, and the idea of one night to celebrate with a big party in the middle of the streets is catnip to a teenager. I think the meaningful parts of Pride move her differently than me, and I can tell you exactly why. If someone’s going to hate their sibling, it has to be them. Anyone else is just asking for a knock-down drag-out. Earrings will be taken out. Ponytails will be hastily made.

It’s not just the neighborhood block aspect. It’s also that my sister isn’t gay. She hasn’t had years and years and years of being picked on, so she has no immunity to it. We’ve never had this conversation, but I think it’s a tiny bit like Quentin Tarantino being worried that Jamie Foxx would recoil at saying the n-word while filming “Django Unchained.” Foxx said not to worry. It was Tarantino that was going to be uncomfortable, because for him, it was just Tuesday. If you are queer, homophobia and transphobia are just the iocaine powder to which we’ve built up immunity.

The struggle did not go unnoticed. The Pride parade impacted my sister’s life just as much as it did mine. She gave me so much self-confidence and love. I gave her the will to take on state and federal legislators who want to outlaw trans medicine by exposing her to what was going on in my community early and often.

My sister is pretty much the straightest straight woman I know, but at the same time, I’ve “raised her” to be a better gay person than I’ll ever be. Like, there’s no contest.

She’s a lobbyist for a federally funded health clinic that serves the queer community, working in Austin and DC. She knows more about queer issues than I’ve forgotten, and if I have questions about trans medicine, she’s the person I ask first (I’m not trans, I just always have questions about medicine). She was one of the people fighting prohibition of giving teenagers puberty blockers and the ban on trans girls in sports.

I don’t have the desire, will, or stamina to talk to Texas Republicans about that, because the fact that puberty blockers would alleviate their concerns was beyond them. Puberty blockers are a non-permanent way to treat gender dysphoria in children while giving them plenty of time to see a therapist and decide if they’re happy with their bodies as is, or whether they’d like to have surgery. It also gives them an “out” if they decide not to transition at all. As soon as you stop taking the pills, puberty resumes. I can’t imagine the disgust I would feel for my body if my entire brain was wired as male and I started seeing breasts grow in. By keeping trans people’s bodies immature, it also makes surgical transition easier later, because your face hasn’t grown into the appearance of your assigned gender- the one people decided for you because you’d just been evicted from your first apartment and measured on the Apgar scale.

For trans women, this could mean that their Adam’s Apples aren’t as pronounced and their facial features stay soft. For trans men, this could mean that their hips don’t widen in preparation for childbirth, they don’t start menstruating, and they only have to have bottom surgery later on.

It’s also misogynistic that this stuff is being targeted at trans girls, because I’ve never heard a legislator talking about males assigned female at birth and how that would affect boys’ teams. No one brought up trans men during the bathroom bill debate. It’s almost as if being female is the problem.

I don’t have the chutzpah to even read this blog entry to legislators, but my sister will keep knocking down obstacles on my behalf.

She is my Pride.

Straight Fragility

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

The Black Lives Matter movement has changed me in ways I didn’t know I needed. I am beginning to stand up for myself, not afraid to make waves. I hope that I am a white ally in the best sense of the phrase, but I am not naïve enough to think I won’t stumble along the way. The thing I think I’m doing right is that I absolutely know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I am not having the same experience they are, and unless they are a person of color who is also LGBTQ+, they aren’t having the same experience as me, either.

This knowledge has made me less afraid to claim what is mine- to look at what the Black Lives Matter movement is doing, and drawing similarities as to what I can apply to my own life as a minority of a different stripe.

For instance, today it was a Facebook group that asked for a queer roll-call. I got a ton of notifications that said “I’m straight, but I’m an ally.” In what universe is being an ally and being queer equivalent? They may have fought for marriage equality, but they could get married while they were doing it. They’ve never felt the pain of rejection and the internalized homophobia it causes. They’ve never had someone claim that part of their identity is a mental illness. They’ve never had anyone stare in disgust if they gave their spouse a peck on the lips goodbye. They’ve never had to seek out safe space, because being gay in a non-safe space can range from uncomfortable to downright dangerous.

The main difference between the struggle regarding race and sexual orientation is that people can automatically see that I’m white. I haven’t dated anyone for five years and change, so I don’t wear any outward signs that I’m also a minority. Now, because I fit the stereotype of short hair and nails, boys’ clothes, etc. they might have their suspicions, but they can’t say so definitively unless I tell them. Until I was 36, I thought they could, and then I met a straight woman who dressed like me, with roughly the same haircut, and it was a light bulb moment. I wasn’t actually advertising anything. I now know this is true due to the sheer number of men who’ve asked me out on Facebook Dating (man, that algorithm is off).

I also think that straight people wearing the pride flag or associated accessories is problematic. I’m trying to get used to it because it’s popular, but I am, shall we say, old school. Enlightened straight people are over others mistaking them for queer, but for me it is also a matter of cultural appropriation………………. and because I know that my friends mean me no harm, and in fact are cheering me on, I try to let it roll. I know who’s an ally or not among my friend group, but if I meet someone who lights up my world and it turns out they’re straight, my throat tightens. It’s hard putting toothpaste back in the tube, capiche?

The double standard that’s my work to release is that I don’t care if men do it. I’m not interested in them. Whether a man is straight or gay is of no consequence. With women, depending on how much I like them, the effect varies in severity. If I can’t see myself dating them anyway, it’s a simple “nobody’s perfect.” If I can, there may or may not be waterworks I have to pass off as allergies….. because not only am I disappointed, pining for a straight woman is the oldest cliché in the book…. I mean, if Eve had a lesbian friend, I guarantee she was miserable. It makes me feel embarrassed and stupid, and that will last years longer than the actual attraction, because I tend to get stuck in my flaws and failures. If I was weird to you once in 1992, I’m still thinking about it.

The other thing that gets the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up is the community moving toward acceptance of straight people using the word “queer.” I realize that it’s shorthand for all the letters. I get it. The longer the acronym gets, the more comfortable I am with using it, too. At the same time, it feels like being called the f or the n word. I am much more easygoing about queer people reclaiming that word for themselves as opposed to giving straight people license to use it. Not everyone feels the same way I do, and that’s a bitter pill to swallow, because people are increasingly of the “get over it” mindset and I’m just not there- and maybe not ever. Younger people do not have the same word association that I do.

It’s a conundrum, because I feel that the strides younger generations are making are positive. I also feel that if they knew what it was like before they were born, they’d have a different outlook. That’s the other difference that really shines, because unless you are actually the child of a queer person, you don’t inherit our institutionalized pain…. and even though Lindsay (my almost six-years-younger biological sister) didn’t inherit it, she lived through it with me, so we have roughly the same outlook. She uses those lessons every single day in her job (it honors me to no end that I’m part of the reason she took it). She works in government relations for a queer health care outfit in Texas, which in my mind is God’s work. I wouldn’t want to meet with Texas Republicans on issues like trans health care. I would vomit before work out of nerves every single day. She’s just far enough removed from those specific fears to be effective.

It is again why straight allies are so important. I am not interested in denying their contribution. I only get wigged when I feel they are trying to say “we’re in this together.” No the hell we are not. You can run your mouth all day long about gay rights, and other straight people will hear it better from you. But you’re not going to think before going into an unfamiliar situation that it’s possible everyone will hate you when they know. Moreover, that fear is tripled going into an unfamiliar church. The Religious Right is the source of most of the things that cause me pain, because their bile is still infecting millions. You are not in danger if a trans person uses the same bathroom as you. You are not in danger if I’m in the locker room with you.

I mean, I’m not even going to hit on you unless you’re wearing a pride flag.