My Southern, Christian Upbringing Still Makes Me Question If I'm "Gay Enough"
Still, it was generally accepted that being straight was the norm. In high school, it wasn't uncommon to use "gay" as an insult or for girls to tease each other about being "lez." While many of us, if asked, would have said we supported gay marriage and loved The Ellen Show, being gay remained an undesirable affliction that felt altogether removed from our sheltered world.
Even more insidious, I was instilled with the belief—by my church in particular—that if gay and lesbian people could be straight, they would. But since they were simply incapable of attraction to the opposite sex, we should accept them as they were as an act of mercy. At the time, this kind of pity seemed progressive and noble.
Still, my church went against the decision of the larger Presbyterian church, and made the decision to exclude gay people from church leadership positions, as they were living in "unrepented sin." A person who admitted to being homosexual but thoroughly renounced the lifestyle and remained chaste? That was acceptable. We would love gay people, my church said, but we would ensure they knew we thought they were inherently evil and we wouldn't let them teach our children unless they promised to be good. As you can imagine, there were no openly gay people at my church.
My peers and I saw gayness as a clearly indicated predisposition with no gray areas. The LGBTQ+ community was a clearly defined group to pity and pray for. In my mind, gay men were easily spottable by their feminine clothes, manner of speech, and lack of interest in "masculine" things like sports or beer. Meanwhile, gay women had masculine bodies and features, short hair, wore flannels, and cargo shorts, and were brusque and unfeminine.
I believed that before someone came out as gay, they did everything in their power to "try to be straight" but were eventually forced to confront the difficult reality that they felt no attraction at all to the opposite sex. I viewed homosexuality not as a spectrum, but as a black and white predisposition that meant you were thoroughly, completely, and pitiably gay. Bisexuality was simply a phase for college girls, or a path to eventual gayness for boys.
Internalizing Otherness
So, what about me? In this environment of quiet suppression that often posed as progressivism, where did my identity fit in? The story is complicated by the fact that as a young child, I wore exclusively "boy clothes" and was mostly interested in "boy things." This "tomboy" phase went so far as to include the creation of an alter-ego I had named Fireball. When I was dressed as Fireball, I insisted on being referred to by he/him pronouns.
Later, I learned that my mother prayed often that, should I be gay, as she suspected, things wouldn't be too hard for me. Of course, now I recognize this gender exploration as separate from my sexuality, but at the time, gender presentation and sexuality were often conflated. They certainly were in my mind. I'm lucky that my parents took this in stride.
Around the time of Fireball's inception, I had begun to notice the way the other girls in my class could make me feel. I would light up at their attention or approval. Having a crush on a girl seemed like an impossibility, even an insult to the sacrosanct realm of girlhood, so that was never how I viewed those feelings. Instead, they became intense fixations on winning the friendship and devotion of the girl in question.
That's not to say I was entirely ignorant of my queer feelings. When watching movies or TV shows, I would often feel an uncomfortable sense of attraction towards the female characters on screen, though I didn't have the language to name it as such. When I was a bit older and was allowed to watch more adult programs, the feeling I got when I saw a naked female body filled me with shame.
As a result of all of these things combined, as a preteen I began to panic. I thought even the mere hint of these feelings must mean that I was irrevocably a lesbian. I thought my preference for "boy" things was a clear indicator of homosexuality. I would have to cut my hair, live the much more "difficult life" that I had been told over and over again gay people were subjected to, and I would have to stage an emotional "coming out" in which I would inevitably lose many friends. That was the script for gayness, but I didn't want to learn my lines.
I wanted to be popular, I wanted to be approved of, I wanted to be seen as beautiful, and I didn't want to be difficult. To me, being gay was the antithesis of these things. To me, discovering you were a lesbian was kind of like discovering you were going to have massive boils all over your body for the rest of your life. You didn't deserve to be blamed for it, but that didn't mean it was desirable, and it probably wouldn't help with making friends.
I never had to worry about being cast out of my family or put in prison. In that sense I recognize now that I grew up with immense privilege that many queer people around the world don't enjoy. For me, being gay was a question of how I saw myself in the context of the world. It had never been as simple in my mind as attraction or love; being gay came with a lifelong battle, a reinvention of the self, and a complete abandonment of the familiar and extremely heteronormative culture I had grown up in.
Perhaps as a result, at around 12-years-old, I started wearing "girl's clothes" more willingly and took interest in the boys in my class. In retrospect, this interest was largely competitive. Since other girls were taking interest in the boys, I felt I had to if I were to remain well-liked.
But some of the attraction I felt for the opposite sex was real. I had a long and meaningful crush on a boy in my class in the fourth grade, and around that same time I have vivid memories of watching Pirates of the Caribbean for the first time and experiencing warm feelings of attraction for Captain Jack Sparrow. His off-centered swagger, semi-androgynous appearance, and drunken lilt all appealed to me. And he was a man! I was attracted to a man! That must mean I'm not gay! How could I be?!
My Southern parents, bless their hearts, encouraged this crush (as they encouraged all of my phases and interests, being the remarkable parents they were and are) despite its strangeness, and my room was filled with Johnny Depp and Captain Jack paraphernalia for years. Realistically, the lasting power of my Captain Jack crush was not about the crush itself, but more about the relief this definite attraction to a man brought me.
Later on, as puberty continued, I found that sometimes I liked dressing in traditionally feminine clothes. This filled me with such joy and relief that shopping became a major pastime. I felt wrong in most clothes, so finding clothes that felt right but also looked enough like the other girls' clothes was of paramount importance. This often meant I wore strange combinations of Abercrombie tee's and boy's sweatpants, or oversized t-shirts and absurdly short shorts.
As time went on, the buried secret about my sexuality, and what I have now come to recognize as a somewhat fluid gender identity, became less and less pressing because I felt genuine attraction to people of "the opposite gender" fairly often. Besides, I liked looking pretty, desirable, and sometimes even feminine. I even had a healthy, loving, and sexual relationship with a high school boyfriend. This, to me, was the final confirmation I needed: I was straight! Definitely!
As absurd as it sounds, my desire to be pretty is what most thoroughly convinced me of my straightness. I genuinely believed–perhaps not logically, but intuitively–that if I were gay, the way I treated my appearance would indicate it in a manner outside of my control. As long as I was conventionally "pretty" in the way that women have always been pressured to be in order to attract men, then I was straight.
This is also about the same time that I became friends with a beautiful girl my own age. She was funny, popular, liked to talk about things besides boys, and had a sense of morality few of us did at the time. My friendship with her introduced me into a different group of friends. We often drank during our sleepovers, and this would usually result in sneaking out to meet up with other teenagers (usually boys) or playing Truth or Dare amongst ourselves. In the midst of these games, my friend and I often ended up kissing, sometimes for long periods of time. Squeals and giggles always ensued, and we would laugh it off as drunken antics. But the kisses stuck with me.
Even more affecting was the way the sleepovers always ended. My friend and I would leave the other girls to sleep on various couches and guest beds, while we shared her double bed. It felt good to be her favorite, and I took pride in the fact that the other girls sometimes seemed jealous of her treatment of me. I saw it as a mere extension of our intimate bond when these quiet moments in her bed would teeter between sexual and platonic. It didn't worry me: I was DEFINITELY straight. Even if I wasn't, I surely wasn't gay enough to make a big deal about it.
In college, a pattern began to emerge. I would be intimate with a girl, usually while drunk, and then I would brush it off with my friends. If someone casually described me as bisexual, I would blush and stammer and say something about how I hate labels and how I was "mostly straight."
Am I Gay Enough?
Despite attending an extremely LGBTQIA+ friendly and progressive university, I was only capable of celebrating the non-cis-hetero identities of others, never of myself. My feelings for other girls and my confused feelings about my gender were probably just my way of seeking attention, or wanting to be different, I told myself. Besides I knew I was often attracted to men, why even explore those other parts of myself? There was simply no need, I thought, because I could live a perfectly happy life as a straight woman.
In fact, I was lucky, because I wasn't so gay that I didn't have a choice but to come out. I wasn't so dysmorphic about my body that my lack of identification with my female designation was a real problem. I was comfortable enough in my identity as a cisgender, straight woman that my fluid gender identity and bisexuality didn't matter. Besides, the world had bigger problems.
That, I suppose, is the point of this essay. I share my own story of queerness with the hope of pointing out the subtleties contained within it. Often, we think that LGBTQIA+ people simply "know" they're different. But gender and sexuality are much more nuanced and fluid than that; and the more we begin to acknowledge that fluidity, the better off future generations will be.
We need to make space for questioning, we need to allow for exploration without immediate designation, and we need to stop acting as if being gay subsumes the rest of an individual's identity.
The question I'm trying to engage with, and have been trying to engage with for years now, is how much of sexuality is a choice? That is to say, how much of my expression of my sexuality is a conscious choice and how much of it is influenced by society's rigid misconceptions about sexuality?
The "born this way" and "not a choice" mantras that much of the LGBTQIA+ community espoused in the early 2000s most certainly had and still have their merits. Overcoming the cultural misconception (largely driven by the lingering puritanism at the heart of a lot of American morality) that everyone is really straight, and gay people are simply sexual deviants who need to be led back to the path of righteousness, was no small feat. The idea that gay people have no more choice over their sexual preferences than straight people do over theirs was an important, persuasive, and largely true rallying cry.
But what about people who do have a choice? And I don't mean "choice" in the sense that one day a person with no previous stirrings of attraction for the same sex can decide to try their hand at being gay for the hell of it. I mean the choice to engage with and nurture a part of yourself that you know is there, even if there's no urgency to expose it to the world.
If we continue to present homosexuality as this undeniable compulsion, how many queer kids will simply ignore their queerness because they don't think it's urgent enough to be valid? How many people who "present as straight" or masculine or feminine will remain in the closet because they don't see themselves in the archetypes of what gay or transgender/genderqueer people look like? How many people avoid the LGBTQIA+ community because they don't think their gray areas and uncertainties have a place there? I know I did.
Now, in my early twenties, having dated and fallen in love with both womxn and men, I still shy away from labels. "Bisexual" feels constricting, and "queer" often feels too vague. Meanwhile, older people within the LGBTQIA+ community have affectionately used words like "dyke" or "lesbian" to describe me, which doesn't feel right either–even if women-loving-women in their generation fought hard for those words. As for my gender identity, that's still something I'm exploring. But for the first time, that exploration doesn't feel like it needs an end date or a definite conclusion.
While these truths about myself were certainly not choices, it has been a conscious choice to nurture, explore, and talk about these facets of my identity. No, I'm not so exclusively gay that being with a man is undesirable to me, and I still often like to dress in traditionally feminine clothes and move through the world as a woman. Because of these things–and because of my whiteness–I am more privileged than many of the members of my LGBTQIA+ family, as I am decidedly less likely to face harassment or abuse.
In fact, it's a privilege to even have the mental and emotional time and space to engage with these questions. But I have also realized that the existence of my privilege is not an excuse to ignore or dismiss questions about my gender identity or queerness as inconsequential. When I pretended those questions didn't exist, I was making a choice out of my desire to avoid being difficult or too complicated, and to conform to heteronormative culture. And now my choice is to embrace and explore those identities and questions.
Not long ago, a friend of mine came out as gay to his parents. They responded positively with acceptance. Still, my friend's mother spent a lot of time "grieving" for the heterosexual life she had previously thought her son was going to lead and now never would. She grieved the biological grandchildren and the daughter-in-law she had felt she was owed.
While I by no means intend to invalidate her feelings or experience, I think it is worth noting how strongly this reaction speaks to the persistent kind of "compassionate distaste" directed at the LGBTQIA+ community–especially by the liberal elite. It's not that she wasn't willing to love and accept her son as a gay man, it's just that she likely had the same mind set I once did, that gayness was an entire identity. She was, in some sense, grieving the son she thought she knew who was now subsumed by this otherness. As time has gone on, I'm hopeful she has come to see that her son is the same man he was before she knew he was gay. She has likely realized that his sexuality and the gender of his chosen partner is, simply, not that big of a deal.
But what if, instead, her son had space to question and explore his sexuality as a teenager before concluding he was gay? What if he had felt free to go on that journey of exploration without thinking a gay experience labeled him as irrevocably gay? What if he didn't have to be sure before he said anything to the people he loved the most?
Clearly, being LGBTQIA+ is not an unfortunate, undeniable, black-and-white affliction as I once thought it was. It is a beautiful and often subtle facet of identity. For many people, it is a world of gray areas and changing feelings, but there is no such thing as "not being gay enough" to be a part of the community.
While I think it's important that we continue to celebrate all LGBTQIA+ identities as important and valid—particularly given how much of the world still wants to see them as abhorrent and unnatural—I also think it's important that we normalize these identities in a way that takes some of the pressure off of questioning young people. Maybe normalization needs to look less like glitter bombs and blasting "Born This Way," and more like simple acceptance, encouragement, and space to question.
I think that it's very likely that in a different time, I would have lived a relatively happy life as a straight, cis-gendered woman. I think I could have gone my whole life quietly attracted to other womxn, without saying anything to anyone or acting on those feelings in any way. But it is only in the past few years that I have begun to acknowledge that we don't owe the world the simplest, most easily digestible versions of ourselves. If we are going to transform society in the ways we need, from racial to gender equity, we owe the world the truest, and often most complicated, versions of ourselves.
Visionaries Project: Interview with Elsie B., LGBTQ+ and Sex Workers’ Rights Activist
The Visionaries Project is a new subsection of The Liberty Project dedicated to highlighting the lives, passions, and work of radical activists currently working towards social justice and liberation from oppression. We aim to uplift the perspectives of diverse voices working in media and activism today—and not just the faces who make headlines, but the real people on the ground every day, working towards their visions of a better world.
For our second installment of the Visionaries Project, we're featuring Elsie B., a writer and activist who can be found on Twitter at @NotSuperIntoIt. Elsie is an out and proud member of the bisexual community and an active participant in the fight for sex workers' rights.
Sex workers, as Elsie informs us, often face unique legal constraints and social stigma that can prevent them from accessing adequate healthcare and opportunities. As sex workers' rights have been threatened in the United States and across the world by new laws that constrain their ability to work and share online under legal protections, the need for information and action has grown.
As Amnesty International implies, criminalization of sex workers' rights almost always puts them at a disadvantage. "We have chosen to advocate for the decriminalization of all aspects of consensual adult sex - sex work that does not involve coercion, exploitation or abuse," reads the organization's statement on the matter. "This is based on evidence and the real-life experience of sex workers themselves that criminalization makes them less safe."
Or as Elsie writes, "It's long past time to demand fair and equal treatment for sex workers, and the consequences of delayed action by civilians and lawmakers will be lethal."
We spoke to Elsie about how she became involved in the fight for sex workers' and LGBTQ+ rights, what kind of activism work she does, and how she unwinds after a long day of fighting oppression and injustice.
LIBERTY PROJECT: Can you tell me a bit about your background? How did you get interested in activism?
ELSIE B: I'm fortunate to have grown up in a family that values social justice. I was raised as an ethical vegetarian and attended circus protests as a child. In middle school, I printed animal rights literature and ordered a pack of stickers from Peta2 that said "cut class, not frogs," which I slapped on every table in the science room when the dissection unit began approaching. As I got older, my dad and I would attend political rallies for Democratic candidates. During college, my politics became more radical than those I was raised with, thanks to some incredible professors. I was involved in social justice clubs, including the campus LGBTQ+ outreach program and an animal rights group of which I became VP.
In graduate school, I met a group of activists who shared my radical political beliefs and were doing meaningful, grassroots work for social justice and to end animal suffering. As I befriended these folks, I began to widen my interests in regard to my activism. I met my friend Emily during this time who is a stripper. Her influence changed my understanding of feminism and women's rights.
After graduate school, I started a small organization that helped connect feminist women and worked for the Sanders 2016 campaign.
How did you first start getting interested in sex workers' and LGBTQ+ rights?
A: From the time I realized LGBTQ+ folks were treated differently, I've been interested in the rights of non-hetero folks. I grew up with gay and lesbian culture as a constant in my life. And, at about the age of eight, I realized I myself am interested in more than only the opposite sex.
My official foray into LGBTQ+ activism started in college, but I saw myself as an ally at that time. However, after the Pulse shooting, I began to see my role in the LGBTQ+ community not as an ally but as a member of the community. I had quietly come out as bisexual many years before but had never felt comfortable identifying as someone in the LGBTQ+ community. However, after the gut-wrenching experience of watching what I realized was my community face such horrific violence, I decided it was my responsibility as an out bisexual to fight for destigmatization, especially of bisexuals who are at the highest risk for suicidal ideation and attempts.
Around the same time, sex workers started to experience attacks on their primary methods of advertisements, especially on Backpage. As so many of my friends are sex workers, I saw the panic these workers experienced. This is when I began to incorporate sex workers' rights into my activism platform. Then, in 2018, FOSTA/SESTA was introduced and passed. During this time, I dedicated all of my activism to fighting FOSTA/SESTA. During that year, I marched, helped plan harm reduction meetings, petitioned, and contacted government officials. The energy during 2018 was one of terror and excitement as sex workers rallied to fight against these new laws. It was electrifying to be a part of the first International Wh*re's March, but that euphoric buzz of being with other activists was quelled as the reality of a changing internet landscape for sex workers sunk in.
Sex workers are being locked out of their accounts en masse. This is terrifying for sex workers who have already be… https://t.co/8d7TYSFL7A— Elsie (@Elsie) 1568936565.0
From 2018 to present, most of my activism has been based online, since sex workers work mostly in isolation. Through online communities, I have been able to continue my work in harm reduction, petitioning, and community organizing. I've also written under various pseudonyms (since even working as an activist carries stigma). I've had viral writing, which has given me some hope that sex workers' rights are beginning to creep into the consciousness of civilians, the term for non-sex workers.
Are there any challenges you've faced in activism work? Any particular successes, favorite moments, or pieces you've written?
A: Activism is draining, but there is no better feeling to me than having someone reach out to let me know how I've helped them. This has been especially true of my work as an activist for bisexual individuals. The number of messages I've received from people telling me I gave them the courage to come out or that reaching out to me is the first time they've admitted their attraction to more than one gender has been simultaneously heartbreaking and the most rewarding feeling.
Working as an activist for sex workers has unique challenges in that even associating with sex work as a topic comes with stigma. I usually work under pseudonyms, as I don't want my work in sex work to affect my other activism (I've worked in activism for education orgs which serve younger students).
Activism as a bisexual cis-woman has also been challenging, as biphobia and stigma are often just as hostile, if not more, in the community. Bisexuals have a unique fight, in that they are shunned from straight and gay communities for not being straight or gay enough. It can be painful to watch people choose to repress their complex sexual orientation in order to feel accepted by one group.
Coming out very publicly was one of the best feelings as an activist. It was such a personal act, and the number of friends and acquaintances who reached out to me during that time to tell me their stories was so touching.
Seattle Police shockingly claim sex workers need to be arrested "to disrupt the cycle of violence and abuse". Thi… https://t.co/WocSniI500— Kshama Sawant (@Kshama Sawant) 1570115501.0
What would you suggest people do if they want to start to get involved in the fight for LGBTQ+ and sex workers' rights?
A: For most people, the most effective activism they can do is within their own communities. Talking about sex workers and LGBTQ+ rights with family and friends may seem menial, but it is some of the most important work we can all do.
To talk to folks in your circles though, you need to be armed with correct information about those you are hoping to help. It is important to avoid savior complexes. Listen to people in the communities you want to fight for. Trusted sources are SWOP chapters, the ACLU, the LGBT Center in Los Angeles (or local chapters to you), and actual LGBTQ+ folks and sex workers.
Of course, you can volunteer and leaflet with local chapters and organizations, but it is also important to support community members directly. You can do this by supporting a business owned by LGTBQ+ folks and sex workers or by tipping them directly!
You do a lot of challenging work. What do you do to take care of yourself and have fun?
A: What's been so great about my current work is the wonderful people I have met. I have never had more fun with a group of people than my sex worker comrades. We take trips, drink wine in the backyard, and gas each other up constantly.
Personally, I go to the gym almost every day and try to spend some time there with my phone off. Turning your phone off is very important for activists (and all workers at this point). In 2019 we can be constantly reached, and it's hard not to engage when you are so passionate about your work helping others.
I also got a fully functional TV for the first time in my adult life this year and now understand the benefits of winding down watching TV (even if I mostly watch The Office).
The National Importance of Massachusetts' Question 3
While the media is focused on which party will serve as the majority in the House and Senate after the midterm elections, voters in 37 states also have the opportunity to vote on more than 150 statewide measures. Important issues like marijuana, voting rights, fracking, abortion rights, and trans rights, are all on the table this election.
One of the most vital midterms measures is Massachusetts' question 3, a measure that could repeal the state's landmark 2016 transgender rights law. The law was an important milestone in the battle for much-needed protections for the transgender community, ensuring individuals could use public restrooms and locker rooms according to their gender identity, and generally exist in public spaces without fear of discrimination. It was passed with almost 90% support in the state senate and over 75% support in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, signed into law by Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, and widely celebrated by a large range of LGBTQ+ business and civil rights groups, as well as New England's five major sports teams.
Governor Charlie BakerPolitico
The initiative to repeal this law is not the result of a movement by the people of MA, but rather the consequence of concerted efforts by a small, right-wing, Christian organization called the Massachusetts Family Institute and their allied organization Keep MA Safe. These critics say the law is "ripe for abuse," and could be taken advantage of by sex offenders entering women's bathrooms and dressing rooms with the aim of assaulting and harassing women and children. Debby Dugan, the chairwoman of Keep MA Safe, wrote in a Boston Globe piece last month that, "The way this law is written, an attempt to block someone who self-identifies as belonging in a women's locker room, dressing room, or bathroom — including convicted sex offenders — could result in penalties of up to a year in prison, and fines of up to $50,000 for multiple offenses."
Nation Builder
The law was written with the expectation of this argument from the opposition, and includes a provision by directing Attorney General Maura Healey, who wrote that if, "an employee of a public accommodation has reasonable grounds to believe that a person, regardless of gender identity, is engaged in improper or unlawful conduct, they should do whatever they would normally do to address the situation, including asking the patron to leave or calling security or law enforcement." This means a person will not be legally liable for discrimination if they intervene in a suspected sexual assault, as long as they had reasonable cause to believe intervention was necessary.
Despite this, critics tend to frame the conversation as though the law protects offenders from legal consequences. But as Justice Healey wrote, "This new law does not provide any protections for someone who engages in improper or unlawful conduct, whether in a sex-segregated facility or elsewhere, nor does it provide a defense to criminal charges brought against someone engaged in unlawful conduct." Also, as many supporters of the law have pointed out, if someone had the intention of doing something unlawful in a public restroom, it is unlikely they would be deterred by gendered bathrooms in the first place.
It's difficult to believe that the people behind Keep MA Safe are actually concerned about the safety of Americans, given the lack of evidence that there is any correlation between assaults and trans rights laws, and the ample evidence that the trans community is constantly at risk of violence and harassment. The sex offender centered argument is a thinly veiled excuse for bigotry, as assault and harassment, regardless of the spaces they occur in, are illegal in the state of Massachusetts, and this law does nothing to change that. Additionally, the anti-discrimination law has been endorsed by the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association and the Massachusetts Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence.
Healey's office noted that in the 18 other states with transgender anti-discrimination laws, reports of "improper assertion[s] of gender identity have been exceedingly rare." In June, Rep. Joe Kennedy III told Boston.com that there is "not one single incident that they can point to of any sort of assault or danger that's taken place as a result [of the law]". Researchers at the Williams Institute — a think tank at the UCLA School of Law that focuses on sexual orientation and gender identity law — backed up Kennedy's assertions, announcing that they found no correlation between the passage of the 2016 law in Massachusetts and any change in the "number or frequency of criminal incidents in restrooms, locker rooms or changing rooms."
According to Logan Nelson, a transgender Massachusetts resident, the assertion that sex offenders may pretend to be transgender is absurd. "All I want to do is f*cking pee. The claim that sex offenders will pretend to be transgender is just wildly offensive and inaccurate. You can't 'pretend' to be transgender. Wearing different clothing doesn't make you transgender. The whole thing is essentially just an attack and there has been no aggression from the trans community that warrants this. All it is, is a hate infused attack. And of course, trans women of color already have the highest mortality rate in the trans community, so this is forcing them even further into extinction."
While it is clear that the law does not offer any protection for sexual assailants or others who would seek to act unlawfully, it does offer vital protections for Transgender individuals. The National Center for Transgender Equality reports that "more than one in four trans people has faced a bias-driven assault, and rates are higher for trans women and trans people of color." Additionally, the Human Rights Campaign has reported 22 deaths due to fatal violence against transgender people in 2018 so far, most recently the death of Ciara Minaj Carter Frazier on Oct. 3. Despite these harrowing statistics, the Trump administration has made discrimination against the transgender community a part of their agenda, aiming to define gender based on anatomy at birth and exclude non-cisgender individuals from legal protections.
Fortune
In part because of Trump's harmful rhetoric, even if Massachusetts voters vote to keep the law, there is much work to be done in terms of providing transgender individuals with the rights and protection they deserve. As Mr. Nelson went on to say, "I'm not gonna stop using the bathroom. You know, cause I'm a human being who has to shit sometimes. And even without question 3, I still feel unsafe in bathrooms. I always have. Part of the trans experience is not having your rights respected or heard until they're in question. I have always felt unsafe and I will continue to. All this Question 3 stuff does is highlight the fact that Americans don't want transgender people to exist, that there are so few of us that the 'majority' (cisgender women and girls, men) matter more, and that there is zero education and cultural competency training in regard to gender in politics, the education system, and in popular culture."
While there is alway more work to be done in protecting trans Americans from systemic discrimination and violence, the outcome of Massachusetts vote on question 3 will have heavy implications for the rest of the country. If the referendum is successful in repealing the law — an unprecedented outcome in measures of this nature — supporters say a dangerous precedent could be set for other, less-liberal states where laws against discrimination on the basis of gender identity have been passed. In an America where division is actively encouraged by the President, it is important now more than ever to safeguard the legal protections of at risk communities. While we urge Massachusetts voters to vote "yes" on question 3, it's equally important for all Americans to continue to work to be better allies to the entire LBGTQ+ community.
Brooke Ivey Johnson is a Brooklyn based writer, playwright, and human woman. To read more of her work visit her blog or follow her twitter @BrookeIJohnson.
Rest in Peace, Matthew Shepard
Twenty years ago this month, a young gay man named Matthew Shepard was beaten and left for dead tied to a fence in Laramie, Wyoming.
Friday, on the other side of the country, his ashes were interred in a crypt at the Washington National Cathedral while thousands looked on. They came to celebrate the life of Shepard, who in the years since his death became a symbol of hope and love amidst anti-gay hate and oppression. For many LGBTQ+ people, the circumstances of his death bring memories of their own struggles, both inside the closet and out.
The public service was led by the Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, Episcopal bishop of Washington and the Right Rev. Gene Robinson. Like Shepard, Robinson is an openly gay man, and poignantly, also the first elected as a bishop in the Episcopal Church.
Robinson had tears in his eyes as he welcomed attendees. To those who are LGBT, he said "many of you have been hurt by your own religious communities, and I want to welcome you back." He referred to Shepard's burial at the cathedral as a homecoming, saying "it is a remarkable step forward."
Cameron Pollack/NPR
Shepard's father thanked the attendees for their support. "It's so important that we now have a home for Matt... A home that is safe from haters. A home that he loved dearly." Robinson praised both of Shepard's parents, who founded the Matthew Shepard Foundation to combat hate crimes across the country, for devoting their lives to LGBT activism.
During the service, Robinson shared a touching anecdote from the police officer who first saw Shepard the day after his brutal attack. When she arrived, a deer was lying beside Shepard's body and looked the officer straight in the eye before running away.
"What she said was: 'That was the good Lord, no doubt in my mind.' And there's no doubt in my mind either. God has always loved Matt," Robinson said.
In October 1998, Shepard was tortured and robbed by two men he had encountered in a bar, and was subsequently abandoned for eighteen hours tethered to a chain-link fence. He died from his injuries five days later at the age of 21.
Prosecutors in his case alleged that Shepard was targeted because of anti-gay bigotry. The two attackers, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, were both sentenced to life in prison. Although characterizing the murder as a hate crime has been disputed by some, outrage over Shepard's death ultimately led to the passage of the Shepard/Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act in 2009. James Byrd Jr, an African-American man killed by white supremacists in Texas, also inspired the legislation.
Getty Images
Shepard's funeral in 1998 was protested by the now-notorious Westboro Baptist Church carrying signs reading "God hates F*gs," "Matt in hell," "AIDS cures F*gs," among other hateful speech. During the trials for Shepard's killers, the group Angel Action peacefully counter-protested the church's signs while wearing white angel costumes. The costumes had ten-foot wingspans that covered and silenced the church protesters.
Throughout the Friday service, Robinson urged the crowd not only to commemorate Shepard, but to also confront the prejudice and violence that faces the LGBTQ community today. Marginalized factions within the community are particularly at risk of hate, like transgender people. "There are forces who would erase them from America," Robinson said. Twice he encouraged the crowd to "go vote."
Robinson received a long-standing ovation as he closed the service, choking down the final words:
"There are three things I'd say to Matt: 'Gently rest in this place. You are safe now. And Matt, welcome home.' Amen."
Joshua Smalley is a New York-based writer, editor, and playwright. Find Josh at his website and on Twitter: @smalleywrites.
