LGBTQ united by fear
“And what do we have here?” Dolly Parton asked me. “The typical American family?”
This was in Provincetown, Mass., many years ago, on the street in front of a drag club, where my wife and I were pushing a baby carriage. At the time I seemed to be a youngish, tweedy English professor. What I did not look like, though, was the thing I actually was: a closeted transgender woman.
How I wanted, back then, to shout to that drag artist who was not actually Dolly Parton – I’m like you! We are sisters, you and I!
But I didn’t have the courage. I couldn’t imagine it.
In the years since then, and especially since I did finally come out, in 2000, I have occasionally wondered whether the thing I longed to say to her was true. Was I her sister? Was I like her?
On Sunday, as the news about the murders inside Club Q in Colorado Springs emerged, I thought of these questions again.
Among the victims was bartender Daniel Aston, 28, a trans man. His partner, a drag performer, was behind the bar when the shooting began. It was not lost on those of us in the LGBTQ community that the massacre took place on the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day set aside in memory of all the trans people who have lost their lives to violence.
Nor is it lost on us that conservatives across the country this year have been using the LGBTQ community as their whipping boys. And girls. Rep. Brianna Titone, Colorado’s first openly trans legislator, tweeted on Sunday, “When politicians and pundits keep perpetuating tropes, insults, and misinformation about the trans and LGBTQ+ community, this is a result.”
In October, a man attacked a trans librarian in Boise. Other attacks, by armed men and groups such as the Proud Boys, have disrupted drag-related events in Texas, Nevada and Oregon. At the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia – where I once presented a grand rounds lecture on the variety of trans experiences – security has been increased in the wake of threats to its transgender clinic. In Massachusetts, Boston Children’s Hospital reports that its clinicians and staff have received multiple threats of violence.
One observer at a Colorado Springs vigil said, “It feels like, ‘When is it going to happen to me?’ As opposed to thinking, ‘This kind of thing will never touch me.’ “
The harassment at Boston Children’s came in the wake of anti-LGBTQ posts from social media users, including the Twitter account LibsofTikTok. On Sunday morning, right after the attack in Colorado Springs, Chaya Raichik, who runs that Twitter account, pointed to Titone’s support of a Denver nonprofit that helps young drag performers.
In August, Colorado Republican Lauren Boebert, who has used slurs to describe trans people, warned drag queens to stay away from children in the state’s 3rd District, where she just won reelection. Late Sunday, Boebert expressed sympathy for the victims. The victims, she said, were in her prayers. Titone replied, “You spreading tropes and insults contributed to the hatred for us. There’s blood on your hands.”
Like many trans women, especially those of us who are decades post-transition, I have occasionally wondered how much in common I have with the drag community. I’ve loved watching drag, and have looked upon the artistry of my friends with wonder and delight. But I have never thought of my gender as part of a fantasy or a performance. All I ever really wanted for myself was the solace and grace that came from finally feeling at home in my own body.
To be honest, at this age, I’m more Edna Krabappel than Dolly Parton.
I’ve been married to my wife for 34 years now – 12 as husband and wife, and 22 as wife and wife. Our children, just toddlers during that longago vacation in Provincetown, have since gone into the world to find their own adventures.
But I know the answer to the question that I asked myself in Provincetown now.
Yes, that Dolly Parton was my sister. Just as Daniel Aston was my brother. Just as all of us in the LGBTQ community in this country are one family, bound together not only by the love we feel for one another but also by the way, every day, we have now come to fear for our lives.
And if I met that Dolly Parton now, even with all the changes in our family, I would still give her the answer I gave her three decades ago.
The typical American family? Why yes, that’s us.