If your parents don't love you, someone else's will

One week ago today, folks went out in droves to show their support of Chick-fil-A.  It was a sad day for me and my gay & lesbian friends.  Occasions like that have a tendency to take the wind right of one's rainbow flag.  In the week that has passed, I've spent a lot of time reflecting on my life, my relationships, and God/religion.

The day following the outpouring of support for Chick-fil-A, one of my best friends, Jay - a straight man, mind you - sent me a text disparaging Chick-fil-A and reminding me that his 2 year old daughter loves me and my wife (her 'god-dykes') and that's all that matters.  Later in the day, he sent another text stating that he had talked to his mother - a Christian - and she agreed that real Christians don't behave the way Chick-fil-A supporters did.  As an atheist, I don't really care whether some is a good/bad, real/pretend Christian; I'm just concerned with how folks treat other people.  Still, I appreciated his reminder that not everyone if full of hate.

This evening when I checked my mail, I noticed two greeting cards - one addressed to me and one to my wife.  I did not recognize the hand writing or notice a return address.  I opened the card and found that it was from Jay's parents, Joann & Jerry.  There was a hand-written message inside, basically apologizing for the behavior of Chick-fil-A-type Christians.  More importantly, the note included a reminder that I am, in fact, loved.

Having been rejected by my biological/immediate family - for reasons including but certainly not limited to my sexuality - I never take acceptance and love for granted in my life.  I do not believe that God is love, but I do believe in love, and the capacity for love that's deeply rooted in each of us.

Today - as with most days - my heart is full.  I wish only love to each of you, known and unknown.

“Love demands expression. It will not stay still, stay silent, be good, be modest, be seen and not heard, no. It will break out in tongues of praise, the high note that smashes the glass and spills the liquid.”
- Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body

Chick-fil-A-tio

It seems that everyone - both left and right - has their tits in a twist over this Chick-fil-A anti-gay controversy.  My then-husband and I used to eat at Chick-fil-A in college because it was a part of the campus food court, but I've only eaten there a handful of times in the past decade or so.  

I fully support Dan Cathy's right to hold whatever beliefs on marriage, family, and sexuality he wants.  I also fully support his right to donate to the charities and organizations of his choice.  I, in no way, wish to limit his freedom of religion or speech.  However, as a consumer, a lesbian, and an atheist, I have every right to voice a counter opinion and buy my chicken sandwiches elsewhere.

It's true that I'd rather put a dick in my mouth than a Chick-fil-A sandwich, but that doesn't mean I'm angry at folks who still eat there.  I am angry, however, at folks who actively work to keep me from being able to legally marry the woman to whom I'm completely, lovingly committed.   I'm not going to assume that every person who eats at Chick-fil-A is raging homophobe, just as I don't assume everyone with an iPhone actively supports human rights violations.

If you're one of those unlucky folks who loves Chick-fil-A's food and supports equality, here's my offer to you:   Donate $10 to the the Human Rights Campaign, Kentucky Fairness, or Lexington Fairness and I will gladly make you a tasty chicken sandwich with homemade bread & butter pickles and a side of carrot & raisin salad. 

Deal?

Rescheduling Pride

After spending the past couple of hours doing yard work in 90 degree temperatures, I started thinking about outdoor LGBT pride festivals/parades.  Lexington’s Pride Festival is next weekend, and I think it’s about time we gays got together to rethink this whole hot mess.

I’m a huge proponent of Pride demonstrations.  Although attitudes are changing, there is still a great deal of fear, hate, and stigma towards my people.  I fully support large gatherings of gays.  But do we really have to do it outdoors during the summer time?  I know, I know.  June is Pride month, because at the end of June back in 1969, gays finally started fighting back during the Stonewall riots.  I respect and revere our history.  But back in 1969, the average person wasn’t acclimated to a controlled climate.  In 1960, only 12% of homes had air conditioning.  It was hot inside, and it was hot inside – so no big deal.  It’s really hard for me to feel proud about who I am when I’m sweating buckets.  I feel like Mother Nature is committing the ultimate hate crime every time I venture out for Pride.  Do you know how quickly a lesbian can have a flannel-induced heat stroke?  

Too hot to feel proud

Here’s my proposal:  Let’s move Pride festivities to October, sometime on our around National Coming Out Day.  After all, October is LGBT History Month.  And, more importantly, the average high temperature in October in Lexington is a flannel-friendly 68 degrees (compared to a lesbian-liquefying high of 83 degrees in June).    

Let’s vote on this at our next group meeting, please.    

Island of Misfit Lesbians

This video is some preacher in North Carolina blabbering about getting rid of my people.   He suggests we sequester all gay people inside an electrified fence until we disappear.  Since women cannot reproduce with women and men cannot reproduce with men, he posits that we’ll all die off soon enough. 

There appear to be two groups who need to be sequestered:  lesbians and queers/homosexuals.  Are lesbians not queers/homosexuals?  Let’s send Pastor Worley a dictionary.  Also, somebody should probably tell him he’ll need three encampments; otherwise, where would he put the trans folks?

Regardless, I want to focus on Pastor Worley’s proposed lesbian encampment.  His proposal is not grossly inhumane.  I mean, he supports dropping food into the encampment.  That’s kind of him, right?  But does he really think this is a punishment for lesbians?  One, lesbians are reclusive, tribal creatures.  We love women-only spaces.  We also love the outdoors and camping.  His proposed encampment – let’s call it the Island of Misfit Lesbians – would just turn into a year-round Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival.  Within a menstrual cycle, we’ll have that encampment running like a well-lubricated dildo complete with several softball leagues.  Most lesbians I know are social workers and nurses, so we’ll Hull House the shit out that place.  Even if we lesbians grew tired of our confined space, does Pastor Worley really think a large society of lesbians couldn’t cut the power to that electric fence with just a little duct tape and a tampon string?  Obviously, Pastor Worley doesn’t know the lesbians I know.

Of course, the most ridiculous part of his argument is that this strategy would eliminate homosexuality because when we all died so would that love that dare not speak its name.  The last time I checked, most of my people were spawned by heterosexuals.  I mean, sequester us if you want, but YOU’LL just make more of us.   

Facial Hair

If you know me, you know that I was once married to a man.  Now that man dates guys and I date women.  (This fact, I think, makes my opposite-sex marriage a gay marriage, doesn’t it?  Just something to think about.)

I knew I was a lesbian before I married him all those years ago, and he knew I was too.  Why, then, were we attracted enough to each other to get hitched?

I can’t speak for my ex-husband, but I think, in some ways, I was his starter boyfriend.  Being with me was kind of like being with a guy, but my vagina made it socially acceptable.  When he eventually came out to his mother last year, he even told her that being with me was basically like being with a guy, because, as he told her, “Tami likes outdoorsy stuff, and to wrassle.”

So what attracted me to him?  There’s nothing feminine or girly about him physically.  Aside from being a male nurse, he’s a fairly butch guy, in that nerdy caffeinated gamer kind of way.  My ex-husband was and is a great guy.  He’s kind, funny, smart, and sensitive.  But why did I first want to make out with him?

I’ve never had a good solid answer to this question until recently, but it turns out that it’s all because of his facial hair.  While discussing our mutual man-crush on Robert Downey Jr., a fellow lesbian pointed out the following:  “I think a man with a goatee looks like he has a vagina sitting right up on his face.” 

My ex-husband, as it turns out, has had a goatee since we first met in high school.  Interestingly, the only time I can ever recall him shaving his goatee was to dress as Dr. Frank N. Furter to attend a midnight showing of Rocky Horror.  (I, of course, went as Eddie, complete with mutton chop sideburns.)    

I had never thought of facial hair in this way before, but now I can think of nothing else.  This even explains my attraction to Eddie Izzard, who is either in women’s clothing or has a goatee.  I’ve been reading up on how women feel about beards to see if this relates to the possible lesbian fascination with facial hair.  I read one article that suggests that women prefer men with light beards or stubble, as opposed to clean shaven or bushy bearded.  I completely agree with that, for both facial and pubic hair.  Hair is a signifier of maturity and adulthood, both on faces and vaginas.  That’s why I’m not a fan of the clean-shaven, pre-pubescent look on either, and no wants to go searching for lips through a Grizzly Adams beard/bush.       

I have now seen my relationship with my ex-husband through a new lens; I was his starter boyfriend and his goateed face was my starter vagina.  Isn’t that romantic?  

Not All Sluggers are Sapphists

I was recently invited to attend a high school softball game coached by two of my female friends.  Personally, I’ve never been a softball-lovin’ Sapphic slugger, but many of my good friends have dabbled in the sport.  I think the last time I played softball was under the compulsion of physical education classes in elementary school.  I’m more of a basketball butch.  I like sports where women are fast, sweaty, show a little leg, and aren’t required to swing giant metal or wooden phalluses at a ball.  The high school game I attended Friday evening was only the second softball game I’ve attended my entire life.  The other game I attended a few years ago and, I believe, was some sort of prison guard league that was chock-full of lesbians.

Despite my lack of experience with the game, softball seems especially coupled with the lesbian experience.

“Women’s softball has been associated with lesbians and being gay for a long time.  That’s been sort of a signal like two men sunbathing together on a beach, or something like that.  The immediate implication is that they’re gay, and I’ve known that for a long time.”

-- Pat Buchanan

Although Pat Buchanan is a right-wing nut-job, he’s not entirely wrong.  Softball has been part of the lesbian experience for decades.  In Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A Historyof Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America, Lillian Faderman reveals that during the 1950s and 60s, softball games succeeded in providing working-class and young lesbians with a place to make contact outside of the bar culture.  Faderman asserts that without institutions like women’s softball teams, women’s military units, and women’s bars, “not only would large numbers of women have been unable to make contact with other women in order to form lesbian relationships, but also it would have been impossible to create lesbian communities.”  Back when few other options existed, softball helped bring my people together.

            What does it mean when a lesbian has short nails?

            1)      She’s currently in a sexual relationship, or

            2)      It’s softball season

 

Although lesbians might be drawn to softball, that doesn’t mean that all sluggers are sapphists.  My female friends who coach high school softball are both presumably straight.  I say presumably not because I have any serious doubts about their sexuality or because they coach softball; the simple fact is that you cannot make assumptions about someone’s self-identified sexuality based on appearance, interests, or even known sexual history.  I mean, I’ve had sex with men before, but that certainly doesn’t make me straight.  If you’re a woman who coaches softball and/or gets drunk and hits on my wife, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re gay either; it just means you like sports, my wife’s hot, and you’re kind of easy.   We all know folks who are a few drinks away from a gay encounter.  Hell, I’m always just a few drinks away from making out with gay men.  Trust me, I’m not here to judge.

Unfortunately, the assumption is that women who play softball (or most any other sport) are likely lesbians.  This “lesbian-baiting” hurts all women and especially hurts female athletes.  We most often assume someone is gay because he or she defies gender stereotypes.  If a man is effeminate, people assume he must also love cock.  If a women displays masculine traits, such as athleticism, her sexuality is called in to question.  This forces female athletes who are straight to assert their heterosexuality, and it keeps gay female athletes in the closet.   [Be sure to check out the documentary Training Rules, which explores the issue of lesbian-baiting in the world of women’s collegiate basketball.]   The Women’s Sports Foundation actually addresses lesbian-baiting in their publication Special Issues for Coaches of Women’s Sports: "Encourage team members to think about why some people think being called a lesbian is an insult. Discuss some of the negative stereotypes about lesbians and how it is unfair to judge any group of people based on stereotypes. Ask them to think about how it hurts lesbian athletes and their families and friends to hear the word 'lesbian' used in hateful ways."

I have to give kudos to my coach friends for having a big ol’ butch like me hang out at their game and for not being dissuaded by lesbian-bating.  Having people think you’re a lesbian is only a bad thing if you believe being a lesbian is bad. 

And kudos for telling me that I was the best smelling man at the game; that’s the sort of respect and recognition we masculine women like from our straight female friends.      

How Bad Are My Roots?

“I’ve proven that people aren’t trees, so it’s false when they speak of roots.”

Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

As much as I'd like to believe that quote, I just can't.  My life is grossly different then it was when I was growing up - so much so that I sometimes feel schizophrenic - but that fact remains that where I come from will always be a part of me.  I have struggled over the years sorting out my complicated feelings about a region that in many ways represents both the best and worst of humanity.

After visiting one of my old friends who is a teacher in Leslie County yesterday, I started thinking about my roots in terms of poverty and educational attainment.  This morning, I looked at data about the counties in which I have lived in Kentucky.  I was born in Leslie County and lived there until I was 17 and then spent a year or two in Floyd County.  I lived in Rowan County for 6 years while I was earning a Bachelor’s and then a Master’s degree at Morehead State University.  I’ve spent the past decade in Fayette County.

Below is a table of some of the data I reviewed:

	Leslie County	Floyd County	Rowan County	Fayette County
Total Population (2010)	11,310	39,451	23,333	295,803
% white (2010)	98.8%	98.2%	96.1%	75.7%
% high school graduates (2010)	56.8%	68.9%	76.5%	88.3%
% Bachelor’s degree or higher (2010)	8.1%	11.7%	24.7%	39.1%
% lacking basic literacy skills (2003)	18%	15%	13%	7%
Median household income (2010)	$26,857	$27,907	$31,604	$47,469
% below poverty level (2010)	24.6%	28.1%	29.8%	17.4%
# of institutions offering a bachelor’s degree within 100 miles	19	12	22	38

As you can see, each move I have made has taken me to a less white, more educated, and more literate community.

According to the most recent census data, only 56.8% of people over the age of 25 in my home county (Leslie) graduated high school, and only 8.1% have a Bachelor’s degree or higher.  Nearly 1 in 5 Leslie Countians lack basic literacy skills.  But what does this really say about where I came from?  I decided to look at historical data on attainment of Bachelor’s degrees to get a fuller understanding.  That data is presented in the table below:

Unfortunately, the historical data isn’t any better. 

But are things really that bad in my home county?  Not necessarily.

As you can see in the table above, Leslie County has seen a pretty dramatic increase in the percentage of its population over the age of 25 with a Bachelor’s degree since 1960, an increase that has far outpaced other areas in Kentucky, the state as a whole, and even the nation.  Today, there are about 9 times as many people in Leslie County with a Bachelor’s degree than there was 50 years ago. 

Now that's something to be proud of.

If you'd like to read a more comprehensive analysis of Appalachian poverty, you can read the paper I'm posting separately that I wrote over a decade ago while I was working on my MA in Sociology.  It's a long academic paper, so feel free to give it a shot if you're having trouble sleeping.