Milk hands him the phone.<\/p>\n
(I could not find a link to this clip. If anyone has one, please contribute.)<\/p>\n
Harvey Milk had a good point. I have heard a senior member of my family declare that she does not know any gay people. Her college roommate, back in the first half of the twentieth century, was nicknamed \u201cButch\u201d, and since college Butch has lived her entire life together with another woman. But this member of my family doesn\u2019t know any gay people\u2026<\/p>\n
People have to stand up. They have to speak out. If members of a vilified minority don\u2019t testify, if we don\u2019t represent, then people are free to go on thinking any damn thing they want about us. Someone has to be first, on the tip of the spear, and even if you\u2019re not first, well, someone has to be second. And third.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m a long way from being first. Whatever I do to advocate for trans people, I do by walking down a road paved by others, trans and otherwise: Christine Jorgensen, Sylvia Rivera, Becky Allison, Gwen Araujo, Linda Simpson, Julie Marin, Leslie Feinberg, Monica Helms, Kate Bornstein, Jennifer Finney Boylan, Stephan Thorne, Robert Eads, Helen Boyd, Betty Crow, Pat Califia, Lynne Conway, Mina Caputo, Christine Daniels, Brandon Teena, Ina Fried, Autumn Sandeen, Buck Angel, Wendy Carlos, Andrea James, and too many others to list. (There are many thousands of such people who have gone before me. If you are trans and conscious of a debt to someone I did not name, please feel free to comment.) Many of these people are dead, and most of those didn\u2019t die of old age. They are, and were, human; all of them are\/were flawed, and some I don\u2019t admire. But I have to give them this: they stood up. Some of them are activists, some are advocates, and some are \u201cjust\u201d people who live their lives.<\/p>\n
They aren\u2019t all paragons of bravery, either. Some went right to the brink of suicide before they transitioned. See Jennifer Finney Boylan\u2019s superb She\u2019s Not There<\/a><\/span>. Some did their best to transition and then committed suicide<\/a>.<\/p>\n But they all stood up. I haven\u2019t stood up.<\/p>\n It gnaws at me.<\/p>\n It\u2019s an homunculus which sleeps in my gut. Every so often, he wakes up and demands an accounting: What have you done to justify the oxygen you used up today? He and I are on pretty good terms, generally. I work in a job where I can often help people, where I sometimes I even have the honor and privilege to stand between the abuser and the abused. \u00a0But more and more often, he says, \u201cSo. \u00a0When are you going to stop hiding? \u00a0There are other people out there, you know. \u00a0They\u2019re taking shrapnel. \u00a0You could be standing next to them, in front of them, and they need you, too.”<\/p>\n During his warm welcome to my first blog post here<\/a>, Robert mentioned that he appreciated my bravery in sharing my stories and my life.\u00a0 Over at the My Husband Betty boards<\/a>, I mentioned that I had posted at Alas, and a poster there also lauded my bravery.<\/p>\n That\u2019s nice to hear. \u00a0If you press me, I know that I\u2019m brave to some extent. \u00a0My job can be dangerous and unpleasant, but I do it anyway.\u00a0 I\u2019ve gone through doors when I knew the person on the other side was angry and armed. \u00a0I\u2019ve searched places where violent people were hiding. \u00a0I\u2019ve arrested violent offenders at gunpoint.<\/p>\n One day, in a fit of overintrospection, I worried that I might not be actually brave, but simply too soft in the head to really understand the risks.<\/p>\n I asked my wife, “Am I brave?”<\/p>\n She managed to hide her amusement, almost.\u00a0 After our many years together, she knows better than to feed me the easy answer, because I\u2019m cussed and I\u2019ll play devil\u2019s advocate against her. She used Socratic Judo instead:\u00a0 “When you’re about to do something which could get you maimed, are you worried?”<\/p>\n “Well, sure,” I said.<\/p>\n “Then, yes,” she said.\u00a0 “You’re brave.”<\/p>\n Oh.\u00a0 Well, when you put it that<\/em> way\u2026 Fine, I\u2019m brave. But I don\u2019t feel brave.<\/p>\n So it\u2019s not about bravery.\u00a0 It\u2019s about strategy and tactics.<\/p>\n I\u2019m a field training officer.\u00a0 I help train new officers.\u00a0 And one of the things I tell them is:\u00a0 \u201cDon\u2019t be a hero unless you must.\u00a0 We fight ethically, we fight legally, we fight within the rules, but we don\u2019t fight fair.\u00a0 Call for backup the moment you think you might need it.\u00a0 Always take backup with you to serve a warrant.\u00a0 I\u2019ve marched at the funeral of a friend who made a stupid mistake and got himself killed.\u00a0 Don\u2019t do that to your fellow officers.\u201d<\/p>\n (I want to link to that friend’s name in the ODMP<\/a>, but for now I’m not going to. \u00a0I’m in the closet. \u00a0The choice I make, here, not to recognize my friend by name, will anger some of my fellow officers, who will believe me disloyal.)<\/p>\n Other trans police officers have said the similar things to me, most recently today:\u00a0 \u201cPicking your time is wise.\u00a0 Remember a coward dies may deaths, where the brave only die once.\u00a0 You are far from being the coward.\u201d<\/p>\n So, good tactics.\u00a0 My spouse and I feed a family.\u00a0 We have a mortgage.\u00a0 I won\u2019t do them any good if I stand up and get my head lopped off.<\/p>\n \u201cAh,\u201d says the homunculus, \u201cBut then why aren\u2019t you an accountant?\u201d<\/p>\n Okay, fine.\u00a0 I take risks.\u00a0 But you have to draw the line somewhere.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s true,\u201d he concedes, \u201cBut it\u2019s also what every coward on earth hides behind.\u201d<\/p>\n Oh, shut up.<\/p>\n But he won\u2019t, for long.<\/p>\n I want to be Toni Maviki\u2019s kind of brave<\/a>.\u00a0 She\u2019s also a trans officer.\u00a0 Last year in New Hampshire, the NH Judiciary Committee was debating whether to move a bill which would bar employment discrimination against trans people.\u00a0 Toni testified.\u00a0 She said, \u201cI carried a badge, and I protected all you people, and there was no law to protect me from harm.\u201d<\/p>\n (The Judiciary Committee unanimously voted the legislation, and therefore the human rights of trans people \u201cinexpedient to legislate\u201d.\u00a0 Remember, kids, sometimes when you reach out a hand you pull back a stump.)<\/p>\n Like Toni, I want to be able to hold people accountable, to their faces.\u00a0 I want to do it by pointing at myself, not by talking generally about trans people and letting people picture whatever trans stereotype they favor. \u00a0I want to be able to look people right in the prejudice and say, \u201cI\u2019m<\/em> trans.\u00a0 Stick that in your preconceptions.\u201d<\/p>\n But it\u2019s not all about me, is it?\u00a0 I\u2019m not just restricting myself.\u00a0 There’s a cascade effect.\u00a0 Because I’m in the closet, my mother can go to a trans advocacy meeting (which she has done, because she is awesome), but she can’t say something as simple as, “My daughter is trans.”\u00a0 She can’t own her own pride in parenting a trans person.\u00a0 My friends can’t wear this button<\/a>…<\/p>\n \u2026At least, not if they worry that someone might connect it to me.<\/p>\n When I discovered that I was trans, it didn\u2019t take me long to realize that I was in a closet.\u00a0 It took me longer to realize that every time I told someone, I dragged them into the closet with me.\u00a0 The fact that I needed my closest friends to know one of the most important things about me doesn’t change the fact that now they have to be careful how they talk about me and refer to me.<\/p>\n I want them to be free to speak, too.\u00a0 And until I step up, they can\u2019t.<\/p>\n So I wrestle with this.\u00a0 There is no useful conclusion, here.\u00a0 It\u2019s just this thing I have to wrestle with from time to time, which saps my energy and helps me to doubt myself.\u00a0 But there\u2019s no cunning ruse I can use to escape it.\u00a0 I just have to work with it until I\u2019m out.<\/p>\n Grace<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [Edited to add context: I am a trans woman. I have not yet publicly transitioned, so I still present as male. And I am a police officer.] In \u201cMilk\u201d, the movie starring Sean Penn, there is a scene which haunts … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/trans-love-button.jpg\" "\\"trans-love-button\\""){kind=spacer}
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