Member-only story
The Reason I Support Trans Folks
Is because of one specific interaction
I’ve written about this before, but I first became aware of the trans community back in the early to mid 1990s when my best friend Michael came out as a gay man. Not that I didn’t know trans people existed — I was aware a small portion of the population went through gender reassignment surgery (sex changes we called them back then), and honestly, I have always figured if someone was that serious about changing their gender, then that was their business, though I’d never met a trans person in real life. (That I knew of.)
Michael and I both love to dance, so I started going out to the gay clubs with him. I was married at the time, so going to gay clubs was a fun way to get to go dance without my husband worrying I was doing anything untoward.
My bestie Michael sort of walked me through the LGBTQ culture, explaining the customs and slang and such. One night we were hanging out in the club and my friend subtlety indicated toward a woman I thought was another gay man in drag. (I was one of just a handful of cis-women in the club, though “cis” wasn’t a term we were using at that time.)
“See her?” he said. “She had a sex change. She’s a full woman now. Poor thing. Every time I see her, she’s falling down drunk.” Michael and I understood without saying to…
