My Day In the Middle

By Felicia Houston on 06/03/2009 @ 01:26 PM

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While in Fresno (smack dab in the middle of California) rallying with the people for same-sex marriage equality, I went to the library. I learn not only from the books themselves but the keepers of the books, too, and then it hit me!!! I was going to have to use the public bathroom.

Now, probably many of you don’t concern yourself with something as mundane as entering a restroom. I headed towards the door, my consciousness on alert. Outside of the restroom stood a man and a woman - she was filling a bottle at the water fountain.

Just as I crossed the threshold I hear, “Did you see that man go into the bathroom?”

Ugh.

Now remember the event that I was attending was called “Meet in the Middle for Equality”. This time (this has happened before) the woman who spoke these words just happened to be African American. I am noting this for no other reason than to say when I first saw her outside the bathroom I eased up. I relaxed for just one second too long.

People, I am at the middle! I drew the line in the sand, right there and then. I turned to her and said,

DO NOT call me a man…

because my hair is short…

because you did not take the time to really look at me…

because I wear clothes that do not conform to your idea of how a woman should dress…

because you are so entrenched in stereotypical gender roles…

because I make you uncomfortable.

I am not making a statement. I am not trying to be something I am not.

You do not have the right to impose your bigotry on me when you find that you’re mistaken by calling me a dyke.

I will not stand for your intolerance justified by a pulpit.

No longer will I allow my humanity to be discounted for even one second.

That poor woman. I can only imagine. For what she mistook for a man turned out to be an irate black lesbian!

Friends – family, I will be on the mall in Washington D.C. on October 10th and 11th, 2009. To stand and demand once and for all that the LGBTQ community be given equal protection under the law as it is laid out in our constitution. I will be there holding the line.

JOIN ME.

Lastly, the time will come when we will once again be asked to vote for these civil rights. Not just in California but all over the nation.

My parents marched on Washington for the right to be married when their love was illegal in this country. She was black. He was white.

If you are not able to stand with me in Washington please stand with me on that day. Stand in the love that you have for me and vote for equality.

Felicia Houston lives and works in San Francisco. She is a writer and photographer, and serves as Director of A Woman’s Place, the only gender specific shelter for homeless women in the city of San Francisco. She has been involved in the fight for equality for 26 years since participating in the first gay rights march on Washington.