My living situation is stabilized, my college situation is set, and safe in my purse is a purchase confirmation of one ticket to LAX. If you ask me now, the most beautiful phrase in the English language is one-way ticket. In the interim, I'm living at a homeless shelter close enough to my old school that I can finish out there. And here's where the story begins. I'm the youngest unaccompanied woman in the shelter by a country mile, and let me tell you, even the other residents with their advanced degrees from the School of Hard Knocks think there's something especially pathetic about a nervous five-foot-two eighteen year old girl all by herself in a homeless shelter. Add to that the fact that the vast majority of women there have children or grandchildren slightly older than I am, and things look a lot less bleak for me. So people have been incredibly kind to me, and I've made a lot of friends.
There's one little catch that always sticks in the back of my throat. Years of bigotry taught me to carefully dance around questions that most people never give a second thought. I know now that it was naive of me to think that being out to my family meant that I would never have to hide the truth again. I've not heard any derogatory mention of "faggots" molesting children or "Supreme Court dykes" but most residents derive their stoicism and morality from a Christian standpoint, and in Texas, that fact comes with addenda that don't bode well for me. Also, a great deal of evangelical Protestant churches like to volunteer at this shelter, and that comes with its share of preaching. I always make it a point to thank the volunteers for their time and effort, but a corner of my mind marvels at the irony that these same people telling me that I'm absolutely darling and wonderful and a special concern of the almighty creator of the universe would almost definitely be the same people who like to ruin Pride Parades. I've heard people from those sects call me and mine sick and perverted. The cosmic humor is almost enough to convince me of the existence of a higher power.
Conversations with all my new friends and mentors have been strained too. You young readers like me would be shocked to know how boy-crazy older women are. I kind of always assumed that women over 30 were frigid and men over 30 who weren't frigid chase girls my age. Don't laugh, I'm eighteen and grew up Catholic. Sex was something filthy and wrong that you did with the least repugnant partner around because Jesus cried if you didn't have children. But I'll be damned if the ladies I live with aren't just as eager for male attention as any het girl my age. And it's always assumed that I bat for that team. It's always "What kind of boys do you like?" or "Haven't you had any boyfriends?" or "Be careful now not to let the wrong kind of man ruin your life!" I blame my luscious flowing hair and my taste for pretty dresses. I don't look like a lesbian, but this is what a lesbian looks like.
The conspiratorial tone is what always makes me the saddest. "Men! Can't train them and can't strangle 'em!" We're a team. It's all of us comrades against Them, The Other, that strange alien creature that we pity and resent and combat and sometimes love. You're one of us, we'll protect you, we'll guide you, as long as you long for them. Being as young as I am, and in this situation, it's nice to be included and protected and advised. It's nice to laugh about the ways that men affect me as friends, adversaries, patriarchs, competitors, and mentors. But that last label, lover, cannot belong to the Other.
I try hard to be a good girl. I smile and wave and speak respectfully, I listen carefully even when I feel like a dead girl walking, I apologize quickly for my mistakes, thank readily for favors, and do all my assigned chores to the best of my ability. I do all this mostly because I genuinely like the people that I live with and it feels good to do good. But deep in my soul is the mad hope that if I work hard and be good and smile at the right times and try very, very hard, they'll forgive me for being different. When it happens again and everyone knows the truth (I've learned that it's not if, but when), maybe they'll remember how hard I tried, and they'll excuse my indiscretion of being homosexual in the here and now. I don't want them to endure me, or tolerate me. Tolerance is something allies talk about a lot, but it's such a hateful word. I don't want to be tolerated, I want to be loved. If I'm hated, I want to be hated for what I do, not who I am. (For what I do, not who I do, if you will.)
Eventually you get the feeling that you couldn't possibly be one of those strange nameless half-remembered creatures with their hearts' compasses pointed the wrong way. It's like being locked in a pitch-black room for weeks with hundreds of blind people and trying to remember what the sky looks like. Enter "sexual disorientation": the feeling that you couldn't possibly be what you know yourself to be. I'm a woman, women like men, that's how the world works. Sometimes it's not that you're persecuted. There's no room for deviations like you. There's no such thing. How can I be something that doesn't exist? Defying societal norms is one thing. How can I defy nature?
But...on the other hand...girls. I really like girls. They are smooth and soft and smell nice.
Maybe I can find it in me to defy nature a few more times.
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