A Mother's Response Makes for a Beautiful Moment

“Was she beautiful?”

 

It was a question but also a response.

 

I turned to the man walking next to me on the crowded street. I couldn’t stop myself. I didn’t want to. I had to express my gratitude. A simple thank you. You see, he was the father of a little girl walking a few paces in front of us that had exclaimed, “I just saw another drag queen!” with such excited gusto that one might think she was the winning contestant on Spot! That! Drag Queen!

 

It was the little girl's mother , however, who’d responded, “Was she beautiful?” The response heard round my brain.

 

I was touched. Beyond touched, maybe. I felt something spread through my chest. Expand inside me. This seemingly heteronormative nuclear family with two children—one boy, one girl—was in the gay mecca of Provincetown, Massachusetts, in big-gay July. Bear Week to be exact. So, I had to believe they knew where they were. But this response…this one, from a mother to her child, hit me hard in such a positive way.

 

I immediately thought of my own parents on a vacation with young Michael. First, they never would have taken me (or themselves) anywhere near a gay mecca, so let’s acknowledge that immediately. (Fifty-five years later, they still wouldn’t be caught there.) Second, I can’t quite imagine their response being anything near that positive.

What I can imagine is their fear of queer life leading them to pull me away from the “freaks.” I can imagine my confusion and curiosity instigating a question or two. I can imagine the sound of crickets riding on a wave of silence as they hoped I would let it go if they avoided answering me.

I was so moved in that moment by a mother’s response to her child that I had to say thank you to her also. I mouthed those words as I passed her. She smiled and said, “You’re welcome.” I kept walking, her smile burning its way into my memories. She didn’t make a man dressed as a woman a bad thing, a negative thing, or a we-have-to-protect-the-children thing. Her response immediately normalized, for her child, one of the most historic expressions in queer culture.

 

My brain churned this moment round and round the thought processor for hours. I was very aware of the sensation that flooded my body in that moment: my heart leapt. One might even say that it was Grinch-like and grew three sizes that day. I felt so much joy mixed with a dash of surprise. That’s why I had to say something to the father. I wanted to thank him for giving to his child something that young me recognizes that I didn’t get, something that I still long for.

 

Can I fault my parents for their, shall I say, innocence? Like me, they grew up in that same small southern county where I was raised. Can I fault them for passing their phobias on to me? I can’t really. But I do.

Drag queens are fierce, strong, and bold; loud and visible. I remember when I first started watching drag performances in the early 90s, how much I loved it. I was mesmerized.  The work that went into it. The makeup. The over-the-top glamour. The humor. The precision. The fabulousness. The fear of finding myself in a drag queen’s sights then on the other side her quick-witted, vicious tongue but sitting close the stage anyway. Drag queens are necessary in queer culture, and with respect to the current fear mongering perpetrated by conservatives in the United States, they aren’t going to harm children. Drag is performance. It’s art. It’s theatre. It’s expression. It’s fearless.  And if a parent can explain Robin Williams as Mrs. Doubtfire, then they should have no problem explaining Lil Miss Hot Mess reading a damn story to children in a library. But I digress. 

I can only imagine a world in which I grew up not afraid of being myself. Not afraid of being different. Not worried that different was wrong or bad. Not confused by the pure joy I felt when wearing a pair of my mother’s heels or one of her skirts. Not afraid to ask questions. Not afraid of the answers. I can only imagine how I might now accept my own queerness. How I might accept my femininity. How my insides might feel less twisted with fear as I ponder the possibility of my own transness.

I can only imagine how beautiful it might have been if my own mother hadn’t been afraid. How beautiful it still could be if she would only engage with me about my queer identity.

So, I return to that question: “Was she beautiful?”

Yes. She was. From my perspective, she was a beautiful woman, a beautiful mother, and a beautiful human being. I hope her daughter realizes how lucky she is. 

Being Woke Is Simple, But Tell That To The Conservative American Christian

 

To be woke, as defined by dictionary.com, is “having or marked by an active awareness of systemic injustices and prejudices, especially those involving the treatment of ethnic, racial, or sexual minorities.”

Isn’t that a good thing? Shouldn’t we embrace a positive reaction to our historical and present-day negative actions? 

Wouldn’t you think those who profess to be Christians would be at the forefront of this movement—more woke than anyone else?

I would think so. But no. I would be wrong.

American Christians, most of whom are conservatives, use woke as a negative term and fight hard against changes in the world being made by those who recognize the movement's eyes-wide-open benefits.

The Woke Movement isn’t new. It’s been around since the early 1900s when Black Americans coined the term for use in the racial justice movement. It simply meant that a person was “informed, educated and conscious of social injustice and racial inequality,” according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary. I had never heard the term woke until recent years when the 24-hour news cycle and social media brought it to my attention because conservative American Christians were using it as a double-edged sword against those striving for progress and change.

I was discussing the definition of woke recently with a friend who said that Christians don’t see that there is a problem. Or that there ever has been a problem. He added that Christians view wokeness as an attack on them.

Investigating further, I read a post from a Reddit thread from a couple of years ago. The original poster believes woke means being sensitive to injustice and having compassion for the marginalized and minority groups, adding that conservatives mock “bleeding heart liberals” who understand movement and try to implement its intended change. A responder to that post spoke of the perceived toxic environment created by the Woke Movement, opining that when one doesn’t follow the rules perfectly as laid out by those in charge then one is reprimanded. (Who’s in charge?) Further into the thread, responses of “simply having respect” and “wokeness demands repentance but offers no forgivenesses” caught my attention.

Why is there no forgiveness? Why aren’t Christians the ones with bleeding hearts? Why does respecting another person’s color, sexuality, gender, gender identity, religious beliefs (or none), etc., cause such fear-based outrage?

I can’t answer these questions.

From what I remember in my nearly 18 years of going to Sunday school and Baptist worship services three times a week, this man Jesus was supposedly a kind, generous, loving person. He is characterized as a man who opened his heart and his arms to the sick and the poor, to kings and outcasts alike. And he supposedly taught lessons of acceptance and forgiveness.

As a queer from a small town in the red state of Kentucky, I sure know what it means to feel, and be, different. I know what learned fear feels like from the repeated warnings of a fire-and-brimstone preacher as he spoke of a God who would punish me for my sins, turn his back on me if I failed to heed his attempts to convict my heart to turn toward him, and send me to Hell for being gay. 

Side note: if we are all created in the image of this God of the Bible, then that means my non-binary, gay, queer, femme-ass self was made in the image of that God too. And I would suggest that you stop thinking of this God as some white-haired, white-bearded, white man who resides somewhere above the clouds. I suggest instead that you think of this God as an entity that posses both sexes, all colors, and every race. This God would be trans and bi and poly and glorious and glittering in his various shades of life. But I digress.

We all know this biblical God of the White Right, don’t we? And so, too, this man Jesus. (If either of them even exist.) But if this God does exists then he’s clearly a man with a penis. As is this man Jesus. That’s the only option for most American Christians. And the God of the American Christian doesn’t seem to want his followers to embrace trans people or queer people or gay people. No. This God wants his followers to close their eyes to the injustices perpetrated on these communities. They’re angry all the time and righteous as they point out how threatening we are. Their God wants his followers to speak with nasty vitriol and in some cases even perpetuate the injustices with violence. He doesn’t want those dirty fucking trannies to live happy lives. And we shouldn’t even speak of how he seems to feel about the nasty gays and their disgusting sexual habits. Not in His America. Hell no. 

Of course none of that is true. If there is a God how could this entity want anything but happiness and love and full lives for all of its creations? Human beings are the ones who don’t want that. Human beings live in fear of what we don’t understand. Human beings have decided they can speak for this God.

Let’s look specifically at two words in the above mentioned definition of woke: active awareness. That’s it, right there. To be woke is to have an active awareness. Of what? Well, of racism, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, to name just a few. And with an active awareness, a person can actively work against these negatives. 

So why are so many Christians actively working against being woke? To simply respect and support other people seems like something this man Jesus would do, something very Christlike.

This feels like the perfect time to bring up the word “agenda.” I am aware that many American Christians think anything different, or new, is part of someone’s “agenda.” They love to say these “agendas” are being shoved down their throats. We’ve all heard of the Gay Agenda. Of course now there’s the Trans Agenda. And we can’t forget that old stalwart, the Black Lives Matter Agenda.

Agenda is not a bad word. It’s a plan. And the agenda for any of these movements is to shine a light on the disparities and the prejudices and the treatment of people in these communities. But these “agendas” sure rile people up, don’t they?

It’s American Christian who have the biggest “agenda.” Example: you may be a person that’s against abortion. And that’s fine. You can be against abortion. To me, that means you’re not going to have an abortion.

But many Christians rejoiced when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, even though that meant millions of women most of who these Christians will never know, lost access to safe and legal abortion. Tell me Christians don’t have an agenda. And theirs is the Agenda being shoved down the throats of too many Americans on a daily basis.

What about your Ten Commandments? What about the Golden Rule? What about “Judge not lest ye be judged?”

Woke merely means I see you. I acknowledge your struggle. I recognize your community hasn’t been treated well. I want to understand. I want to help. I have empathy. I include you.

If I seem frustrated, maybe even a little angry, (and a bit more than anti-Christian) you’re not wrong (and, yes, I am). The truths is I, too, struggle with being woke. But it ain’t that deep. And it sure as hell isn’t something that conservative American Christians should be getting their panties in a twist over.