Category Archives: Publications

Croatian Heartland in Curve Magazine

The town of Perušić was big enough to be included on a map of Croatia but too small for guidebooks to mention. I had no idea what to expect when my partner, Melinda, and I pulled off the highway and followed the signs to the birthplace of my great-grandfather. When the roads narrowed to single lanes, compact cars gave way to tractors, and concrete turned back into cobblestone, we found Perušić. The farming village spread across the rolling green and golden hills of the Eastern European countryside looked somewhat similar to the place my ancestors emigrated to in Iowa, settled, and never left.

“A kokoš!” I cried, as a rooster ran into the road. A real one. As far back as I could remember, Grandma’s called out, “Who’s my kokoš?”

“Me!” I’ve cawed my entire life. Perhaps my childhood nickname piqued my curiosity about our Croatian heritage. Maybe it was because I looked the most Croatian—of all my third-generation American ethnicities—with olive eyes, hair the color of dark honey, and Mediterranean skin. Or it could have been that once I discovered Croatia’s landscape included over a thousand islands bobbing in the crisp Adriatic Sea along the country’s craggy 3,000-mile shoreline, I couldn’t wait to go there.

When my trip was booked, Grandma sent a stack of dusty airmail envelopes from her old-country cousin in Croatia’s capital city, Zagreb. They dated back four decades. Most were Easter greetings between two devout Catholics. There were a couple of long, laboriously translated letters explaining our ever-expanding relations. And three photos. Running my fingers along the typewriter ink that over the years had blurred into a fuzzy gray font like Grandma’s hair, I traced my roots. Actually, I Google-mapped them across the heartland of Croatia.

Melinda and I landed in Zagreb on a Sunday to find the capital almost entirely closed. Over 90 percent of Croatians professed to be Christians, nearly all of them Catholic. I planned to visit the monastery at the return address listed on the nun’s letters but thought better of dropping in on the Sabbath. We bided our time exploring Zagreb–a treasure map of outdoor sculptures, brightly tiled rooftops, and gardens ranging from an enchanted beer garden on top of a funicular to a botanical garden in full July bloom.

The next morning we pulled up to a coral church at Mošćenička 3. Inside the atrium, I tried to explain myself in the halting Hrvatski I’d been practicing in Teach Yourself Croatian on my iPod for months. I knew how to request a room with a view or white wine, but “I believe I’m related to a nun who lives here—if she’s still alive” was never covered. Eventually between Melinda’s Spanish and the nun’s knowledge of Italian from Vatican prayers, they cobbled together the explanation: Madre de la Madre. Escribe. Esta aya. The mother of the mother write this girl.

Ah yes! The nun escorted us into a visiting room that had clearly been decorated with care where a gaggle of nuns greeted us from behind a locked gate in the far wall.

“She’s upstairs sleeping,” they explained, lifting their jubilant faces heavenward. Melinda and I cheered. We yelped and laughed at the luck. We almost kissed out of habit but pulled back for a prolonged high-five hug. Until they got the priest, who explained in perfect, projected pulpit-like English that my cousin was really upstairs, really, really sleeping.

“The nun you are looking for…” he said, “is dead.”

There was no time to mourn. Miraculously, one of the three photos I carried was of the nun’s niece, my distant cousin, Anica. She belonged to the parish and lived nearby.

“What does ‘just up the hill’ mean?” Melinda asked.

“We’ll see,” I said, turning the hand-drawn map upside down or right side up or sideways. After a couple of wrong turns and knocking on a deserted house with the same address number on a different road, we rounded a corner and saw them. Three generations of family on the lookout from every level of their two-story home. Grandma hung half out of the upstairs’ picture window. Mom and Dad surveyed the streets from the second floor balcony. And the three teenage daughters spread out oldest to youngest from the front door to the end of the yard. They were all shouting in different levels of accent and belief: “From America?!”

They welcomed us in and despite being separated by time, countries, religion, and language, they felt like relatives and their hospitality, a homecoming. My cousin, Anica, taught me how to pronounce Grandma’s maiden name, Marinac, Marine-natz instead of Mare-rin-nack. I drew our family tree, showed them Iowa on a map, and Facebook friended the three daughters. Anica challenged the love story my great-grandparents had passed down on our side of the Atlantic Ocean. We heard that Grandpa emigrated, made good, and then sent for Grandma. According to my cousins, they met on the boat. Two independent travelers on their way to the new world, which sounded like my stock.

They sent us on our way with raspberries from their garden and boxes of hazelnut cookies. “Eat lamb in Perušić,” they shouted by way of goodbye.

Driving through my great-grandfather’s birthplace, there were plenty of sheep braying through pastures but no restaurants. Short of knocking on someone’s one-story stone home door and joining them for lunch we were out of luck. After ten-minute laps from one end of town to the other, we turned toward a pink church on the hill. I was drawn to it even though I’ve steered away from religion for most of my adult life.

The lovingly maintained medieval gothic church was the pride of the town as well as the surrounding region of Lika. I imagined my great-grandfather walked this very way for services, weddings, funerals, and potlucks. I found it surprisingly meaningful to stand where my ancestors surely stood. I took in the country breeze, fresh scent of growing corn, and blue sky on the kind of day that inspires picnics. Wildflowers bloomed along the path interspersed with puffy granddaddy dandelions just waiting for a strong wind to carry their seeds to faraway places.

“Ready?” Melinda asked, taking my hand. We were only driving through. There were no hotels in Perušić, nor was it the place for tourists.

Days later, while lounging on the sun-soaked island of Hvar where lavender grows like grass and the sea is the color of emeralds wrapped in Tiffany blue, I was beach-reading Croatia: A Nation Forged in War by Marcus Tanner. I was nearing the end of the 18th century in his expansive thousand-year overview of the nation’s history when Tanner mentioned Perušić. He quoted an Italian traveler and scribe, Alberto Fortis, who witnessed a same-sex union between two women at the church in Perušić and recorded it in his Travels into Dalmatia (1778), saying: “The satisfaction that sparkled in their eyes when the ceremony was performed gave a convincing proof that delicacy of sentiments is found in minds not formed, nor rather not corrupted, by society.”

“Lesbians got married at that pink church in Perušić,” I gasped. “We were there! That’s where I come from,” I said in awe.

Buy a copy of Curve‘s September travel issue at B&N or subscribe here!

Croatian Itinerary in Curve Magazine

On the newsstands now! The latest issue of Curve magazine featuring my travel essay, Croatian Heartland.

Subscribe here or buy a copy at Barnes & Noble.

In the meantime, spy my recommended itinerary for indulging in Croatia’s world-class luxury, spectacular scenery, and inclusive hospitality.

St. Mark’s Square in Zagreb

Fly to Zagreb on Air France (Affaires class offers unlimited champagne). Check in to the centrally located, five-star Regent Esplanade Hotel and delight in the luxurious 1920s charm with modern amenities. After savoring štrukli, a specialty noodle ricotta dish, that will make your waiter’s face light up upon ordering, meander though Zagreb’s gardens hosting sculptures by renowned artist Ivan Meštrović, and others, including the life-sized silver bust of poet Anton Gustav Matos on a hillside bench gazing over the capital cityscape. Rent a car when you’re ready to move on. Yes. Drive.

Plitvice Lakes National Park

Explore the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Plitvice Lakes National Park in the heartland region of Lika. Stay at the private home Sobe San Korana in the bordering village. After marveling all morning at countless emerald waterfalls cascading into sixteen interconnected lakes from the park’s dusty, wooden pathways, the owner, infamously known as “Boris’ Dad,” will show you a solitary swimming spot.

Trogir

Island hopping is a must in Croatia, and Split is a gateway port for ferries. However, I recommend staying a 30-minute drive up the road in the UNESCO town of Trogir at the Trogir Palace where you can park the car and wander over the footbridge into the old city. Cobblestones guide the way to architectural wonders. Carved doorways lead to fresh whole fish dinners. A medieval castle hosts concerts, raves, and football matches.

Hvar

If you must pick one island, choose Hvar. The dazzling sun soaked island is pure pleasure-seeking bliss. Rejuvenate at Hotel Podstine, an unpretentious four-star nestled on a limestone cliff. Reinvigorate your five senses at their holistic AMO spa where couple treatments use local lavender, grapes, olive oil, and salt. After a sunning on the private beach, don designer nauticalwear and walk fifteen minutes seaside to Hvar Town. Kickoff the nightlife—likely to include yacht-hopping with bottles of  local white wine—by dining at Maconda, a seafood restaurant to relish.

Dubrovnik

Affectionately referred to as the “Pearl of the Adriatic,” the Dubrovnik Old Town is constructed almost entirely of marble and perpetually polished by visitors shuffling along its surrounding 10th century walls for elevated vistas. Follow the weather-beaten wooden signs Cold Drinks with the Most Beautiful View to Buza Bar. Be sure to let the five-star Hotel Villa Dubrovnik whisk you away from the baking, stone streets in a Venetian speedboat. There you may overlook the Adriatic Sea from a chic suite with a jacuzzi balcony or dive in from a tiered sundeck over the rocky shoreline. The Skybar sunsets live up to their promise of “Romance Forever.”

That’s me floating there.

Birds of a Feather

Thank you to everyone who chirped about my New York Times “Ring-Finger Follies” essay on Twitter. I wish I knew how to tweet so that I could thank all of you individually and shake your handles. Instead, I’ll hoot-n-holler here (kinda like a retweet, right?) about the Top Ten Tweets of my wonderful week of Modern Love.

10. Thank you to all the chicks who dared their flocks to read and not cry. Thank you to all that tried and reportedly failed.

9. Thank you ajchavar for shouting out the clerk at the County Clerk’s Office. If anybody out there knows a twenty-something guy studying in D.C. who has two moms and worked in Manhattan last August, please, please tweet him for me.

8. Thank you wearewu01. I’m so proud to be family…but maybe you could help your cuz understand what @theellenshow means?

7. Thank you bookladysblog for your eagle eye that brought this typo to my attention. I do know the difference and am beating my bird brain to figure out how that happened! Regardless, any chance you’re available for freelance editing?

6. Thank you kate_the_great for sharing the bare ring-finger pain.

5. Thank you New York Times and Mr. Daniel Jones for the Modern Love column.

4. Thank you jesscribe for keeping it real.

 

 

3. Thank you Anne, Matthew, tnb, Trey, Cousin-in-law—and all the friends and family I failed to recognize by their #handle—who support me in life and on Twitter.

 

2. Thank you for celebrating Marriage Equality Sunday with me—now and always.

Now, onwards to the remaining 44 states…

1. Thank you to the many who retweeted “Melinda, will you marry me?” I did my best to shout it from the rooftops. Thank you for helping me with the treetops of Twitter.

 

 

Thank you all.

Ring-Finger Follies in The New York Times

The New York Times Modern Love

I have had a love-hate relationship with my ring finger for over half of my life. I loved the symbolism that came with wearing a ring, but I hated the assumptions people made about bare ring fingers, especially when so many of us—for so long—have been prevented from being able to legally marry those we love.

I first became aware of my ring finger’s exulted responsibility on my 13th birthday when my parents escorted me to a candle-lit dinner at a fancy restaurant in our small Wisconsin town and presented me with a ring box. Inside I found the finest piece of jewelry I’d yet had the privilege to call mine. As I reached for the ring to try it on, my mother said, “This ring is very special.”

“My birthstone,” I said, admiring the heart-shaped blue topaz gem tucked between two diamond chips.

“Yes,” she said. “But more than that, it’s a purity ring.” She settled back in her chair to let the meaning sink in.

“This ring symbolizes your commitment to remain pure until your wedding night,” my father said. “For God, us, your future husband, and you.”

“Pure?” I asked.

My father cleared his throat. “A virgin.”

“And that you will guard your heart, like it says in Proverbs 4:23,” my mother added. “The diamonds represent mommy and daddy standing next to you to help you stay strong.”

I turned crimson. Why were they talking about this here, in public?

“Amy?” they asked expectantly.

“Okay,” I said, sliding the ring over my chewed fingernail. I admired the December birthstone sparkling against my black skirt and half-heartedly accepted the terms and conditions required to wear it.

The purity ring didn’t last. When I was 16 I let a boy I met at a concert violate my ring contract. Taking it off felt like falling from a pedestal that was perhaps too high in the first place. My mother found me sobbing by the side of my bed—the kind of crying that feels like throwing up—as I kneeled on my purity ring trying to break it. I wanted the ring to be the thing that failed to live up to expectations, not me. I told her I couldn’t keep wearing the ring. It was a constant reminder that I was no longer pure, or worthy or valuable, or prized.

“You’re still loved,” my mother insisted. But that didn’t feel the same as being considered lovable by someone new, which I no longer felt I was.

The ring left a mark. I’d worn it for three years, and in that time the skin beneath the band had grown like a sapling inside a city grate. What’s worse, removing it meant everyone would know what I’d done. But this was the 90s, and I merely had to suffer the humiliation in front of classmates at my small parochial school and even smaller church youth group—not everyone on Facebook.

Nonetheless, over the years I tried to cover up the naked skin my purity ring left behind. I wore class rings in rapid succession and rotated Irish Claddagh rings: heart up, heart down. I even left a good man who had an engagement ring on order for me, but by then I had decided I would leave my small town for New York to pursue love in a different form, a love that was real but unthinkable in my family. The purity ring represented my parents’ well-intentioned prayers for me, and while I loved that it symbolized love was worth waiting for, I also hated that it led down such a straight and narrow aisle, for I imagined myself not with a husband but a wife.

In New York, I reveled in the mind-blowing blend the city offers: perfect anonymity alongside ways for me to slip in and out of various identities, trying them on. I wanted to kiss girls and like it, and I did, over and over until I found the one I wanted to be with forever, Melinda. The woman I have loved since the moment we met. The one I would choose over all—even over family, if necessary.

Yet as our friends planned destination weddings to Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Iowa, we eschewed marriage—Melinda because she didn’t believe in religious institutions, and me because I believed in circumstance over pomp. For years, we never seriously considered it.

Until one day when Melinda got sick and wound up in the hospital.

“Don’t leave me,” she said, weak, hurting, and bound to the bed by tubes and electrodes.

“I won’t,” I said, smoothing her curls back from her brow and committing to a promise that wasn’t in my power to keep. Not only were we unmarried, we weren’t even officially domestic partners.

“Come in the bed,” Melinda said, making room for me. It was late. We’d been in the emergency room since 9 a.m., and now it was night, and we had only recently been admitted to this room.

Exhausted, I climbed in gingerly. I wrapped my arms around her, trying not to cause any undue pain. I listened to her heart monitor as we rose and fell on the new aero bed that felt like lying on a lung. I drifted off clutching the I.V. so she wouldn’t pull it out in her sleep.

Around 4 a.m., an attendee poked in his head, saw me, and asked, “Who are you?”

“Melinda’s domestic partner,” I lied. Although we lived together, we hadn’t filed the paperwork. He squinted through the dark dawn, looked at his watch, and said, “Visiting hours will begin soon enough.”

I held my breath, not knowing if that meant I had to leave and come back or could stay and he’d overlook the time difference.

“I want her,” Melinda rasped as he took her vitals. Perhaps seeing that Melinda was stable and would be more hindered by my leaving than staying, he updated her chart and pulled the door behind him without another word.

After he left, Melinda asked, “Will you be my domestic partner for real?”

The breath I’d been holding came out in tears. “Yes,” I cried.

“I don’t want you to ever have to leave. I don’t want to be without you.”

“Okay,” I said, nestling in deeper.

The next morning, when Melinda’s tests turned out normal, I tried to lighten the mood by saying, “About last night: I’m going to want a ring with a dotted-line on it. It can be dotted with diamonds so long as it’s dotted—because, I’m signing on the dotted line.”

Shortly after Melinda recovered, we caught a cab downtown to the city clerk’s office. Brides and grooms, boyfriends and girlfriends waited for their numbers to be called so they could become wives, husbands, and partners. Some wore white, updos, and carried bouquets.

When our number flashed across the screen, Melinda took my hand and we proceeded to the far window. Halfway through administering the paperwork, the clerk mentioned that he had two mothers who were married in San Francisco before Proposition 8 passed, making same-sex marriage once again illegal in California. “Today is my last day here,” he said. “I could just check the marriage application box instead of the domestic partner one.”

Melinda and I looked at each other. We mirrored one another’s wide-eyed hesitation. Domestic partnership was a big step for us. Marriage—besides being against the law for same-sex couples in New York—brought a lot of baggage with it.

“I’d probably be subpoenaed and go to jail, but it’d be worth it,” he said.

“No,” Melinda and I said. We weren’t interested in being the poster-women for subverting the legal system. I envisioned us on the fourth hour of the “Today” show earnestly lobbying for the clerk’s release.

“Thank you so much, but we can wait,” I added. We lived in a city where most people had better things to do than interfere with our relationship, unlike where I’d grown up, where pastors governed pre-martial beds and governors presided over hospital beds. So we could wait. We wouldn’t exchange rings. My ring finger, long bare, would stay that way. My quip about wanting a dotted-line ring would remain as much of a joke as the idea of elected officials trying to regulate love.

Although I hated that the absence of a wedding band might cause others to discount the level of our commitment, I loved the fact that everything a ring symbolizes—to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part—Melinda and I already did.

So we walked out of the clerk’s office onto Worth Street that day as officially linked as we could get, at least until that far-off day when we hoped state legislators would finally vote our love to be worthy of real proposals and real wedding rings, a day when our longstanding devotion to those unspoken vows could be made legal.

A day like today, as it happens.

Melinda, will you marry me?

End Pointe

I was 31 before it hit me that I was never going to grow up to be a ballerina. Performing center stage was a dream I set my heart on as a little girl, but unlike many other kids’ dreams — to be a rock star, president or astronaut — mine had endured to the present day, wholly undiminished by the fact that I hadn’t actually donned a tutu for more than 20 years.

Growing up, most of my treasured memories revolved around ballet: the grand rehearsals, the dazzling recitals, and the excitement of getting gussied up with Mom to attend professional productions. As I got older, I visited ballet companies everywhere I went in the Western Hemisphere. And when I moved to New York after college—on the odd occasion that I had a spare $20—I’d unfold the bill and slide it through the golden Lincoln Center ticket window in exchange for a standing-room ticket in the last row of the New York City Ballet. The cascading curtains, bejeweled lights and the soft blur of the company floating in step with the orchestra were exhilarating. On the slog home, I would sink into a slump. Could that have been me? Better still, could that be me?

That was the dream I somehow held on to for more than two decades, though one I never acted upon — until I watched a raucous, ineffably stirring performance of Swan Lake by the all male, all diva, Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo. In the third act, Paul Ghiselin, “Ida Nevasayneva,” chassé-d across the stage as the Dying Swan. Feathers fell from his tutu like a midnight snow, and he swooped down, scooped up handfuls of those melting feathers and stuffed them back in his costume’s bodice, tail and armpits. I felt his desperate, futile wish for the dance to never end.

The performance inspired my New Year’s resolution to attempt a return to a life en pointe. So there I was, 31 years old, tiptoeing into the gym studio one Saturday afternoon for a beginners ballet class, certain it was my first step back into the dancing life I’d left behind in 1988, when my family moved to Wisconsin, and I quit out of protest at having to part ways with my beloved teacher, Richard. Every praise from Richard Powell in his all-black wardrobe and year-round Versace tan seemed to promise that I was destined for greatness.

Now in the aerobics class surrounded by other past their prima ballerinas, I slipped out of my running shoes and heavy athletic socks, relieved to discover that my pedicure was still a glossy pastel pink. A few women were already front-and-center twirling about on craggy feet, holey ballet company T-shirts swirling around their slim hips; others sauntered in wearing electric-hued leotards with accompanying headscarves. One donned a chiffon tutu and pink slippers, exactly like the ones I wore as a girl.

As I pulled my hair back into a bun, the instructor breezed in past the floor-to-ceiling mirrors, clapping. She had sleek bobbed hair, beautiful skin and the most refined bodylines I had ever seen up close. On cue, classical piano music pounded from the speakers, rattling the glass. The others began swirling around, hopping in eager anticipation. I stood still, unsure of what to do with myself.

“Bonjour, I’m Winter,” the instructor said to me. “What brings you here today?”

“I used to take ballet, and I miss it,” I told her.

“Très bien. You’ve had some training!” But before I could address the matter of my two-decade intermission, Winter turned on her heel and commanded, “Aaaand first position!” with a clap. “Second position! Effacé!” Winter motioned that I face her. “Third!”

I was barely in first before they were in third, and we still had 45 minutes to go. As the class stretched on, I was always a full glissade behind. My arms were never where they were supposed to be. My toes were never pointed; au contraire, they were splayed out in 10 directions, clawlike, as if clinging to the floor for dear life.

That was just the warm-up. The worst was yet to come.

Winter lined us up parallel to the mirror with our left hands on the glass as a makeshift barre. “Up! Up! Up!” she said, timing our leaps. “Don’t thud! You’ll know you’re doing your sissonne correctly if you land silently!” She said this precisely as the soles of my feet slapped against the shellacked wooden floor, sending ripples up my thighs. I flushed red. I began to sweat. My palm print smeared down the mirror. I panted at myself in my own streaked reflection. Nothing could have distanced me further from the child I remembered leaping effortlessly like a cartoon than the sight of the lumpy, overtaxed adult heaving before me now.

What was I thinking? For years, I’d tormented myself for failing to live up to my childhood expectations. But then again, I imagined growing up to be a ballerina back when I took my career cues from Barbie. Thud. Back when I didn’t know how hard it was to grow up to become anything, much less a world-class artist. Thud. Back when I looked forward to recitals so I could wear gobs of makeup and sequins and eat cinnamon rolls with Mom and Dad at The Country Kitchen. Perhaps if I had kept going I could’ve been something. People did grow up to be dancers, after all. Clearly some of my graceful classmates had. Paul/Ida was. But after watching myself hulk about the studio, still the tallest in class and, as they say in the Midwest, stockier too, I was ready to let the dreams of ballet grandeur go. I leaped and landed a little more quietly.

“Yes, yes. C’est magnifique!” Winter praised, giving me a sympathetic look. She caught my eye, dropped the French, and muttered, “We’ll get ya outta here in five.”

I laughed, smoothed a flyaway hair back into my bun and landed even more lightly. Almost sprightly. As the symphony drums gave way to filtering flutes on Winter’s iPod play list, the years of heavy regret dwindled. It was time to start enjoying ballet solely as a spectator — from afar.

I would usher in this second act of my life at the New York City Ballet’s opening gala, to which I could afford tickets that actually came with seats, thanks to a successful career that kept me on my toes in other ways. As the class wrapped up, I found myself looking forward to that night.

My final sissonne was silent.

Holler here or at Hemispheres…

What did you want to be when you grew up?

Man, Oh Man, Chaz!

I was in the studio audience when Chaz Bono stopped by The Wendy Williams Show. Chaz, Sonny and Cher’s kid, has been chatting up all the talk show hosts lately to promote his new memoir Transition: The Story of How I Became a Man and corresponding film Becoming Chaz, which documents his transformation from female to male. The vision of Wendy—the “drag” queen of the disenfranchised, herself—and Chaz together on stage got me thinking about the many obstacles that individuals face in the pursuit of their own happiness.

Wendy kicked off the conversation by commenting on Chaz’s weight loss, mom, and love relationship before getting down to the business of him being a man. “What’s it like to shave your face,” she asked. To the studio audience—who may have never known him as Chastity—Chaz looked like a man. He sounded like a man. He crossed his legs like a man. Man, oh man, some might’ve even called him the man: the rich, white one responsible for all of the world’s oppression, inequality, and sadness. Yet, he faced down more discrimination in a day than I probably have in my entire life.

Chaz didn’t ask for fame. His parents chose that lifestyle. As an adult, he chose to be a spokesperson—initially coming out in 1995 as a lesbian on the cover of The Advocate. Seemed like the logical explanation at the time, Chaz was attracted to women. Bono then penned two coming out books for lesbians, gays, and their families, worked for the Gays and Lesbians Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), and campaigned for marriage equality—amongst other activist initiatives. Sixteen years later, Chaz will once again grace the cover of The Advocate as a transgender man for this year’s Pride issue. Transgender people have a lot to be proud of in Chaz. He has eloquently responded to everyone from David Letterman telling the age old, “What if I’m a lesbian trapped in a man’s body?” joke to his mom rolling her eyes, resigning herself to “one of these day’s I suppose I’m going to have to start calling her him.”

I wasn’t above reproach. As a lesbian, I’ve never quite known how to react when a fellow lesbian became a man. One of the fundamental things that made us “us” vs. “them” was removed. Not just the breasts, the public identification, too. Yet, I was shocked to read responses to Chaz’s press tour. Even in communities such as Salon.com that I counted on to think through sophisticated scenarios turned into trolls and haters that would make Tea Partiers raise a glass to toast their vitriol over Mary Elizabeth Williams’ article, Chaz Bono’s complicated path to manhood. I found myself getting protective of the FTM Ts in my LGBTQ community—sure, it can be a mouthful of alphabet soup at times—but its mine. My family and friends who have stood in for brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers when I needed them most. And Chaz’s activist efforts contributed to making my life better.

When Wendy patted Chaz on the hand, saying, “You make an attractive man! Doesn’t he audience?” We whooped, whooped on command. Underneath the practiced clapping and cheering, I heard my neighbor ask, “Who he, again?”

Chaz looked past the cameras and bright lights at us. Wendy over her decades in the entertainment business tended to attract survivors. We looked the part: ladies in our Sunday best with some wearing Wendy-esque Louboutins heels and others stilettos with price tags still stuck to the soles. Queens. Men in three-piece suits. Missing teeth. Perfect hair. And moms and daughters from Jersey. We must have been a blur to Chaz, waving and cheering and hoping the camera might swoop over us; so we could point and say, we were there. We saw celebrities, live, in person.

Soon enough we would all file out of The Wendy Williams Show studio back out onto West 53rd Street where still high we’d laugh and replay best of highlights. Slowly the pressures of gender, race, sexual orientation, ethnicity, socioeconomic inequality et al would seep back in as we went about our lives. The only thing that made our individual pursuits of happiness equal was that we each had realities that helped and hindered us along the way. Life was what we made of it. Look at Chaz doing him. Wendy doing her. How you doin?

Holler here or on HuffPost!

Our Big Gayborhood

The Situation’s Embarrassing is still embarrassing on Our Big Gayborhood!

Walking down Seventh Avenue the other day, I waved to someone I thought I knew. He was hunched against the brick wall outside of Elmo in a server’s apron smoking a cigarette, while my partner, Melinda, and I were on our way to Williams-Sonoma for wineglasses. As we passed, I gave him the waving version of a cordial, casual I-see-you nod, and he did the same in return.

“Babe? Who ya waving at?” Melinda asked me, gently.

“That guy we know,” I answered.

“You don’t know him.”

“We do,” I said, pointing over my shoulder at him.

No. She nodded her head, definitively, “We don’t.”

“He’s our favorite server at Klee.”

Melinda continued to shake her head no.

“Who works at Elmo…no…Alpha too,” I trailed off, starting to puzzle. “His name’s Ryan.”

“Yeah, that’s Ryan, but he’s not our server. He’s from that show.”

We stood stopped at a crosswalk. I stared at her, totally blank.

“The challenge show with what’s-her-name, Evelyn.” Melinda prompted.

As the light changed and pedestrians started to move en masse around me, television scenes blipped across my mind’s eye in HD. Ryan drunk and careening in a zillion dollar mansion. Ryan seriously strategizing with an alliance of beautiful idiots. Ryan carrying a tree trunk in Panama one minute and making out in a hot tub the next. Ryan and Evelyn queering up British Columbia. Ryan, oh that Ryan, on MTV’s Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Fresh Meat.

I never would have admitted that I watched the show…Season I or II…or that I DVR’d it, or that I felt a genuine sense of Pride when Evelyn won, or that I was familiar enough with a show’s contestant that I recognized him out of context in his work uniform and waved to him as if we were really, truly acquainted. I especially wouldn’t have broadcasted it on the street, during rush hour, in my own Manhattan neighborhood.

“Oh,” I said, flushing brighter than traffic light.

“It’s okay,” Melinda patted my hand in hers.

“But he waved back? Like he knew me.”

Or was a Reality TV celeb accustomed to being recognized. Which must have happened all the time, but nonetheless the situation was embarrassing.

I sped toward Williams-Sonoma. I rushed inside without looking back. Luckily, opening the store’s door felt like changing the channel. I quickly forgot about Ryan as I sought out glasses that I didn’t mind getting broken, when things inevitably got a little rowdy after Melinda and I invited our real friends over to watch this season’s Cutthroat.

52+ Comments

Read on Salon.com

I woke up to find my story on the homepage of Salon.com. I knew it was being published. I just didn’t know when or that it had the potential to provoke 52 comments from total strangers.

I can’t bring myself to read them yet. I’m excited and terrified, thrilled and bewildered, proud and humbled. I don’t know what to do with myself, so in the meantime; I’m just going to say, “Word.”

Miss Chelsea

The Flavor of the Week is Miss Chelsea in the New York Press!

I moved to Chelsea and now people think I’m straight. I used to walk the streets hand-in-hand with my girlfriend Melinda, fitting into the East Village, where I lived, or making a statement in old Hell’s Kitchen, where she did. But ever since we moved to our new apartment on West 21st Street, smack in the heart of Chelsea, where gay people go to be gay, all the local guys have ignored me but checked Melinda out like a new cocktail on the brunch menu. You see, they thought she was a he.

I first noticed it crossing Seventh Avenue to buy paint. A hunky brunet walking his Lab eyed her up and down but nearly tripped me with his leash. In Bed, Bath & Beyond, checkout boys incessantly asked her, “Sir, is there anything I can help you with? Home delivery today?” At the Cuba Café, Melinda’s cocktails kept coming, while I sat as dry as their plantain chips.

“I’ve never been called ‘sir’ so much in my life,” Melinda said over dinner.

“I’m sorry, babe,” I said. “If it makes you feel any better, it means they think I’m straight.”

Melinda laughed. “And you date a really short guy.”

At 5-foot-5 inches, Melinda was not that short for a woman. Nor was she that butch for a lesbian. Sure, her light brown hair was cropped and her curls coiffed. Her taste in button-downs was impeccable and her trousers well tailored. But she was definitely a she. I could have seen it once in a while. Say, when she threw on her black Nike hat and sweatshirt to run up to Whole Foods without me. But together, throughout all our years in New York, there had never been much confusion—sometimes to our chagrin—that we were lesbians… until we moved to Chelsea.

“We’re going to have to buy you tighter T- shirts,” I said.

“They’re already smalls.” Melinda frowned, her blue eyes round with willingness. “Do you think that will work?” “I don’t know, but you hate being called ‘sir’ and it sucks to live in one of the gayest neighborhoods on the planet and have people think you’re straight.” I stabbed at my steak.

That’s when it dawned on me. If they thought Melinda was a he and they were checking her out, then they thought she, er, he was gay. Which meant they mistook me as way more than straight. They thought I was a fag hag

“Mel!” I hissed, leaning across the table. “They don’t just think I’m straight. They think I’m a fag hag!” I spat out.

Mel sat back fast in her chair. She covered her mouth with both hands, like any good queen would. She feigned shock but her eyes gave her away. She ached to laugh, as she mimicked her best horrified, gay gasp: “Oh no!” Fag hags were as opposite as anyone could possibly be from me. They were straight women (usually single) who primarily befriended gay men. As one lesbian committed to another, the last thing on earth I’d do is fawn over a man—gay or straight.

“Seriously, what are we going to do?” Melinda asked.

“What can we do? Yell that we’re dykes to every guy who checks you out? Buy combat boots? Wear lavender triangle T-shirts?” The waiter brought Melinda’s drink, and I piped up to order a strong one. We’d have to figure something out; Chelsea was our neighborhood, too. Of course, we knew about its reputation before we moved: The rainbow flags, clouds of cologne and thumping club music were impossible to miss. We picked Chelsea because it was the middle meeting point between our single-girl stomping grounds and we wanted the food, shopping, art and walking commutes that living there afforded us. But with Chelsea came the gays.

Not that I had anything against gay men.

In fact, I often felt that Melinda and I had more in common with them than most lesbians. We had great hair, upwardly mobile careers and a spectacular apartment with views of the Empire State Building and an epic shoe storage problem. Despite all this, gays usually held us at arm’s length.

Lesbians and gays were frequently referred to as the LGBT community, but in real life were rarely so close to one another. In mind and body, we were on opposite ends of the spectrum: Men loving men on one end and women loving women on the other. LGBT did not represent a community as much as served as an abbreviation, like U.S.A., to represent a multitude of disparate people all pursuing their own happiness.

In New York, we divided up neighborhoods and designated whose community was whose. Technically, Melinda and I had invaded their turf. It wasn’t their job to make a place for us any more than it was to pick our outfits with eye shadow to match.

One night, Melinda and I attended a benefit for the Harvey Milk High School.To raise funds, a bunch of gays hosted a beauty pageant to pay tribute to LGBT’s un-sung heroes: fag hags. While I’d rather not be mistaken as one, I recognized that these ladies were on our side. As Melinda and I continued to fight for full citizenship privileges and recognition that our relationship was every bit as real as our parents’, we would whole-heartedly accept all the love we could get.

Hags representing Harlem, Soho and other neighborhoods showed off their D.I.Y. finery, boasted Madonna trivia, belted out karaoke and, to the delight of most, paraded her gay around in his swimsuit. Melinda and I rooted for Miss Hell’s Kitchen to win since Miss East Village didn’t stand a chance. In the end, Miss West Village barely won by the crowd’s cheer-o-meter.

“It’s a shame that Chelsea wasn’t represented,” I said to Melinda, walking out of the women’s bathroom that doubled as the hags’ dressing room.

“Ooh! You’re so cute!” a gay guy interrupted us, squealing at Melinda.

She looked at me bewildered. What more could she do than come out of a door marked ‘Women?’ I wrapped my arms around her. “I know,” I gushed back at him. “Thank you!” Startled, he looked from Melinda to me to the bathroom door, “Oh… Oh! I see,” he said. He turned quickly on his heel, blowing a kiss behind him.

Melinda tucked her cheek against my shoulder. “Come on, Miss Chelsea,” she said. “Let’s go get a cocktail.”


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