BY CINDY ZELMAN

If you’d asked me twenty years ago about LGBTI people in Uganda, I would have said, “Where is Uganda?” Today, I count some Ugandans as good friends, and my friends are in big trouble.

On a recent Sunday, I texted with Bryan, a 32-year old gay man from Uganda, who said, “I feel great today, not stressed at all. I ate a good meal.”

Bryan does not always feel so good. Often he cannot fall asleep and is up in the middle of the night worrying about what will become of his life. He does not get to eat a good meal every day. Some days he has no food at all. He said, “I’m embarrassed to admit to people that I don’t eat because I don’t have money to buy food.”

Where once he had a home, Bryan now lives in this slum of Uganda, in a one-room shack.

Bryan was chased out of his job when his co-workers discovered he was gay. He now lives in the slums of Kampala, the capital city of Uganda. Often Bryan is starving and scared because being gay in Uganda is dangerous, especially with the passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill that punishes gays with up to a life-sentence in prison. The bill also punishes anyone who knowingly rents apartments to them or hires them for a job, so the LBGTI population is essentially left poor and homeless.

Many gays are now in hiding in Uganda, or trying to escape the country altogether, since passage of the bill late in 2013.

Bryan once held a solid job as a secretary for an organization in Uganda that helped people in need. He played soccer. He had a home and a lover and a regular life. Today, the best he can hope for is a good meal. “It’s because of you, Sis,” he said to me, about his full belly because I am the one who wired him money so he could afford food.

Although the money helps him to eat, it isn’t yet giving Bryan a better life, and it is not a long-term solution.

I have come to know several gay and lesbian Ugandans via Facebook (Facebook has to be good for something) and I have grown very fond of them. I got to know them well before the Anti Homosexuality Bill was passed, and for a long time, they tried to fight for their rights in an extremely homophobic society.

Gay Ugandans supporting gay rights for Russians. But who is supporting the gay Ugandans?

Harold, the other man I am trying to help, was once a gay activist in Uganda. He took part in pride parades and various events to improve the lives of the LGBTI people of his land. I have heard from his peers that he tried to do everything he could to help gay people in his country. He was jailed and beaten more than once for his efforts. The last time I was in touch with Harold, he was borrowing someone’s phone so he could email me. He was homeless, near-starved, and wandering the streets of a small city in Uganda. “It’s 3 a.m. here,” he wrote. “It’s freezing in the streets. I will get pneumonia.”

He had no shelter. “I don’t know where to go. I’m not asking for money, just asking if I can share food with Bryan.”

I wired Harold money to get him to Kampala where he has a friend to stay with, to buy some food, and to get healthy. The plan is for Bryan and Harold to meet up and escape Uganda for South Africa once funds are raised. There are other Ugandans waiting for them in South Africa, offering their new home as a place to stay. Although the Ugandans who fled to South Africa are refugees, they have successfully found work and apartments. The only country in Africa I know of that is offering asylum and refugee status to the LBGTI people of Uganda is South Africa, a country that protects gays by law, thanks in large part to the legacy of human rights activist Nelson Mandela.

Uganda is among the worst of the worst countries in which to be queer. How did things get so out of control? As is usually the case, white colonialism in the past, and current misguided American religious fundamentalist missionaries, have had a hand in making life miserable for these people.

At the prompting of such American missionaries, the Uganda Parliament had been trying for several years to pass a “Kill the Gays,” bill. They toned down the punishment due to international pressure, but the Ugandan Parliament passed the Anti Homosexuality Law instead, calling for severe prison sentences (up to life in prison) for being gay.

The speaker of the Parliament, a woman named Rebecca Kadaga, said passage of the bill was a “Christmas gift” to the people of Uganda. The President, after failing to get scientific “proof” that homosexuality is a defect at birth, signed the bill. The national tabloids in Uganda published photos of the “Top 200” suspected gay and lesbians in Uganda (which included Harold and Bryan) so they could be identified, punished, arrested, beaten etc. At the end of March this year Uganda had a “pride” celebration, which meant they had a parade to celebrate the passing of this heinous law.

Bryan said the atmosphere during the parade was terrifying, as the media and the authorities encouraged a mentality of animosity and hatred, and encouraged the beating and torture of the gay population, even of those just suspected of being gay.

Recently, I had a chapbook published, “What’s in a Butch’s Purse and Other Humorous Essays.” For the most part, this is a book about my special talent for having dysfunctional romantic relationships, told in a wry and light tone. It didn’t occur to me as I was writing the essays, or when the book was accepted, that someday, I would connect it to the atrocities being thrust upon the LGBTI population of Uganda. But I am using the book as a “perk” to raise money for Harold and Bryan – and others after I can get these two friends safely out of the country. There are two ways to give – on the Indigogo Campaign where I am looking for just $5-$10 contributions from numerous people to raise enough money to get these men to South Africa. Or for a $12 contribution, you can get a copy of my chapbook as a perk.

Although it is a slower way to raise funds, I am also donating all the proceeds from “What’s in a Butch’s Purse and Other Humorous Essays” to help the persecuted LBGTI population of Uganda by feeding those left in poverty until they can find a way out or until I can raise Indigogo funds to get them out. You can pre-order a print book or download the eBook by ordering here.

Either way you decide to help will be deeply appreciated more than you know. The gay Ugandans I have met are some of the kindest and most grateful people on earth.

Note: Bryan and Harold are real people, as I’ve described them, although I have changed their first names to protect their identity while they are still in hiding in Uganda.

The post Helping to save my troubled gay Ugandan friends first appeared on Lesbian.com.

BY CINDY ZELMAN

My head is still swirling over the Supreme Court rulings on DOMA and Prop 8. While the war on queer bigotry is not over, we have won some major battles. The recent news is fantastic: If you are married in a state where same-sex marriage is legal, you cannot be discriminated against at the federal level. And if you are from California, congratulations! You can get married again, as that ridiculous tyranny-of-bigots referendum was thrown out of court.

It amazes me how far we have come over the decades. In 1980, when I was 18 years old, I saw a therapist, mainly for a panic disorder that had begun debilitating me when I became a young teenager. By the time I was 17, I couldn’t sit in a classroom; I had to quit my part-time job at a supermarket; and eventually I lost most of my friends because I became agoraphobic, and I did not leave my house for more than a year, except to see a therapist. I started a slow and lifelong recovery process at age 18. I’m still in that recovery at age 51.

It was also in the 1980s that I found myself discovering my strong attraction to women and my just-want-to-be-friends feelings for the men I dated. My therapist at the time was very helpful with the panic issues, but he unfortunately set me back six years when it came to realizing my sexuality. It wouldn’t be until I was 24 that I would be able to say, “I am a lesbian.” And by the way, what a relief those words were when I finally could say them, at least to myself and a few close friends.

I remember fantasizing daily about a woman named Barbara, whom I met during my freshman year in college, when I was again able to sit in a classroom. This was in 1984.

“I find myself thinking about Barbara a lot, maybe too much,” I said to my therapist. “Do you think I’m a lesbian?” I asked this question in some fashion all those years ago.

I remember his answer precisely: “No, you’re not a lesbian.”

And my return question: “How do you know?”

And his response: “Because those people are not normal.”

And my instinctive reaction: “How can you say those people aren’t normal?”

And his final say on the subject: “Because who would choose such a difficult life if they were normal?”

I think now that “choose such a difficult life” was a euphemism for “those people are mentally ill.”

As an impressionable 18-year-old growing up in an era of silence on homosexuality, except, of course, for those brave souls who pioneered the gay rights movement, I was indeed silenced. I lived in the suburbs of Boston, isolated and alone thanks to my panic problems, and I didn’t know any gay people. I was a kid, and I wanted to be “normal.” I stuffed my natural attraction to women down into my soul and chose to date men, all because this shrink had said that anyone who was homosexual couldn’t possibly be normal, because who would “choose” such a difficult life? It’s tough to know whether he believed in the “born this way” argument way back in the 1970s, although not in a positive way, or if he believed only crazy people would “choose” homosexuality.

Awhile back, I raised the ire of some of the LGBTQ community in a blog entitled, “So What If Homosexuality Were a Choice?” The post, which ran in The Huffington Post and on Lesbian.com, raised the ire of some of our community when I suggested that although we are born this way — and I am a firm believer that this is fact — I feel that using that argument to justify our existence is pandering to the bigots. I realized after reading the comments of those I angered that I was bumping up against a big fight for our rights that relies on us being born this way, so we can separate behavior from orientation.

In making it so important to rely on the fact of our births, I still get that irksome feeling that we are saying, “We can’t help who we are, and you shouldn’t judge us for our behavior.” Maybe that’s my own issue thanks to my therapist’s statement in 1980. I know some of you disagree with me when I say, “So what if homosexuality were a choice?” because it implies chosen behavior, which gives the bigots ammunition. But I want to ask: What is wrong with our behavior? Regardless of the roots of sexual orientation, we aren’t anything wrong.

I’d like to stop arguing with the bigots, and I’d like to stop justifying ourselves on their terms. I think we have garnered enough strength and respect in this country to not have to turn the tables and say to a straight person, “When did you choose to be straight?” Instead, look that person in the eye and say, “Why do you choose to harass me? Shouldn’t you be out caring for the poor and homeless rather than obsessing over my sexuality?” We have nothing to justify to bigots. I would like to move forward with gaining our rights in the rest of the states where gay marriage is banned by going on the assumption that there is nothing wrong with how we behave and nothing wrong with how we are born.

I’ve lived through the era of doctors like the therapist I had in 1980 (not that such doctors don’t still exist). I was here during the fight for gay marriage in Massachusetts in 2003 and 2004. I experienced the backlash that legalizing gay marriage in Massachusetts generated when many states amended their constitutions in response. And now I’m here all these years later to celebrate our victories — the overturning of DOMA and the dismissal of Prop 8 in California — with you.

Please celebrate who you are and how you behave.

And to that therapist: You were so wrong.

A version of this post first appeared in The Huffington Post.

Cindy Zelman is a writer based in Boston, whose blog, “The Early Draft,” explores a variety of topics, including lesbianism, writing, agoraphobia, and humor.

The post Who would choose such a life if they were normal? first appeared on Lesbian.com.

BY CINDY ZELMAN

This past March, the winter was tough in New England with four feet of snow in a matter of weeks and with my anxiety revving up in my body like a race car ready to crash and burn. I have a history of panic problems, so regular life stressors can hit me hard physically and produce rampant anxiety in my body. During one March weekend, it took all the strength I could muster to get on an MBTA train to ride into Boston to see friends from around the country at a writing conference being held in town. This conference should have been a wonderful time-of-my-life experience, but truly, it was hard for me. I didn’t enjoy myself.

I was signed up for a writing retreat with the TMI organization for the following weekend to be held in the Catskill Mountains, a nearly four-hour drive from my home. How would I manage that when I could barely manage 30 minutes into Boston?

The TMI Project is a monologue and memoir writing and performance workshop. TMI is short for “Too Much Information,” and nothing could be more apt for someone like me who loves to tell stories about myself. I’ve been lucky enough to participate in their weekend retreats for women where for more than 48 hours we focus on telling the stories of our lives. And at the end of the workshops, we perform our pieces in front of an audience. Even those who swear they will never do the performance component of the workshop out of shyness or privacy end up wanting to perform. Performance is cathartic.

In workshop (via TmiProject.org)

Motivation plays a role in my anxiety, and I am always highly motivated to participate in TMI. So despite my anxiety about the winter, I leapt into my car that weekend and headed straight to the The Lifebridge Sanctuary in Rosendale, New York. I arrived at the same moment as workshop leaders Eva Tenuto and Sari Botton. I felt a little embarrassed that I was the first one there. You know, overeager, like for a date. Yet, as I stood in the driveway partway up a mountain, I was greeted warmly by Eva and Sari. This was my third workshop with them and with TMI, and as always, I immediately felt part of a family. Here, I knew, I would be free to be myself.

The workshops with TMI waste no time, and this workshop was no different. We had an opening gathering in which Eva and Sari spelled out the goals and the expectations. We had a great dinner, expertly prepared, with salmon and vegetables. We then headed upstairs to the glorious room with the panoramic view of the Catskills. We began to write and share our personal stories on a Friday night. For someone like me, that’s heaven.

Only my therapist knows the special moment I experienced at this workshop, but I will now tell the rest of you. During the Saturday afternoon writing session I looked at the faces of Eva and Sari amazed once more by their ability to listen and to help anyone shape a story into a monologue; and then I turned my head to see my workshop mates — eleven women of diverse ages, shapes, colors, ethnic backgrounds, family histories, sexual orientations, personal stories and sometimes traumas. Finally, I looked out the windows at the beautiful Catskill Mountains, not all that far off in the distance, holding us all safe within their splendor.

TMI participants.

I thought, Look at you, Cindy, that you have reached this point in your life as a person and as a writer, where you can sit here in this beautiful place with these women and tell a story about your life to perform in front of an audience. For an agoraphobic, panic-disordered, relatively solitary human being, this was quite a moment of peace and connection.

But the peace I felt was not just about me and how far I’d come in my life. It was also about the amazing experience of being part of TMI. Leaders set the tone and Sari and Eva have honed the atmosphere of safety, connection, creativity, humor, authenticity and fun, to an art.

At TMI, I get to be a writer, a lesbian, a woman who grew up in a dysfunctional family, and a woman who is angry that she is the caretaker of her elderly mother. I get to be humorous, sarcastic, sad or poignant. And I get to be part of a group of women, who in a very short time, come to bond and care for one another. That’s what an open and supportive storytelling workshop will do.

For the first time, TMI is coming to Provincetown for Women’s Week, culminating in a public performance at The Sage Inn. There are still spots available if you’re interested in the workshop being held from October 16th through 20th, and of course, we hope to gather a large audience for the show. To get a better idea of what the workshop is all about, explore the TMI Project website at http://tmiproject.org/TMI/. Included are some great videos of some of the performances. I hope to see you in PTOWN to say hello!

Cindy Zelman is a writer based in Boston, whose blog, “The Early Draft,” explores a variety of topics, including lesbianism, writing, agoraphobia, and humor.

The post ‘Too Much Information’ is coming to PTOWN first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Well, yea. But is that the best reason why we deserve equality?

BY CINDY ZELMAN

This month our community hosts pride parades across the country and the world as we march to bring visibility and validation to our diverse population. Yet I dread each sign I see that says, “Homosexuality is NOT a choice!” or “We are born gay!” or some version of these statements. I see such signs plastered over the web nearly every day.

Please don’t misunderstand. I believe that lesbian, gay and bisexual people are born, not made. I believe that people seeking gender-confirmation surgery are born into the wrong body, but again, the origins of their gender and sexuality are in relation to being born, not in choosing. Please know this is my belief because I mean to question why the argument about being born queer is so important to the LGBTQ community. Truly, the argument makes me cringe.

Here are a few reasons I have a problem with it:

1. Are we saying, “We are born this way, we can’t help it, so accept us with our defective and other-than-normal sexuality”?

2. Are we saying, “All you religious zealots who call us an abomination in the name of your God, we are born this way, so you can’t change us to suit your homophobia”?

3. Are we saying, “If we can prove to the mainstream that we are born this way and didn’t choose it, won’t they have to accept us and give us our rights”?

In each case, I feel as though we are somehow admitting we aren’t “normal.” You can’t discriminate against someone born with a defect, right? God wouldn’t hate someone born into the “wrong” body, right? The government can’t deny the right to marry to people who were born with a messed up sexuality, right?

I know some people are afraid of the born-queer argument, fearing that bigots will try to find a way to genetically wipe us out of the human race. That is not one of my fears. I don’t believe the bigots are that intelligent. Go read some of the comments conservatives made when the Boy Scouts let in gay boys (as if there had never been a gay boy in the Boy Scouts). Their comments are so stupid they would be laughable if they weren’t so insulting.

Bigoted conservatives aside, why can’t we say, “Even if we were not born this way, so what? If we were not born this way but chose this life or were led there through other influences, so what?” Is the “born this way” argument the only one that keeps us from looking like sinners or as if we are mentally ill?

I hope not.

There is a sexuality continuum theory, documented by Alfred Kinsey. He hypothesized that we are all on a spectrum of sexuality, with homosexuality at one end and heterosexuality at the other. The theory, developed decades ago, may not include the “born this way” argument, but if the continuum theory is true, it would help to explain all the shades of sexuality and gender we find in the world. The theory also raises additional questions for me:

When someone dabbles in homosexuality but ends up living a straight life, was that a choice, or is that person on a certain place on the continuum: more straight than gay?

When a homosexual person dabbles in heterosexuality, say in his college years, but ends up married to another man, is that a choice, or is that the man coming out as he was born, finally, after dealing with so many years of oppression that kept him closeted, even to himself?

And when a bisexual goes from man to woman to man, for example, is he or she choosing? Or is this person on a different place on the spectrum of sexuality, because of the way he or she was born?

As I said at the outset, I believe we are born into our sexuality, which may be more than theory, as some scientific studies have suggested, yet it bothers me as our justification for existing.

Loving another human being, regardless of gender, hurts no one. And so, if it were a choice, it shouldn’t matter. It would not be a sin unless you choose to believe in such things; it would not be the end of civilization unless you choose to believe it is; and it would not make the relationships any less valid unless you choose to view them as less valid. You know who you are.

This born-into-our queer-sexuality argument has a dangerous subtext — that if we weren’t born this way, obviously, we’d all choose to be normal heterosexuals. I think that’s the crux of why this argument irks me: that in making the argument that homosexuality is not a choice, we are in some way validating what society calls normal.

I hope you can convince me otherwise and explain to me how this argument is positive and not just a reaction to homophobic attitudes. Can we update our slogans and arguments to always include a rider, so they read, “We are born this way; being queer is not a choice. But if it were a choice, so what?”

This piece originally appeared on The Huffington Post Gay Voices Blog

The post Debate: So what if homosexuality were a choice? first appeared on Lesbian.com.

At the six-month mark in our relationship, Jan stops brushing her teeth. I don’t know if her avoidance of proper hygiene is due to depression or to complacency in assuming a certain level of comfort between us. Perhaps it is a test of how much I love her. Will I kiss her, and will I enjoy it, with all the stinky remnants of dinner aging between her teeth? Well, if it is a test, I fail it miserably.

“Look, I hate to say this, but would you mind brushing your teeth? I mean, really, the onions from dinner. I know how this sounds but I’d appreciate it.”

Jan wants to make love again, and the thought of kissing her onion-y mouth is setting off my gag reflex. Sex for Jan is like an obsession, or a possession, a claim on my life every time we have it. My status as a single woman grows weaker, and my role as enabler in her happily-ever-after-fantasies grows stronger. I’ve learned that people have sex for a variety of reasons and with a slate of motives. Jan is a hunter out trapping a mate. The least she can do is brush her teeth.

It’s dark in Jan’s bedroom with only the TV aglow. She always wants to make love with the TV on no matter how much I try to teach her about candlelight and music. I bring over romantic CDs from lesbian singers like Lucie Blue Tremblay or Melissa Etheridge and attempt to convince her that music and making love by candlelight are romantic. She doesn’t care about romance; the sex is all about the hunt. So always, the TV light beams, and the Home Improvement Channel plays, and some guy with a beard talking about hammers and nails keeps us company as we kiss and fondle and give each other orgasms.
“Yes, sure, okay,” Jan says, as she climbs out of bed and through the door to head for the bathroom, where, presumably, she still keeps a toothbrush.

I believe she wants to spew forth a statement such as, “If you really loved me, you would want to kiss me no matter what my breath smelled like!” I would not argue that point. I do not love her enough to kiss her with rotting food in her teeth. I doubt she flosses. I don’t think she ever flosses. Sometimes the thought makes the hairs on my arms stand up straight – all those years of not flossing. What might be hiding in the crevices? I block out the trauma of such a thought. Her teeth are clean enough on the surface.

She comes back to bed and kissing her tastes like Crest Toothpaste. I am not turned on. I make love to her anyway, because it is what she expects. We’ve had so many arguments over how I fail to live up to her vision of all I should be in her life. I spend too much time with friends. I participate in some odd and incomprehensible thing called “a writing group.” I don’t come over to her house often enough. Apparently, every weekend at her house and one night during the work week, battling rush hour traffic out of Boston, is not “enough.” I promise her three orgasms on Sunday morning but only deliver two. Jan even decides against giving me an empty fish aquarium cluttering her basement for a decade, although she knows I want one. She says, “Fish are pets, too, and one more reason for you to stay home.”

I find her abandonment of brushing her teeth a sign of mental illness. There are other things, too, for example, the way she’s given up working out since we started dating. She’s gained twenty pounds. It isn’t the weight gain that scares me, but her rationale for stopping the exercise.

“Working out takes time away from us being on the telephone,” she explains.
In my better moments, I say, “Uh huh” to such odd statements. But when we fight I say, “We have nothing to say to each other, anyway!” Our cell phone bills are in the hundreds of dollars. Jan wants all this useless chatter, and I give it to her. I try to make her happy. I sense the mental desperation in those telephone bills, but I don’t stop trying to please her. She says it’s worth the money. It’s worth three hundred dollars to talk about nothing? Yet I hang in there. I was dumped the year before, and I am doing that rebound thing people do but always tell themselves they won’t.

I am only Jan’s second woman lover, although the first woman she’d been with was in her life for eight years. Or perhaps it was nine years or ten years. Every time she brings up her ex, Jan seems to add a year to the relationship, and I nod with understanding although quite confused. She can’t understand why I’ve had so many women, so many lovers. I am in my forties and a twenty-year veteran of lesbian dating.

“Why did you date so many women?” she asks over and over again. She never understands my answer: It’s just the way my life has gone, a draw of the cards, people are all different. Again and again: Why had I dated so many women? Why did I sleep with so many of them? Every time I try to explain, she just becomes more upset with me.

I never ask: Why did you stay with your ex so long when you were miserable for most of those years? I don’t ask: Why did you sleep with so few women? Her ex-girlfriend’s name was Mindy. My name is Cindy. You can imagine Jan’s brain trying to sort out the Cindy and Mindy sounds. More than once she refers to me as Mindy. At times, she introduces me to some of her family that way, although thankfully, she never screams out Mindy’s name when she is in bed with me.

I call Jan “Deb” once by mistake. Deb was the woman who dumped me. Jan proceeds to point out that Deb sounds nothing like Jan, but Cindy and Mindy are so similar that her verbal lapse is completely understandable, while mine, of course, is unforgivable.
I often wonder why I date Jan or stay with her as long as I do. In retrospect, I would say we were incompatible, frankly, that we couldn’t stand each other. But we love the idea of being a couple and we make a nice looking couple and we figure we can fix me. Or I figure I can get used to her. In other words, we don’t love the other person as she is, but we pretend we do.

Jan is a good person, and I know this. She is an ICU nurse and she has three nice kids and cooks me great meals. She dangles the carrot of family and belonging in front of my lonely face. I become trapped in this familial seduction. But the end does come, of course, and I’m sure it is obvious to any outsider how wrong we are for one another, even though it takes us nearly a year to figure it out. This demise is mainly my fault, for wanting so much “space,” a word that tortures Jan every time I bring it up.
“I hate that effing word,” she screams. “You think you don’t have space? You have tons of space!” She doesn’t understand the concept as I do — like can I stay home a weekend and pet my cat? Watch TV? Read a book? Sleep? But Jan truly is a good person, I remind myself — a hard-working nurse, a devoted mother, a giver of herself, and a saver on toothpaste expenses.

After eight months together, Jan starts making joking references about marriage. She calls me up and says, “Will you marry me?” The question is followed by a lot of “ha ha ha ha,” nervous laughter.

“Not today,” I respond, trying to sound cheerful, wondering what this is all about. She gave me a ring at Christmas, not a wedding ring, but still, diamonds. They are my birthstone. I keep telling myself this: Diamonds are your birthstone, your birthstone! Do not panic!

Another phone call. “Will you marry me?” Hahahahahaha! Second time this week.
The legalization of gay marriage has brought residents of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts awkward moments. I’m a full supporter of gay marriage, but I’m not sure everyone recognizes the downside. Having a girl you don’t love enough fall in love (or in obsession) with you and ask you to marry her is a downside. Having a girl who stops brushing her teeth at six months ask you to marry her is a downside. Our jokes about U-HAULS on the second date have been upgraded to jokes about marriage. What’s a good lesbian second date? Not a bottle of wine and a U-HAUL, but now bottle of wine and a wedding ring!

Postscript: I once and for all broke up with Jan on a cold November night. Angry, she threw a bowl at my head. She missed.

Cindy Zelman is a writer based in Boston, whose blog, “The Early Draft,” explores a variety of topics, including lesbianism, writing, agoraphobia and humor.

The post The six-month Crest test first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Life has been a little too serious lately and so has my blogging. This week I lighten up by sharing a tongue-in-cheek story of one my (numerous) questionable relationships.

I’m sitting in an old truck hauling a refrigerator ––olive green, a throwaway from someone’s basement — a thirty year old refrigerator in the back of a twenty year old truck. I’m sitting next to Jan who’s driving; we’ve been dating for three months and already we’re moving appliances together.

We got the fridge from two gay guys who’ve sold their beautiful home in in the country to move into an even more beautiful home by the ocean. They offered Jan this old piece of crap refrigerator for her ramshackle, ready to cave-in cottage, her “vacation home” in Maine. It’s ninety frigging degrees out and the truck’s a/c is busted. The refrigerator weighs two hundred pounds at least, and here we are bringing it up to Maine to our “love nest” by Little Sebago Lake. We even have a dog named Dido energetically running from one side of the truck bed to the other. We need someone from The Lesbian News to take our picture for this week’s Happy Alternative Family of the Week.

Jan has long brown-turning-blond-from-the-sun-hair blowing in the hot breeze, and my hair is just longer than crew. I’m wearing a white tank, my muscles ripped. You’d think you know who butch and femme are. She’s the pretty one and the one who wears dresses. She paints her nails. She sprays on the perfume. But I’m the one who would buy a new refrigerator or book a trip to a luxury resort. At least I’d get the A/C fixed if I’d been given the choice. Jan doesn’t give me choices, just opportunities, like this one, to spend the hottest afternoon of the entire summer in a beat up old pickup, on a road trip more than one hundred miles long.

Jan has a contented and stupid grin on her face. She probably thinks we’ll be married soon. You don’t start hauling thirty-year old refrigerators three hours into Maine with just anybody. You don’t stand there in the blazing August sun determining which law of physics will allow you to leverage an appliance, that by any God given mercy, should be dead by now. The thing still works. Somehow, we managed to lift the fridge and maneuver it in a series of muscle-tearing pulls and pushes up the steps from the basement and then onto the truck bed.

There it lies in the back of the old truck. Due to some perversity of emotion, I am compelled to turn my head every five minutes to take a look at it lying there, huge and imposing. It might as well be a gigantic olive-colored wedding ring.

This is not casual dating. This is nesting. I feel a little panic attack coming on and think about popping a Xanax.

We’re in the truck doing a good seventy miles an hour up Route 95, and I’m sweating so much I feel as though I’m in a hot Bikram Yoga class. I hate those effing classes. I worry about dehydration, about passing out. This kind of close air gives me anxiety attacks. But Jan, she looks cool as a cucumber, nothing worrying her. This is Zen for her, she’s in the moment, and there is no other moment she can imagine for herself.

Jan lives in a crumbling little Lowell apartment that occupies the top floor of a very old house. She lives near a factory and the smell of the sewage it spews into the nearby river reeks into her upstairs hallway. She doesn’t seem to notice. She owns the house and rents out the first floor. Jan is a small-time mogul of dilapidated real estate: the collapsing cottage in Maine, the stinking house in Lowell, and the absolutely ghoulish two-family rental she owns a few towns over in Beverly, with the kind of attic where you hide your crazy old auntie.

She says, “If I end up alone, I plan to live in the attic.”

Jan has no plans to sell any of these houses; they make her feel secure. She’s on a mission to fix them up, find a wife and live happily ever after. She spends an inordinate amount of time buying hardware at Home Depot, starting projects she rarely finishes. Last week, she tore the back porch off the house in Lowell. A few weeks ago we hauled a top of the line toilet up to the broken cottage in Maine. Last weekend, she peeled the old wallpaper from the attic apartment in Beverly, by hand, a little at a time, talking about our future. Good lord.

A lot lately, I’ve been invited (co-dependently commanded) over to her house on Friday afternoon and barely allowed to leave Sunday night (sad face, tears, clingy hugs, begs to stay until Monday morning). She has three nice kids, and we all watch TV in the pale, fading living room with the blue and white striped wallpaper and with Dido the dog tied to a chain and going into excited puppy spasms regularly (even though she weighs seventy pounds) anytime one of us breathes in her direction. I get so lulled into Jan’s illusion of security lying there on the 1950s couch: dog, kids, heat coming through the radiators, stomach full of Jan-home-cooked meal.

Then Jan leads me to the bedroom where I try not to notice the big hard-covered book about codependency that sits on her night table shelf, the one she was compelled to read during her last relationship. We have standard issue lesbian sex all by the light of the TV, which she never shuts off, with Bob Vila’s talking over our lovemaking about a home improvement project. Tonight he’s renovating a basement. Jan has an orgasm.

“I should read it again,” she says before we sleep, regarding the big codependency volume.

You’d think I’d be smart enough to catch the danger signals, but no, no, even after such non-romance, I’m sitting in this old truck with no A/C. Bon Jovi is playing on the truck radio which works at least by comparison to the air conditioning. I hate Bon Jovi. I’m wondering if I should pop that Xanax.

Jan still has a happy ass grin on her face. Hauling an appliance in the hot August afternoon makes her feel the way most of us do about an all-expense paid trip to Hawaii. We experience the airless August afternoon as we head toward a falling-down cabin in the woods that doesn’t even have a door on the bathroom, which kills me. I need privacy! And which, by the way, half the time you have to throw pails of water down the toilet to get it to flush. Yes, pails of water down the new top of the line toilet. This is Jan’s oasis.

It’s hard to hear with Jon Bon Jovi screaming whatever the hell he screams and the roar of the old Ford pickup and the air blowing through the open windows but every so often, Jan turns her head, completes the smile to a wide grin and says, “Isn’t this great? I love this. Maine, the highway, the sun.” The girl is in love and I’m not. Or she’s in love with love. Last night in bed she said, “I love love.” What do you effing say to that? I managed an “Uh, huh.”

I smile back at her and nod, take a bottle of spring water from my ice bag and pour it over my sweat-drenched neck and shoulder blades. I manage not to pass out when we are held up in traffic for twenty minutes waiting to get through the Hampton Tolls in New Hampshire, and the temperature rises well above 100 degrees in that old pick up. Jan grins, she gazes at me, in love with love. I should not be here but a good woman is hard to find while codependency is all too easy. Maybe I’m the one who should read that book. I ponder the Xanax one more time.

Cindy Zelman is a writer based in Boston, whose blog, “The Early Draft,” explores a variety of topics, including lesbianism, writing, agoraphobia and humor.

The post Haulin’ the fridge first appeared on Lesbian.com.

BY CINDY ZELMAN

When I was a younger woman, I donned leather pants, white ribbed tanks, and high-heeled black boots. I’d take off most weekends to meet women at lesbian dances in Boston. I was slim and fit because I worked out. I learned how to flex my muscles without looking as though I was flexing. This is how I met girlfriends-to-be: with a dash of egoism and a sexy outfit.

I attended these dances to validate myself as an attractive woman, measured by how many women wanted to talk with me, dance with me or get my phone number. I’m embarrassed now to admit how shallow my motives were, and that such a superficial validation was so important to me, but it was — and for a long time.

But times have changed.

I’m in my early fifties, and I don’t wear leather pants anymore. Although I’m still in good shape, I eat too many cheese puffs and red velvet cupcakes to fit into any leather-hugging trousers. I don’t wear heeled boots either, due to a nerve condition I have between my toes. Today I took delivery on three pairs of “Grasshopper” shoes. These are sensible and very comfortable tie shoes for a woman who no longer is trying to impress anyone. I realize I am no longer bringing sexy back, but I’m bringing something else these days, something more important — a wider perspective on the LGBTQ community.

For example, my views on Michfest have evolved. Known to those of us of the 1980s coming out era as The Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, in those days the featured singers were Holly Near and Ferron and Cris Williamson, among others. Today, there is controversy as to what kind of woman should be allowed in — whether trans-women should or should not welcomed. The Indigo Girls plan an onstage protest of this womyn-born-womyn only policy.

Once I would have agreed with the only-born-as-a-woman policy and said, no, if you still have a penis or an Adam’s apple, you are not a woman, and therefore, you are not allowed into MichFest.

Now I find such a view as embarrassing as my leather pants. One of the ideas behind such an event is to end the isolation of a group of people who have been kept down in society. Who could be more isolated than a “man” who is really a woman? A transsexual, or a woman in transition, who has always felt like a woman but has never been welcomed into the women’s community? I believe anyone who identifies as a woman should able to attend. We must be more open-minded about what we mean by “woman.” Gender is no longer “bifurcated” as the intellectuals might say, and it can be very complex.

Other things have changed over the decades, for example, in the 21st century so many (r)evolutions in thought and technology have allowed me to be “out” in numerous ways that I felt unable to be in the 20th century.

Well, look, I’m writing a blog on Lesbian.com. There was no Lesbian.com way back when. There was no dot.com anything. Here I have a forum to talk about whatever I want as a gay woman where once I felt I could not even say the word lesbian. I have Twitter and Facebook accounts and a WordPress blog, and every so often, The Huffington Post, to talk about gay issues. I don’t take this for granted. If having to reach my fifties and move into comfortable shoes is the price I’ve had to pay to get to this place of expressive freedom, so be it.

My feelings for Pride, too, have changed. Years ago, I was embarrassed by the parades – by the parading –  with lesbians going topless and the men in full flame. I used to think: flaunting it is no way to garner support from the rest of society. Even when you’re gay, you can still carry mainstream homophobia with you, and that’s exactly what I did in my leather pants and heeled boots. I thought we needed to “please” the rest of society in some way in order to gain acceptance.

Now, in my looser-fitting blue jeans and comfortable shoes, I’m more of a mind to say, ‘go eff yourself’ and let us be what we are. I now realize that we need to flaunt our identities just to remain visible and Pride is a place for that to happen annually, and all around the world! We need the shock value — until we are accepted wholesale with full rights and full love — into society.

As I’ve shed my sexy boots, so, too, have I shed my narrow-minded views on the queer community and let go of my own socialized homophobia. I may not be bringing sexy back with my new dress style, but I’m bringing back something much more important: a wider and more encompassing perspective, that for me personally, couldn’t have happened until I’d had time to grow into middle age. Maybe I don’t look so cool now, but I am so much cooler than I was in those boots.

Cindy Zelman is a writer based in Boston, whose blog, “The Early Draft,” explores a variety of topics, including lesbianism, writing, agoraphobia and humor.

The post Everything changes, even my shoes first appeared on Lesbian.com.

BY CINDY ZELMAN

In the year 2000, I stood in the windowless basement of a friend’s house listening to music on a new online system called “iTunes.” This was Gloria’s house. She had become one of my closest friends, and I was visiting her with my other best friend, Laura. Both of these women were straight. I don’t recall how the subject of my photograph came up that day. Perhaps because I was in between girlfriends and venturing into the land of online dating, and such a venture required photographs. I take horrible pics, but that weekend, Laura actually took a great photo of me.

“That picture would get me a date!” I spun around on my heels and laughed.

“Ssssssshhhhhhhhh!” Gloria hissed. I looked at her. My eyes squinched with confusion. She shook her head no, as if I’d done something perverse. She pointed at her two young children playing with dolls and puzzles on a card table.

For two days anger mounted inside me as the confusion cleared. By Monday, I was livid.

“I need to ask you something,” I said into the phone as I drove home from work. “If Laura had made that same statement about a photo getting her a date, would you have silenced her?”“No,” Gloria said, “I wouldn’t have.”

I breathed deeply and finally said it, “Do you realize what a homophobic act that was?”

At which point, readers, she became self-righteous and huffy.

“I am not homophobic!”

I didn’t even say the words “a date with a woman” just “a date.” I pointed that out to her.

“They know you’re a lesbian. I didn’t want them to hear you use the word ‘date’ because I don’t want them to think about what that means.”

“You can’t see how homophobic that is?”

“You are my best friend,” Gloria responded. “So how can I be homophobic?”

I had met Gloria at work a year before, and we’d hit it off immediately in the way that you do when you meet someone with whom you share so much chemistry. She was funny, fun and lively. She was also a big flirt, despite being straight and having narrow religious views that defined homosexuality as a sin. We flirted, albeit in a harmless way, but still, she enjoyed it. It got to the point where she would joke that she was my wife. We became best friends despite our differences. It appeared for a long time that we would overcome these differences because of the love we had for one another.

She explained to me that in her religion — which I won’t name so I don’t offend others who may not think as she does — homosexuals are sinners.

I said to her, “Your religion believes that homosexuality is a sin, but billions of people around the world do not follow your religion.” She ignored the statement.

Sometimes it was hard to be her friend, but it was as if there were two sides to her — the very cool woman, Gloria, who could make jokes like, “Why are penises always attached to a**holes?” Such a joke was usually made after she’d had a fight with her husband. And there was the other side to her who was convinced she knew what God wanted and she knew God did not want gay people.

Although her homophobia was quiet — and became quieter as the years went by — it never truly left her.

Her sister met a woman at their church and ended up in a life-long relationship with her. Prior to any state making same-sex marriage legal, her sister and her partner went to Vermont for a Civil Union. Gloria did not attend the ceremony, but would not admit it was because she disapproved.

“It’s too far and I have the kids,” was an excuse she used.

I had discovered the lesbian folk singer Lucie Blue Tremblay long ago, who has one of the purest and most beautiful voices I’ve ever heard. More recently, I’d discovered Eva Cassidy, straight, I believe, but also with a beautiful voice equal to none. I gave Gloria homemade CDs of each at the same time. After she had listened, she said, “Eva Cassidy is amazing, what a voice!”  She never mentioned Lucie Blue Tremblay, the lesbian who sang love songs to other women. Homophobia by way of omission.

Prior to my graduation from an MFA program in writing, I did a public reading of my work, as was required. I read on the same day as a very talented classmate. My classmate’s essay was a strong statement about her experience as a black woman and very beautifully written. My essay was a story about having thought I’d met the love of my life and getting dumped. In other words, I read a story about a lesbian relationship.

At the end of the reading, Gloria said to me and my other friends who’d come to listen, “Kerry’s essay was amazing!” Gloria had nothing to say about my reading. She told my friends how great someone else’s reading was. WTF? I looked at her and said, “I guess mine sucked, huh?”

She hesitated and said, “No, yours was good, too.” That was it.

I tolerated Gloria’s homophobia, as she tolerated my lesbianism, for many years, because so many aspects of our friendship were so strong. But these incidents kept coming up. To give Gloria credit, she relaxed on some of her hangups — I could say date in her house by the time her kids were teenagers. She finally was able to introduce her sister’s wife as her “partner,” and not as her “friend.” But the homophobia, though quiet, persisted. As our society has grown more intolerant of bigotry against the LBGTQ community, so have I.

Although Gloria would never hold a sign saying “God hates f*gs,” she would always vote against same sex marriage, she would always see my lesbianism as a sin. She would never be able to make a compliment about a lesbian singer or about an essay about a lesbian love relationship. She was one of those “love the sinner, hate the sin,” quiet type of bigots. We never had a fight, but we no longer speak. It makes me sad, but I see no other solution.

Recently, I wrote about the loud bigotry of Michelle Shocked at a concert in San Francisco where she made several anti-gay statements, and about the Westboro Baptist Church which makes no bones about its hatred of the queer community.

Some people who read that post felt the “love the sinner, hate the sin” type of bigotry was worse than the straightforward bigotry of the Fred Phelps’s of the world. One person felt however, that the movement away from tolerance of outright hate speech and the expression of this quiet type of homophobia was a step along the evolution of the church (whatever church) in finally accepting the LGBTQ community.

What do you think? Do you feel more endangered by the loud bigots carrying “I hate f*g signs?” or by that friend of yours who loves you so much, but who would never allow you to marry? I’d be interested in hearing your point of view.

Please note: I have changed the names of the parties involved to protect privacy; however, the the story and incidents are true.

Cindy Zelman is a writer based in Boston, whose blog, “The Early Draft,” explores a variety of topics, including lesbianism, writing, agoraphobia and humor.

The post ‘You’re my best friend! How can I be homophobic?’ first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Michelle Shocked (Photo: Jim Steinfeldt/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

BY CINDY ZELMAN
The Early Draft

As many readers know, singer Michelle Shocked last month unleashed an angry anti-gay rant on-stage in San Francisco. Reports state that Shocked yelled to the crowd, ”You can go on Twitter and say, ‘Michelle Shocked says ‘God hates f*gs.’”

Bad thing, right? Ten years ago, I would have said, yes, absolutely, what a dangerous homophobic jerk. But now I’m not so sure. The rant was bad for her no doubt — no way to make a musical comeback, Michelle. But bad for the LGBTQ community? I don’t think so anymore.

The reaction to her hate speech was amazing to me: people walked out of her concert; venues cancelled on her. I came of age in the 1970s and 1980s surrounded by silence in regard to my sexuality. Sure, gay rights movements were underway, but unless you were an activist fighting in the public trenches, or lived in the city where most “out” gay people seemed to live, I recall you didn’t talk much about your sexuality. I remember working at an office in the 1990s and never talking about my social life as the other women arrived on Monday mornings with stories of their boyfriends and husbands. I didn’t tell them I spent the weekend in a Cambridge feminist bookstore, trying to figure out how to approach a cute woman. And not succeeding, by the way.

The reaction to Michelle Shocked is a gauge of how far attitudes toward the LGBTQ community have come over the decades. What we witnessed in reaction to her rant is as important as the Supreme Court hearing arguments related to same-sex marriage. It was an anti-bigot reaction, not an anti-queer reaction. The reaction was a litmus test of the American people.

Time magazine recently featured two covers — one with two men kissing and one with two women kissing and the headline, “Gay Marriage Already Won.” Regardless of the Supreme Court’s hearings, most Americans now support gay marriage, although there is still a road ahead before we’ve literally “won” all of our rights. Still, it would have been unthinkable back in the day for a mainstream magazine to even mention the queer community in a positive light, nevermind feature them kissing on the cover!

Again, I ask a question: Is the Westboro Baptist Church, Fred Phelps and his progeny, still bad for the LGBTQ community? I used to think he and his were a dangerous little mob; now I think they are bad for themselves but good for the queer community.

Because like Michelle Shocked, in this day and age, The Westboro Baptist Church appears to most American people as a joke at best, or as a sick entity at worst. In addition to blatantly hating “f*gs,” they protest military funerals, believing that God has brought the judgement of death and war on the United States because of its leniency with queers. Additionally, they stated that God sent the shooter to kill all of the children at Sandy Hook and planned to protest at the funerals of those children. Wait, who is going to Hell?

So many groups are fighting back, against bigots like the Westboro Baptist Church, and even your average Joe or Jane is unlikely to side with them nowadays.

I’m not saying The Westboro Baptist Church isn’t a threat as they influence the misguided flock, but they were once a stronger threat. Now, they appear to be in their death throes, neanderthals about to become extinct. “God hates fags.” It’s just sounding so stupid to most everyone lately. And what kind of god would send a maniac to kill beautiful children? Only a group of maniacs could believe such a thing.

As many of you probably know, Aaron Jackson bought and painted a house in the Rainbow Flag colors. The house sits right across the street from the Westboro Baptist Church. This is the changing face of America.

I see Michelle Shocked and the Westboro Baptist Church as good things now, as they inadvertently highlight just how ridiculous it is to hate groups of people because of their sexuality. Or for any other reason.

So, rant away, Michelle Shocked, you make yourself look narrow and pathetic, and you help to solidify support for the LGBTQ community. Thanks for that.

But before I go, I need to mention something that sounds good but is really bad:

I recently read a blog by a woman who sees herself as level-headed, fair, and rational, and who tries to understand “both sides” of the queer versus Christian issue. However, after what seems like a compassionate desire to hear the voice of gays, she concludes that “God never made a homosexual,” and that we, as queers, should not be writing off attempts at reparative therapy. “People can change,” she says rationally.

Now she is dangerous, because if you are one of those Americans unsure of same-sex marriage or whether or not queers are okay, she sounds awfully fair and caring on the surface. She’s not ranting, “God hates fags;” she is quietly pointing out that, “God never created a homosexual.” But she loves her gay friends, she says, and she believes in the Bible, and what conundrum! She’s trying so hard to be fair. Gee, she sounds really nice!

Even this wolf in sheep’s clothing is losing ground. Regardless of the debates and Supreme Court hearings and referendums, looking back at the progress over the last 40 years, I’d have to say the community has made amazing progress in acceptance, in gaining rights and in garnering support. We, the queer community, are here, out, alive, vibrant, and loved. Sorry Michelle. Sorry Fred. Sorry blogger lady. Just mind your own business and civilization will do just fine.

Cindy Zelman is a writer based in Boston, whose blog, “The Early Draft,” explores a variety of topics, including lesbianism, writing, agoraphobia and humor.

The post I see good in the bad first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Urvashi Vaid (Photo: Vassar College/John Abbott)

BY CINDY ZELMAN
Lesbian.com

Is the success of the LGBTQ movement about winning rights? Is the right to marry or the right to be out in the military enough to call the movement a success? On a day-to-day basis, I expect many of us see these accomplishments as signs of progress, as proof of the success of the queer movement  —  and of course they are.

But Urvashi Vaid, long-time LGBTQ activist, will open your eyes to much larger issues. Her intellect and her passion will lead you to see and think globally about societal norms and the underlying structures of our world that keep so many down. She is concerned for all of us in every walk of life in this country and around the world.

Vaid, who moved to the United States as a child from her native New Delhi, India, has been one of the most articulate and effective leaders of the queer community and the larger community of women and people of color for decades. Her most recent book, “Irresistible Revolution: Confronting Race, Class and the Assumptions of LGBT Politics,” was released in 2012.
In the book’s introduction, Vaid writes,

“For me, an irresistible revolution is one in which the LGBT movement deploys the power it has gained to challenge and change traditions of ignorance, violence, poverty and authoritarian control that continue to dominate the world.”

She is currently Director of the Engaging Tradition Project at the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School. The Projects explores how tradition is manipulated both by those for and against movements for gender and sexual justice.

Among her numerous achievements as a writer, speaker, activist and researcher, Vaid is founder of LPAC, the first lesbian political action committee. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Gill Foundation, dedicated to achieving equal opportunity for all, regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity. She is founder of The Vaid Group, a consulting practice that advises individuals and organizations working to achieve social justice in a wide range of fields.

Recently Vaid had this to say about the work yet to be done:

“The work ahead over the next ten years for LGBTQ people is as important as the work we have done already.  We cannot let up in our intensity or our mobilization in order to secure full human rights for all parts of our communities. But rights alone will not end our struggle — we need to change norms and traditions as well. Lesbians and women know this truth.

“Changing norms requires engagement with all the structures (internal and external) that teach that women’s sexual, reproductive and gender freedom is immoral or sinful or otherwise bad. Changing norms also requires us to change the ways that white-supremacy is structured into law, economic policies, government programs, and even in the institutions we have created.

“So I’m excited about how much good stuff is happening in the queer movement, but I am also clear that huge work must be done by all of us to change and improve the lived experience of LGBTQ people.”

An activist for four decades, Urvashi Vaid never rests. Thank goodness for that.

For information on Urvashi Vaid and her impressive body of work, see www.urvashivaid.net.

Cindy Zelman is a writer based in Boston, whose blog, “The Early Draft,” explores a variety of topics, including lesbianism, writing, agoraphobia and humor.

The post Women’s History Month: Activist Urvashi Vaid first appeared on Lesbian.com.