Last Saturday night on a freebie ticket from a friend of a friend I
attended EqualityMaine's annual awards dinner at the Holiday Inn in
Portland. I wasn't sure how toney this event would be so my outfit
combined formal and more casual elements: the gorgeous green brocade
top Sis Sus gave me, over my still-new-and-dark jeans, over those
reliable old standbys my Walmart open-toed black pumps...plus the new pink
pink scarf, my most dangly dangly earrings (and a few other pieces
of jewelry), and full but (I hope) classily subdued makeup. My hair is
long enough now that I can just wear it loose to good effect. I
specifically wanted to look not dressed in drag. I was going for
straight elegant femme, and I believe I came close to pulling it off.
Yay! :-) As it turned out jeans were underdressy, but not too bad.
Anyway...
The crowd was all ages but skewed 35 and older, prosperous-looking, and overwhelmingly white. It quickly became apparent that there was a lot of money and power in the room. (Someone gave me a tip on how to pick out the most influential people...they're the ones not wearing name tags.) I did not realize until this party how formidable a voting bloc and fund-raising force the LGBT community has become. There were a couple of dozen state legislators in the room, and a philanthropist or two as well.
The gender balance was 50-50, and there were lots of touches of cross-dressing (Father Dawn looked particularly sharp in her shirt and tie)...but not many fully cross-dressed as I was. Which brings up the main question I had going in: how much T was there going to be really in this LGBT evening?
There was some. Once or twice specifically trans causes or issues were mentioned. The bulk of the evening, however, was given over to looking back at the ballot fight for marriage equality, and forward to the next round of that fight. Now, I whole-heartedly support the rights of any two people to marry who want to...but I also feel compelled to point out that this is more purely an L and G issue than a T one. To take myself as an example, one very possible outcome of my narrative is being a woman in a committed relationship with a man, all nice and mainstream. True, there is a confusing variety of definitions from state to state of what constitutes a "man" and a "woman", and I might also end up hitched to another woman, so I definitely do still have a personal stake in this issue. Just not quite so inevitably as a gay man or lesbian.
Meanwhile, "gender expression" still appears much less often than "sexual orientation" on the lists of reasons for which the nation's multitude of organizations, companies, municipalities, governments, etc. will not discriminate. I was not legally protected, for example, from being fired for being trans when I worked recently for the U.S. Census. In important areas trans rights lag behind those of gays and lesbians, and I didn't hear much about that.
That said, I found the evening inspiring. I felt moved by the individual narratives of some of the award-winners, and marvellously buoyed by the intense sense of community and mutual support in the room. So, in sum, while I didn't quite feel that I had arrived in the bosom of a new ready-made community, I certainly felt welcomed and included, and had a great time.
Two more fun insights: Femme mode turns out to be useful for avoiding people I've known as a man and don't want to talk to...one such looked right at me and didn't recognize me at all. That was good for a secret smile. And, I not only enjoyed, as I always do, going out dressed as a woman; I also enjoyed going out not dressed as a man. What a revelation: I may never have to wear a suit and tie again as long as I live. Wow. I can so live with that. :-)
Anyway...
The crowd was all ages but skewed 35 and older, prosperous-looking, and overwhelmingly white. It quickly became apparent that there was a lot of money and power in the room. (Someone gave me a tip on how to pick out the most influential people...they're the ones not wearing name tags.) I did not realize until this party how formidable a voting bloc and fund-raising force the LGBT community has become. There were a couple of dozen state legislators in the room, and a philanthropist or two as well.
The gender balance was 50-50, and there were lots of touches of cross-dressing (Father Dawn looked particularly sharp in her shirt and tie)...but not many fully cross-dressed as I was. Which brings up the main question I had going in: how much T was there going to be really in this LGBT evening?
There was some. Once or twice specifically trans causes or issues were mentioned. The bulk of the evening, however, was given over to looking back at the ballot fight for marriage equality, and forward to the next round of that fight. Now, I whole-heartedly support the rights of any two people to marry who want to...but I also feel compelled to point out that this is more purely an L and G issue than a T one. To take myself as an example, one very possible outcome of my narrative is being a woman in a committed relationship with a man, all nice and mainstream. True, there is a confusing variety of definitions from state to state of what constitutes a "man" and a "woman", and I might also end up hitched to another woman, so I definitely do still have a personal stake in this issue. Just not quite so inevitably as a gay man or lesbian.
Meanwhile, "gender expression" still appears much less often than "sexual orientation" on the lists of reasons for which the nation's multitude of organizations, companies, municipalities, governments, etc. will not discriminate. I was not legally protected, for example, from being fired for being trans when I worked recently for the U.S. Census. In important areas trans rights lag behind those of gays and lesbians, and I didn't hear much about that.
That said, I found the evening inspiring. I felt moved by the individual narratives of some of the award-winners, and marvellously buoyed by the intense sense of community and mutual support in the room. So, in sum, while I didn't quite feel that I had arrived in the bosom of a new ready-made community, I certainly felt welcomed and included, and had a great time.
Two more fun insights: Femme mode turns out to be useful for avoiding people I've known as a man and don't want to talk to...one such looked right at me and didn't recognize me at all. That was good for a secret smile. And, I not only enjoyed, as I always do, going out dressed as a woman; I also enjoyed going out not dressed as a man. What a revelation: I may never have to wear a suit and tie again as long as I live. Wow. I can so live with that. :-)
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