Ride, Interrupted

Have you ever had your ride interrupted--or detoured--by some chance event? 

I'm not talking about bike breakdowns, injuries or other emergencies.  Rather, I'm thinking about more serendipitous--or at least pleasant--happenings.

Today I stopped at Parisi's Bakery as I embarked on my ride.  I'd bought a couple of sfogliatelle, figuring that I could eat one as a snack during my ride or save them for later.  I also figured that by the time I got back from wherever I rode, they might be closed or not have much left.

As I exited the bakery (Yes, they let me bring my bike in!), I looked to my left and saw a rainbow flag flying.  Seeing a rainbow flag wasn't itself so unusual, especially on the day after same-sex marriages were legalized in New York.  However, the flag I saw seemed especially prominent and conspicuous, especially given that it's on a rather drab block:

I couldn't get a better photo of the house because it's on a street underneath elevated train tracks.  That means, among other things, that traffic is usually fairly congested on that street because the posts of the train trestles take up a lot of space on that street.   

I've cycled or walked that street only a few times, even though I've been living in the neighborhood for more than eight years and I don't know how many times I've boarded that train.  Living in New York is funny that way:  Lots of people have lived even longer in one neighborhood, even in one apartment or house, than I've lived here.  Yet they, too, haven't walked, and may never walk, down some streets near them. 

Perhaps I can rationalize not cycling or walking that street because it's not along any route I normally take for work or pleasure, and, as I've mentioned, it's not a particularly attractive street.  But today I decided to take a look at that house:

I'd never seen the  "Religion ruled during the Dark Ages" and "Atheism is myth understood" stickers anywhere else.  The others, I'd seen in one version or another.  How many people would line their houses with bumper stickers of any sort, much less ones that so proclaimed their beliefs?  

As I snapped those photos, the owner poked her head out of a window.  "Whose side are you on?"  I could just barely hear her over the clatter of an approaching train.  

I pointed to the train.  She held out her hand.  I waited; just after the train passed, she opened her door and poked her head out.

"You look like a friend," she said.

"Perhaps."

"Bring your bike in."

We sipped iced tea while we waited for a friend to meet her for a night out.  I'd had the impression that she was either a hippie or a dancer.  Turns out, she was both.  "Now I'm just a senior citizen with a tenant from hell.  But I need her if I'm going to keep this house."

"That's too bad..."

"What's the use of complaining?"

Then we had one of those conversations that veered into more topics than it seemed possible to discuss in a short time.  Not surprisingly, we talked about gay marriage, Stonewall (She wasn't there, but friends of hers were) and about the prejudices and hate some of us still experience.  "I've known people who were beaten up, fired, kicked out of apartments for being gay."

"People have been killed for it," I reminded her.

"My brother was."

I clasped her hand.  "I'm so sorry..."

"Thank you.  It was a long time ago, but it never leaves you."

"Well, I can understand.  There's no shame in that."

 hand. "I'm so sorry..."

"My brother is Julio Rivera."

"The one who was killed in Jackson Heights twenty years ago?" 

She nodded.   I remember his killing, in part, because of things that were going on in my life at that time. But it was also one of the events that led to the passage of "hate crime" legislation in New York.  It seemed that around that time, there were a number of crimes committed out of one kind of bigotry or another.  As an example, less than a year before Rivera's murder, Yusef Hawkins was beaten to death by a group of white teenagers when he went to look at a used car in Brooklyn.

She reminisced about Julio and showed me some photos of him and other members of her family.  Then her friend arrived.  We exchanged phone numbers and I left.

"Enjoy your ride. And be safe!"

A Post-Mortem for Amanda--and Gwen and Yusuf

I'm still thinking about Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar, and the vigil I attended for her.


You might say I'm feeling a bit of survivor's guilt right now.  I never met her, but I couldn't help but to sense that she was actually as beautiful a person as her friends said she was.  I say that because, in spite of her violent death, everything about that vigil--from the way people spoke of her to the makeshift memorial by her apartment--radiated serenity that, because it was the reflection of a soul truly at rest, left us with more than grief.


Why was she killed so horribly, and at such a young age?   I guess I could answer that question as a Buddhist would and say that whatever she had to learn in this life, she learned, and it was time for her to pass on to another life.  But why was her exit such a house of horrors?  


Of course, it's terrible when anyone is murdered.  But it's been a long time since I've been so affected by the killing of someone I never met.  Probably the last time I felt as I do now was after I heard about the murder of Gwen Araujo.  And, before hers, there was the death of Yusuf Hawkins.


I actually met Yusuf's grandfather once, briefly.  There really wasn't anything I could say to him.   He probably heard "sorry" more times than anyone should.  And what good did it do him, his family--or Yusuf?  If I recall correctly, I offered to help him and his family in whatever way I could, even though I could not envision what that way might be, if there was one.


He died much younger than anyone should.  So did Gwen and Amanda.  Had they lived, Yusuf would be a man coming into the prime of his life, Gwen might be in the early stages of the career to which she aspired--that of a makeup artist.  And Amanda was probably just beginning to live the life she'd envisioned for herself; the beauty that all of those people saw in her probably had to do, in some way,  with her acceptance of them which, of course, was a result of her acceptance of herself.  Few people realize just how powerful that actually is; I would love to see what kind of a life she (or someone) could have had after developing a sense of his or her own self based on that willingness to be who one is.   I've come to it much later in life than she did; therefore, I will most likely never accomplish some of the things she might have been able to do had she lived.   The same could probably have been said for Gwen and for Yusuf.  Still, I can't help but to feel that I have at least one opportunity that they never had.   I have no idea as to why I was given this chance at the life I'd always dreamt about, but here I am.  

A Power Outage, DWB and Panic

So there was a power outage, or something, in Blogland last night. I couldn't sign on to this blog, much less post a new entry.

I know that in the scheme of things, it was small. But all sorts of paranoid thoughts raced through my head. Did the Y2K bug arrive ten years late? (Maybe it was on the Roman or some other calendar!) Had the Great Depression II brought the world--and the blogosphere--to a screeching halt?

Before I realized that the problem was with the site, I thought there was something wrong with my computer. Or, I thought that being in the age range for Alzheimer's (Am I?), an absent-minded professor and blonde had caught up with me and I did committed some blunder that only someone who bears such a Triple Crown could make.

And this fear also passed through me: That someone found the content of this blog--or me--"objectionable" and flagged it. Of course, anything is "objectionable," for someone could, conceivably, object to it, for whatever reasons. But I wasn't fussing over definitions at that moment.

As often as Oprah and other folks on TV talk about transgenders, prejudice against us still exists. Even the ones who are younger and much prettier than I'll ever be are not completely shielded from it: I've heard all sorts of stories of harassment and worse. Then, of course, there are terrible tales like that of Leslie Mora, and the horribly tragic ones like that of Gwen Araujo.

Speaking of whom: A few years ago, I had an idea for writing a book about people who were killed by bigots. I was going to profile the sad stories of Emmitt Till, Yusef Hawkins, Matthew Shepard and Gwen. All except Till's murders occurred during my lifetime; in fact, I can remember where I was when I heard about Hawkins, Shepard and Gwen. While Till has been commemorated in a Bob Dylan song, Spike Lee dedicated "Malcolm X" to the memory of Hawkins and Shepard's murder led Moises Kaufman to create "The Laramie Project," there was comparatively little attention was paid to Gwen Araujo's murder at the time it occured.

I heard about it only because I was at the LGBT Community Center that day. Only a few weeks earlier, I had moved out of the apartment Tammy and I shared in Park Slope; only a few days earlier, I had my first appointment with Dr. Gal Meyer, who would interview me, order tests and, finally, prescribe hormones to me. At that point, I was still going to work as Nick and my neighbors, family and friends--who didn't see much of me--still knew me that way. But I was spending most of my free time en femme, much of it volunteering with or otherwise participating in one Center activity or another.

So you can imagine how much I was affected by hearing about Gwen's murder. In fact, when creating the link for her name earlier in this entry, I was in tears. No other stranger's death has had quite the same impact on me. If you'll indulge me in a cliche, I will say that I felt I had lost a member of whatever race, nation or other group I belong to.

I was also affected (not merely shocked) by Matthew's and Yusef's killings, though in different ways and for different reasons. In "Jack Price and College Point," I described the way I felt about Matthew Shepard's demise. As for Yusef: He was killed not far from where I grew up and, literally, steps away from where relatives of mine have lived. The adjacent streets are as familiar to me as any others in this world: I have, at times, returned to them, and to the rooms my relatives inhabited, in my dreams (and nightmares!). And, when local TV news reporters interviewed residents of the neighborhood in the days after Yusef's murder, I felt as if I were hearing a language I didn't know that I still knew but would, of course, always be a part of me because I heard (and, to a lesser extent, spoke) it so early in my life.

Now, you may be wondering: How did I go from the Blogspot outage to hate crimes? Well, I described one of the scenarios my mind conjured up when I couldn't access my blog: that someone didn't want a tranny posting on Blogspot, or anywhere else. Were Till, Hawkins, Shepard and Araujo still here, I am sure they could relate.

Anyone who is, by birth, a member of any group--whether it be racial, ethnic, religious, sexual or gender--that is stigmatized, has had moments when he or she couldn't help but to wonder whether, or even believe, he or she was singled out or otherwise discriminated against simply for being whom he or she is. I've met, especially at the college in which I teach, far too many people who were stopped by cops for DWB. I've also heard too many stories about women who were denied promotions, or even jobs, for reasons that were not clearly (perhaps deliberately so) stated. And, of course, I've had the same happen to me--and I've been stopped by plainclothes "cops" (I still question whether they actually were commissioned.) for no earthly reason.

Even someone yelling at you hurts, or simply makes you wonder, in an intensified way because you know that even in the most benevolent of settings, prejudice against you and whatever you represent is never far from the surface. So you wonder what, exactly, was the motivation behind someone who did a "routine search" of you or what really happened when your inquiry "fell through the cracks."

People will accuse you of being "overly sensitive," "paranoid" or "sooo defensive"--or of "reading too much into" someone else's words or actions--when you respond to people or react to a situation in a way that is refracted through the prism of your experience. As if they all don't do the same thing. The difference is, their experience doesn't include the sort of prejudice you've experienced.

I really try to respond to everyone I meet as an individual, and to deal with every situation independently. But there are times when, as a member of whatever group, you can't help to wonder if you've been targeted.

To whoever is in charge of Blogspot: I hope you understand. And I thank you for what was, actually, a prompt and proficient response to the technical problem.

I'm writing in this blog again. I'm happy.