Mayor Larry Langford wanted the citizens of Birmingham to know he would not allow their fine city to be debased. Those rainbow flags would not fly in Birmingham — no multicolored gaiety could besmirch his fine streets.
Birmingham’s government, according to Lucky Larry, should not “endorse a lifestyle that God opposes.”
***
I’m not particularly good at growing plants. I don’t exactly kill them, but their germination is questionable at best, if the cats don’t get to them first. The life goal for my $1 packet of sweet basil was simple — to live.
***
Since 1989, the Birmingham City Council had taken a largely benign disinterest in the Central Alabama Gay Pride Parade, approving the proclamation and permit annually without fuss. But with Lucky Larry’s stand came parade protesters, whose signs reminded attendees of the three “gay rights” for “sodomites:” AIDS, hell and salvation.
Salvation should probably look into hiring a new advertising firm.
But such rhetoric isn’t notable or new. As Troy King, third year law student, wrote to the Crimson White in 1993, “Currently, AIDS is the most behavior-oriented disease known to mankind. If this nation’s current purveyors of perversion would refrain from committing sodomy, they would unquestioningly be spared the ravages of the disease.”
In Alabama, citing the LGBT boogeyman can get you far — all the way, it seems, to the attorney general’s office.
***
I tried not to get my hopes up when the first tiny sprouts began breaking through, but I smiled despite myself. Maybe I could do this growing thing after all.
***
The metaphor was obvious, but no one ever called the secretive, last hour inclusion of sexual orientation in the University’s nondiscrimination policy over winter break a Christmas miracle. Miracles aren’t supposed to feel like grudging, backhanded compliments.
Nevertheless, we did it. It had taken years, but we finally had protection and judicial recourse for LGB students on campus.
The phrase “and gender identity” remains noticeably absent, however. The choice not to advocate for both was frustrating and disappointing, but logical. Yet the thought one day such excuses will no longer be acceptable or applicable allows me to keep my hope for Alabama alive.
***
I tried tomato plants next. Not only did they sprout far sooner, there were many of them, far more than the small pot could eventually hold.
***
“As long as you’re not harming anyone, I don’t care.”
At the time, my friend Will could not have said anything better. I wasn’t and still am not good at coming out to others, no matter how many classes I speak to about being transgender. I hide my emotions when yet another person I don’t know becomes defensive or stops speaking to me after assuming their “sir” should have been a “ma’am.” The first time someone laughed in my face was particularly difficult, but I had not yet developed the thick skin and patience I have now.
Later on, I wonder if these people resent how my presence disorders their neat gender boundaries. By others’ judgments, I am varyingly not very radical at all, yet so extreme as to threaten the fabric of society. If I threaten anything, I threaten the idea people can easily be ordered into categories and classes. My supposed aberrant status unsettles the presumption of a natural order.
And using the logic of one student heckler, that’s my entire problem — if I’d just try harder to fit into my “natural role,” surely I would then become happy. As Troy King said, if we’d just stop sodomizing each other, surely AIDS would cure itself.
I hate to break it to him, but my sex life is rather sodomy-free. Not that this fact matters, because people like that student and King don’t see me, or other LGBT individuals, as people, but as punching bags. For them, requesting we be respected as equals is tantamount to admitting the world isn’t as easily explainable at they thought.
I’m practical, though. I’ve lived in Alabama through two Bush elections, one anti-gay marriage amendment, Gerald Allen’s gay book banning bill and the election of Patricia Todd, Alabama’s first out lesbian representative. I will always expect and demand respect, but I recognize the relentless power of the inevitable — apathy. When pitted against apathy, “the gays” and their pink Hello Kitty agenda lose their impact.
We walk among you. I hope one day you will fail to care.
***
It turns out that sweet basil? Great in omelets.
Avery Dame, metro/state editor of The Crimson White, is a senior majoring in English. He will graduate in May.
