Leslie Feinberg

can do to prove her love more than to risk looking foolish.

can do to prove her love more than to risk looking foolish.

I emerged from behind the bar. It was the look on Theresa’s face that gave me the courage to raise my voice: You saw me standing alone. My voice cracked and pitched with embarrassment and emotion.

Theresa chewed her lower lip and cried.

Do-wah-do, my friends backed me up. Peaches stood behind me, waving the painted blue moon back and forth in a wide arc over my head.

But then you suddenly appeared before me, I extended my hand toward Theresa. And when I looked the moon had turned to gold! Peaches flipped the moon to the gold side. Everyone cheered. Peaches curtsied and continued swaying with the moon.

Theresa reached for me. I finished the song dancing in her arms.

I realized it was true, I wasn’t alone. I had love of my own.

“If you’re afraid to lose what you love, you’ll never be able to let go and feel it.

ered Rocco sitting next to me. She reached forward and stroked my cheek. I touched my own face. Ifelt

I was real proud that in all those years I never hit another butch woman. See, I loved them too, and I understood their pain and their shame because I was so much like them. I loved the lines etched in their faces and hands and the curves of their work-weary shoul

In their own way, they loved me too. They protected me because they knew I wasn’t a “Saturday-night butch.” The weekend butches were scared of me because I was a stone he-she. If only they had known how powerless I really felt inside! But the older butches, they knew the whole road that lay ahead of me and they wished I didn’t have to go down it because it hurt so much.

The next time the cell door opens it will be me they drag out and chain spread-eagle to the bars.

Did I survive? I guess I did. But only because I knew I might get home to you.

I DIDN’T WANT TO BE different. I longed to be everything grownups wanted, so they would love me. I followed all their rules, tried my best to please. But there was something about me that made them knit their eyebrows and frown. No one ever offered a name for what was wrong with me. That’s what made me afraid it was really bad.

The world judged me harshly and so I moved, or was pushed, toward solitude.