Ruminations on Community
“I’m gay.” It was 1991, and one of my best friends from college had just come out to me. Will had been in a relationship with Lisa - another extremely close college friend - for about four years, so it was a surprise on that front, but it wasn’t a huge surprise either. I said to him, “If you're trying to lose my friendship, you’re gonna have to try harder than that.”
Here’s the significance. The friends I made on the first day became my main friend and support group throughout my four year of college. There were nine of us all together. When we moved out of the dorms, we found a house together and lived there until graduation. Will had always held a special place in my heart. Both of his parents had been incarcerated as children during our country’s internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII. As such, he lovingly mentored me - an unformed lump of clay from an upper-class, white suburb, to a more nuanced awareness of pervasive societal ills and the need for social justice to overcome them.
In the years since - almost 40 at this point - our little group of nine has remained connected. We've attended each other’s weddings and other special events. When my wife passed away they all offered heartfelt condolences. When I told them I was a transgender woman, they offered me their support. Over the years, we gather every three or 4 years for a weekend reunion. At our last gathering, after I made an off-hand comment about JK Rowling and her toxic hatred for trans women, Will asked me to explain.
“To start with it's a betrayal of the central themes of love and acceptance that permeate the Harry Potter books," I said. "She claims that I am not a woman, and that all trans women are just men using ‘male privilege’ to intentionally harm or erase cis woman.” I went on to say that the logic she uses to define ‘real’ women, is a dangerous, ‘slippery-slope’ type of reasoning that can be used to exclude all types of women, both cis and trans. It's the same type of distorted logic that has been used to support the worst sort of prejudicial thinking that has existed since, well, forever.
“I just know there are a lot of strong feelings on both sides,” he demurred, and then he broke my heart. “I guess you and I have different ideas of social justice.” This clearly signaled his true opinion of me and my life as a trans woman. I was devastated.
Since then, I’ve reached out to him a few times in order to better understand what he meant. But Will, the first person from whom I learned the value of having difficult conversations, has not responded. Not only do I feel the loss of my relationship with him - I feel torn apart from the entire group. Will has always been the emotional core, and it doesn’t feel right to share my hurt with the others. I am adrift and in pain - these are the best friends I’ve ever had.
It seems that all those years ago, when I told Will that “he’d have to try harder,” he’d take it as a challenge.
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I’m often asked why I sing in Calliope, given that I live in Mankato. It’s a fair question, as it results in about fours hours of driving every Thursday. And, as we all know, driving around the Cities right now is no one's idea of fun.
In my former disguise as a cis man, finding community was a constant struggle. I never felt comfortable being amidst a group of men. Go figure. Parenthetically, as an elementary school teacher, most of my colleagues were women with whom I fit in very well. Again, go figure.
Around 2005, my wife and I were raising our family in Bangor, Maine. A friend invited me to join the Black Bear Men's Chorus - a group from the University of Maine, just down the road in Orono. I’d always enjoyed choral singing so I gave it a shot. It turned out to be a great "guy" fit for me. It was made up of both college students and local community members. This cross section of men had a wonderful vibe and great energy. When my family moved from Maine to Minnesota, the BBMC was one of the things I missed the most.
I found a local choir in Mankato. It was okay. The repertoire had too much religious music written by dead white guys for my tastes - but it was better than nothing. At least I was singing. But in early 2016, everything changed. My wife Rebecca died unexpectedly, and by the time I felt like singing again, the whole ‘Nora’ thing had happened. There are many trans women who continue to embrace singing the bass and baritone choral lines, but I was not one of them. I also intuitively understood that, as Nora, my attempts to sing the alto line would not be welcome in that particular choral setting, so I dropped out.
Because I didn’t know what I could or should do with my singing voice, or where I might be welcomed in, I was both voiceless and choirless.
Fast forward a few years. It’s June 2018 and I’m at Twin City Pride - just walking around, taking in the sights - when I came across a booth for a women’s chorus that promised a place for all singers. “Even me?” I thought to myself.
I approached with trepidation - putting myself out there has never been a strong suit - and began talking to a woman I soon learned was the director. I explained my dilemma: “I want to sing, but I don’t know what to do with my voice because singing my old part feels dysphoric as hell, and this is a women’s chorus so even though you say there’s a place for everyone, you can’t really mean you’d accept me, someone who has never sung a treble part in her life, and what am I doing here, really - I’ll just be on my way - sorry for wasting your time…”
When she said: “Of course you’ll fit in, my wife probably has a deeper voice than you.”
I knew in that moment, that I’d found my place.
The booth in question belonged to Calliope, and the woman I was speaking with was Krystal Stark, our former director. With her loving encouragement, and the support of the other folks in my section, I unlocked the alto2 voice that was just hanging around inside me, waiting to be discovered.
Since then, despite my frequent, ill-timed rehearsal interuptions which masquerade as humor, (Sorry, Klo), my Calliope family continues to make me feel welcome every Thursday evening.
That’s why I don’t mind the drive.
