With thanks on National Coming Out Day

Just this giant tub of popcorn. Oh, and these three lesbian films.

Thank you to the clerks at my local Blockbuster store who rented me all of those lesbian movies when I was trying to figure out if I was a lesbian. You were always kind and professional and never gave me a sideways glance, even when I rented When Night Is Falling two times in a row for, ahem, “research.”

Thanks to Melissa Etheridge for her 2001 memoir The Truth Is … that I read and re-read when I was coming out. And for the album Yes I am, which turned 25 this year. If Melissa could announce to the world on the cover of an album that she was, I knew I could tell the people in my life that I was, too.

Thanks to the Indigo Girls. Along with Melissa, you provided the soundtrack to my coming out. Rites of Passage was so aptly named.

I still love you, Jess. Always and forever.

Thank you to Jessica Stein. I was coming out in real life when you were coming out in the movie Kissing Jessica Stein, even though you weren’t really gay and ended up with the guy at the end. Helen was super sexy. What were you thinking? Anyway, when I was sitting in the movie theater with my Raisinets and newfound knowledge, it was like we were both coming out together.

Thank you to my therapist who organized coming out groups for women married to men. I thought I was the only one in the world. And to all of those women who participated in those groups. It was an honor to come out alongside you.

Thanks to Sisters, the lesbian bar in Philadelphia, that provided a safe meeting place for people like me. And the cute bartender who always called me “hon.” (Yes, I know she called everyone “hon.”)

Thanks to Ellen and Billie Jean and Martina and k.d. and Rosie.

Thank you to my brother who told me he just wanted me to be happy. Seemingly small words that I still remember to this day.

I’m gay! What are you going to do about it?

Thanks to Xena: Warrior Princess, who I caught in reruns that summer. I drew my warrior strength from you. Aieeeeee!

Thank you to my friends who just nodded their heads. “Of course,” they all said.

And to my wife, who has to come out again and again because she’s not a butch like me. You do it with such grace and aplomb.

Thank you to all who came out before me and paved the way. The life I live today is possible because of you.

To everyone in my life who accepts me for who I am, you allow me to be myself every single day. You might not think you’re making a difference, but you are.

Happy National Coming Out Day!

(This post is an edited version of something I posted back in 2016.)

* * *

Who do you need to thank for your coming out?

Manuscript update and special request

Hey there Flannel Filers!

I’ve been so busy working on my new manuscript that I fear I’ve neglected you.

How are you? Don’t be like that. You know I love you.

Anyway, more about me.

My new book is called “My Mother Says Drums Are for Boys.” It’s a collection of stories and other musings about gender, coming out and, of course, living as a butch.

Thumbs up to you, too, Amy!

I write about Joan Jett, Janet Jackson and which is the better Indigo Girl to name drop on a first date. Amy Ray. The answer is Amy Ray.

In my book, I’d like to include a list of things people have been told are only for boys (or girls). The color pink, unicorns, G.I. Joe action figures …

Like the title of my book says, my mother told me drums are for boys, and I  still feel the sting of that 40 years later.

Have a great weekend, everyone! And thanks for your help!

* * *

What were you told was only for boys or girls?

 

 

 

American girls

I loved Tom Petty.

Loved his nasally voice, his scruffy look, his gorgeous lyrics about American girls. His songs about breaking up and making up and everything in between.

I loved that there was no one else like him on the planet.

I have most of his albums. Saw him in concert a couple of times.

I don’t know that I have a favorite Petty song.

Maybe “American Girl.” I’ll turn that up when it comes on the radio.

Maybe “Free Fallin’.” I mean, who doesn’t love to sing that song, car windows rolled down, highway stretched out, at the top of her lungs?

I wonder, when I listened to Petty back in the day, did I want to be that girl? You know the one.

That girl raised on promises.

That good girl, who loved Jesus and America, too.

Or, did I want that girl? Want her to be mine and only mine.

Looking back, it’s muddled. Sometimes, the only thing I can remember is how my heart ached a lot of the time.

But I like to think that, even back then, I knew there was a little more to life somewhere else.

After all it was a great big world.

RIP #TomPetty

* * *

Do you have a favorite Tom Petty song or memory?

 

 

The Wonder Woman movie belongs to us

This is my Wonder Woman memory.

I’m 7 or 8 years old.

My mom is buying my brother and I stretchy, plastic figures shaped like superheroes.

I don’t remember which Justice League of America superhero my brother selects. The colors blue and red are stuck in my head, so I’m guessing it’s Superman.

I pick this guy.

I pick Aquaman.

I don’t remember leafing through the figures as they hang in their packs from a metal peg on the rack.

But here’s what I know: There isn’t a Wonder Woman in the bunch. Wonder Woman is never an option.

Sure, I like Superman and Batman and the rest of the Justice League of America superheroes as much as the next little girl, but I love Wonder Woman with her golden lasso of truth, invisible jet and bulletproof bracelets. Spink! Spink!

I never identify with Superman or Batman, even though I’m a tomboy and admire their super strength and athleticism. Back then, I find them too masculine with their dark features and chiseled chests.

I am always a Wonder Woman girl.

Look for Middle-Age Butch in the background.

Xena: Warrior Princess comes on the scene in 1995. I watch the reruns in the early 2000’s when I’m coming out. And here’s where it gets tricky—that fine line between wanting to be Xena and wanting Xena.

After much contemplation, here’s what I decide:

In a time of ancient gods, warlords and kings …

A land in turmoil cried out for a hero.

She was Xena, a mighty princess forged in the heat of battle.

And she was Middle-Age Butch, a mighty princess butch, durable and sturdy like the fabric flannel.

The power … the passion … the danger.

Their courage will change the world.

But back to Wonder Woman. My experience was always one of lack and longing. A Wonder Woman-shaped hole.

Even at a young age, Aquaman was my way of compromising, of finding some middle ground.

I heart Aquaman.

He certainly wasn’t Superman or Batman. He couldn’t fly or really fight. He had nice blond hair. His superpower? He could talk to fish. I suppose I found Aquaman sensitive because he was able to communicate with dolphins.

So that’s one of the reasons why the Wonder Woman movie is a big deal to me. I’ve been waiting most of my life for Wonder Woman. Just Wonder Woman. Having a choice of Wonder Woman.

I’m struck by the movie’s tag line:

“The future of justice begins with her.”

This movie belongs to the little girl who played with a bendy Aquaman figure because there was no Wonder Woman option.

It belongs to all the little girls, back then and now.

Boots

I buy my first pair of Dr. Marten’s before I come out. Before I know I’m a lesbian.

I buy them at a teen-oriented store in the mall that I’m too old to be shopping at.

Brown boots. Seven eyelet lace-ups. With the yellow stitching at the bottom, circling like the moons of Jupiter.

In many ways, my coming out is fluid. A smooth continuation of who I am. An ocean wave that sweeps over me and keeps going.

After I come out, the boots seem to have purpose. I stand taller in them. I stomp harder in them, the AirWair rubber soles bouncing off the pavement like basketballs.

I wear them on dates.

I wear them to piss my mother off.

I wear them when I’m angry.

I wear them when I’m not.

I wear them as a calling card. Rae Theodore, Lesbian, they say with each step.

Friends of mine are planning on attending the Women’s March in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 21, the day after the inauguration. It’s not a protest against Trump or the election results but a march to shed light on women’s issues, including sexual assault and workplace discrimination. You can read more about it here.

I ask W if she wants to go.

“You want to change the world with me?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say.

I look at the route of the march. Two miles from the Lincoln Memorial to the White House.

I need to break in my boots before January.

* * *

Do you have something you wear that makes you feel powerful?

Gratitude (#NationalComingOutDay)

Just these three lesbian movies please and a pack of microwave popcorn.

Thank you to the clerks at my local Blockbuster store who rented me all of those lesbian movies when I was trying to figure out if I was a lesbian. You never batted an eye, even when I rented When Night Is Falling two times in a row for “research.”

Thanks to Melissa Etheridge for her 2001 memoir The Truth Is … that I read and re-read when I was coming out. And for the album Yes I am. If you could announce to the world on the cover of an album that you were, I knew I could tell the people in my life that I was, too.

Thanks to the Indigo Girls. Along with Melissa, you provided the soundtrack to my coming out. Somebody bring me some water. Please.

I still love you, Jessica Stein.

Thank you to Jessica Stein. I was coming out in real life when you were coming out in your movie Kissing Jessica Stein, even though you weren’t really gay and ended up with the guy at the end. Helen was super sexy. What were you thinking? Anyway, when I was sitting in the movie theater with my Raisinets and newfound knowledge, it was like we were both coming out together.

Thank you to my therapist who organized coming out groups for women married to men. I thought I was the only one in the world. And to all of those women who participated in those groups. It was an honor to come out alongside you.

Thanks to Sisters, the lesbian bar in Philadelphia, that provided a safe meeting place for people like me. And the cute bartender who always called me “hon.” (Yes, I know she called everyone “hon.”)

Thanks to Ellen and Billie Jean and Martina and k.d. and Rosie.

Thank you to my brother who told me he just wanted me to be happy.

Xena, you are a badass babe.

Thanks to Xena: Warrior Princess, who I caught in reruns that summer. I drew my warrior strength from you. Aieeeeee!

Thank you to my friends who just nodded their heads. “Of course,” they all said.

Thank you to everyone who came out before me and paved the way. The life I live today is possible because of you.

Thanks to everyone in my life who accepts me for who I am and gives me the courage to be myself every single day.

Happy National Coming Out Day!

* * *

Who do you need to thank for your coming out?

Love

Like you, W and I we are heartbroken over Orlando.

I sat at my computer much of Sunday trying to work and trying not to feel. I was unsuccessful at both.

I had an overwhelming urge to do something. Anything. I could feel the itch on my skin.

See that word in purple caps?

I glanced over at my filing cabinet and saw a poster for a yoga/wellness festival that a friend of mine is putting together. A single word in purple ink caught my eye: LOVE.

I sent off a clumsy e-mail. Can we table there and raise money for Orlando? I asked. Maybe hand out rainbow ribbons. Maybe do something else. Just brainstorming right now. Let me know.

An hour later, I got the go ahead. A 10′ by 10′ spot and three free passes to the event.

The next day, W came up with a plan. I ran around most of Monday securing supplies.

 

Here’s a portion of the flag.

On Monday night, we arrived at a local UCC church for a prayer vigil for Orlando. We started our prayer flag there. Those in attendance wrote messages of love and support for Orlando. They tied the rainbow-colored strips of cloth side by side on a rope.

We will take the prayer flag to the festival on Saturday. We will spread love. We will be love.

Because isn’t that what’s it’s all about?

Being able to love openly and freely and safely.

As a butch woman, I think about safety more than W. I’m what you call a hundred footer. From 100 feet away, everyone knows I’m gay. (Or thinks I’m a dude, but that’s a different post.) Every time I reach for my wallet in my back pocket or straighten my necktie or use the restroom that corresponds with my gender, the skin on the back of my neck stands up because I know I could be in danger.

Orlando is a reminder that we are not safe. Not even in those places we thought we were. Especially in those places.

It is also a reminder that we have work to do. I have recommitted to writing my stories and sharing them with anyone who will listen.

So, on Saturday, we will wear our rainbow colors. We will hand out rainbow ribbons. We will collect prayers and messages of support and donations that we will forward to the LGBT Orlando Community Center.

Maybe it won’t matter, this elaborate arts and crafts project. Maybe it won’t make a difference. Maybe it will.

I think about the conversations I’ve had this past week.

I think about my 60-year-old transgender friend telling me about waving the hell out of a giant rainbow flag at a prayer vigil in Philadelphia and marching around City Hall with his cane. You, friend, are my role model.

I think about the middle-aged Latino man I met at the local prayer vigil. He had just come out after having spent most of his life in the closet.

I think about the older woman who grabbed a strip of orange cloth on which to write her message to Orlando. Openly weeping, she told me how she had lived in a small town growing up and how her gentle-hearted brother had been terribly bullied.

At least we are doing something.

We are showing we are not afraid. That we aren’t going away. That we are proud of who we are.

We are starting conversations.

We are talking about the one thing we know about. The one thing we know like the back of our lover’s hands.

Love.

Orlando will make us love harder and fiercer. Today, I feel more in love with W than ever before.

We are experts on love because we’ve risked it all for love.

Here’s what we know in the deepest place in our hearts: Love is love.

And love always wins.

* * *

If you’d like to take part in our prayer flag, leave your message in the comments section. I’ll transcribe your message on a strip of cloth and tie it to the flag. We will be sending the completed prayer flag to the LGBT Community Center in Orlando.

Prince

“I’m not a woman

I’m not a man

I am something that you’ll never understand”

— Prince, “I Would Die for You”

His music was the soundtrack to my life. I discovered Prince when most of my peers did — after the movie Purple Rain was released in 1984 and the songs on the soundtrack became a permanent part of our everyday life.

As a senior in high school at age 18, I played “1999” every morning before school on the turntable in my bedroom. One morning I would play Side 1, which was comprised of “Little Red Corvette,” “1999” and “Delirious.” The next day, I would flip the album over and play the two songs on Side 2, “Let’s Pretend We’re Married” and “D.M.S.R.”

I never tired of those five songs, so I never made it to Side 3 or Side 4 of that double album.

I’m not sure what it was that drew me to Prince and his music. It didn’t sound like anything else I had ever heard. But there was something else. He was dirty and poetic. A cross between Shakespeare and a porn star. Something about that combination appealed to me as I started my journey into adulthood. He seemed to understand all those things I didn’t — sex, love, God, life — so I listened to his music in an effort to crack the code.

When I went off to college, I found a used record store and bought all of his old albums — “Prince,” “Dirty Mind,” “Controversy.” I studied them more than my text books.

My parents never taught me about the birds and bees, but Prince did.

He was my sex ed teacher.

The only reason I know the words to the Lord’s Prayer is because it’s in the middle of his song “Controversy.”

Prince was my Sunday school teacher, too.

He was my church.

He was my religion.

He was my Elvis.

He was my Beatles.

He showed me how to adore and appreciate women.

And he taught me how to be funky.

I know what you’re thinking. You, Middle-Age Butch, got funky? Tell us another tale. What I’ll tell you is there’s a fine line between funk and swagger. And any butch worth her boots has a little swagger in her. You just got to love yourself. That’s what Prince would have said.

I don’t think I realized why I was always so fascinated with the purple one until he dropped his name and became the symbol. The symbol was a perfect mix between male and female.

That’s the thing about Prince.

He transcended gender.

I always thought I was in love with the pretty purple boy with the high heel boots and the puffy blouses and tight little body. Back in the day, this in-the-closet lesbian always had a thing for pretty boys with high cheekbones and beautiful hair.

I wasn’t really in love with Prince. We would have made a strange couple.

But he did show me how to love myself.

* * *

My all-time favorite Prince song is “Little Red Corvette.” What’s yours?

 

 

 

Does my story matter?

In the next few weeks, I am planning on reaching out to some local groups (gay-straight alliances, PFLAG, etc.) about my book.

The people I contacted in November and December said to try back in the new year.

In this in-between time, I am worrying that my story isn’t relevant in this day and age.

Mine is a story about growing up feeling different. It is a story about being a tomboy and not understanding why that me — the one who wore boys’ clothes and could throw a baseball farther than anyone on our block — was so offensive. It is a story about having feelings for other girls and then squashing them out of fear of what other people would think. It is a story about marrying a man, because isn’t that what I was supposed to do and wouldn’t that make my parents proud. And then coming out in my late 30’s, radically altering the trajectory of my life plans.

A lesbian with a talk show. Gasp.

Things are so much different today. Kids are out at school. Same-sex marriage is legal in this country. Ellen is no longer in the closet and she has her own daytime talk show on a major network.

So, does anyone need to hear my story? Will anyone care? Will it make a difference?

I was reading Curve magazine the other day and Editor-in-Chief Merryn Johns had this to say:

“We lesbians, especially older lesbians, must record our histories so that the younger generations have a point of reference for their own lives, and have something to build upon.”

That’s what I’m trying to remember. That my story is a Lego block. And that others — this generation of young people who have so many more freedoms than I did — will use it to build upon, brick after brick after brick.

Until it forms a tower so tall it pokes into the clouds.

* * *

What do you think? Are our old-timey stories still relevant?

My butch bucket list

A friend’s husband died a few weeks ago.

We are going to the funeral tomorrow.

I’ve read several versions of the eulogy.

Each time, I’ve been struck by one line.

The man who died was puzzled by the concept of the bucket list.  This was a foreign concept to him, because he lived his bucket list.  As a result, he left this world with no regrets.

I wonder how many of us can say that.

I have always been a late bloomer.  I didn’t come out until my 30s and often regret time lost being young and carefree without a pretty girl or two by my side.

I didn’t start writing creatively until I was in my 40s. I think of all of the blogs and books that I could have written.

But still, I am grateful that I did come out. I feel lucky to have written a book that was published.  I am excited about what the immediate future holds for me as I am challenging myself to tackle things out of my comfort zone like public speaking, mentoring, advocacy and activism.

Today, I am thinking about my bucket list differently. Not as a list of goals to be kept in a drawer and checked off over time but a list of things to do now.  When I am able.  When I still have time.

So, in honor of a friend who knew what was truly important and how to get the most out of life, I’d like to share my bucket list:

Bucket List

• See Fleetwood Mac in concert
• Tailgate (and otherwise party) with my Penn State friends as often as possible
• Write
• Publish
• See The Book of Mormon
• Take W to New Orleans
• Throw out the first pitch at a baseball game
• Go on an Olivia cruise
• Perform as a Drag King
• Take art classes
• Learn how to make really good meatballs
• Go to a strip club
• Learn how to flyfish
• Go to Phillies spring training in Clearwater, Fla.
• Visit the Baseball Hall of Fame
• Get a hot stone massage
• Get a koi tattoo

* * *

What about you?  What’s on your list?