Last month, when we were planning the annual Pride Issue (timed to coincide with St. Pete Pride and the Stonewall anniversary), the big news was restrooms. The right-wing anti-gay brigade, frustrated at the progress of LGBT equality, was making a last-ditch attempt to prey on fear and prejudice, and they were taking the fight right down the toilet.
So, mused one of CL’s editors, instead of focusing on restrooms, why don’t we profile local trans people in the rooms where they actually work and live, and tell their true stories, far from the hysteria?
Then, in another meeting, we were discussing what this year’s St. Pete Pride Guide calls the “exhaustive and growing acronym, LGBTTIQQ2SPDGAA* and counting.” I won’t go into what all of these letters (or the asterisk) stand for — you can find a glossary in the E-dition of the guide at stpetepride.com. But it did occur to us that it’d be a good time to talk about one of those A’s, our very important straight allies. (T&A: Get it?)
Then… Orlando.
It seems likely that just about every one of the letters in that acronym was represented inside Pulse that night, from drag performer Leroy Fernandez to ultimate ally Brenda McCool, the mom who loved to go out dancing with her son. In the days since, the gay community has seen more allies come forward to share in our shock and grief than at any time before.
For Lucas Wehle, youth and transgender program coordinator at Metro Wellness, June 12 used to be a day of celebration. But on Sunday, his 24th birthday, he woke to the news that a massacre had taken place.
“It won’t be a good day anymore,” he told me.
Yet something good had happened to him earlier in the week: His parents had apparently had a change of heart. “They finally took the first step to call me by my name and my pronoun. [They] literally turned overnight.”
Wehle is one of the the three Grand Marshals of St. Pete Pride this year, so he wonders whether his family’s show of respect has something to do with his being honored. But whatever the reason, it was a major turning point.
A colleague of Lucas’s had told me that he’s really good at answering “awkward goofy questions.” Which was good, because I asked him a few right away, like: What was his given name before he transitioned?
“That’s personal information that most trans people don’t want to share,” he said. “It’s generally a question that we don’t encourage asking.”
And no, it’s not cool to ask him or any other trans person if they’ve had lower anatomy, or “bottom” surgery. As another trans interviewee said to me, “Do you ask your friends about their genitals?”
I learned a lot from Lucas. And from Grant Drain and SueZie Hawkes, and from straight allies Scion Provenzano and Brian Auld, whose interviews are featured in this issue. You’ll also read a story by a former teacher about what he learned when he set up a Gay Straight Alliance in a Land O’ Lakes high school.
In the aftermath of the despair and horror and confusion of Orlando, I find in these people and these pictures a reminder of the courage and love and, yes, pride that still endures in the LGBT community and in the friends and family who love and support us.
More than ever, that’s worthy of a parade.
This article appears in Jun 23-30, 2016.