A Memorable Meetup

Image by Kat Love from Pixabay

I had one of those community experiences on Sunday that left me kafoozled.

That's a synonym I just created for dazed, confused, and aggravated.

I attended a Seattle Meetup for lesbians over 55, and since I've gone several times, I thought I knew what to expect. But this one turned out differently.

I found myself sitting next to a new participant, a 70-year-old transgender woman. I'm well aware some lesbians argue that trans women aren't women, so they can't be lesbians, but I don't hold that view.

A few others and I chatted with R for a bit. When she asked why people were protesting at the "No Kings" rallies the day before, and noted that she thought Trump's tariffs were a good idea, I sensed the woman across from me shift and face the other way, not to mention build a brick wall and rig up an alarm system.

I don't know if transphobia was involved, but she clearly was in no mood to listen to a potentially conservative queer wax ignorant, so I knew I was on my own.

I have an old habit, good or bad depending on your point of view, of being obliging to the socially awkward. So I listened for an hour as R told me that she's lived all over the country, worked at 27 jobs in the defense industry, and been in an unconsummated marriage for over 30 years.

It didn't take an expert to see that R was on the autism scale. That can make a person lonely, so my ears soldiered on. I asked about the Israeli patches on her jacket, and I learned that in her time she's been everything from Episcopalian to Russian Orthodox to, now, Jewish.

It was all adding up to someone who's tried and failed a million times to belong. With some trepidation, I asked about her being transgender. R said she made the gender switch to increase her chances of employment in an industry that's overloaded with men.

I was aghast, but still polite. I reframed the question, hoping R would speak of a long yearning to be a woman. Nope. It was a career move. Like bringing Dunkin' Donuts to a meeting.

Fearful she could be Exhibit A for our transphobic overlords, I wondered if I should poison her coffee.

What do you do when you run into a person in the LGBTQ community who's a conservative Christian's nocturnal emission? A person who actually embodies some of the wildest things they say about us?

I didn't poison her coffee. But boy howdy, I wished I was drinking something other than hot chocolate.