Southern Comfort - Real Lives
by Sherri Shapiro
I have never had anyone ask me before whether I was
a "real girl.". It was my second evening of my first time at the Southern
Comfort Conference. I was slightly taken aback and then I just laughed and
told my inquirer that everything about me was quite real, including,
unfortunately, my big butt!
What was a single, straight female doing at the conference,
you may wonder. I was there because someone I love is transgendered and it
was one more step into understanding (though I always just accepted) her
world. It was a world in which I felt strangely comfortable. What seemed
so complex to the masses had always been simple to me. People have the right
to be whoever they are meant to be. Period. Whether they were born to be
a certain way or had simply striven to achieve all of their human
potential.
I came to the conference, on the first evening, just
to meet Tina, have a drink and meet some of her friends - old and new alike.
When I first walked into the Holiday Inn conference center bar, I looked
around to see if there was anyone else "like me" there - and by physical
appearances, the answer seemed to be "no." Over the next few days I met some
wonderful people and discovered that there were more people there like me
than I had originally suspected, save for the packaging.
The very first person I met was to become a new friend.
Her name was Ashleigh and we bonded (almost) immediately and have actually
seen each other, spoken live and via e-mail several times, already, since
the conference.
I met other wonderful people - cross-dressers, TG's
and TS's alike, Gina, Jami, Jean and many others. Every one had a story.
Most people, despite the struggles of trying to fit into a world, change
their world, change the world, had seemed happy and well adjusted. Everyone
had a family and they all expressed different levels of acceptance and knowledge
of who they were, by their families. Not unlike me and my family, everyone
struggled with the dissonance between their outward appearance and having
people see who they really are as individuals - just like me. Everyone there
was loving and needed love - just like me. And, as Tina had taught me, "You
don't always love a gender, you love a person." There was certainly a lot
of love, support and camaraderie at the conference.
As at every conference I had every attended, though
the seminars and workshops and speeches had value, the really important "stuff"
was happening in the free time, and social events. That was the real opportunity
for people to come together and help heal each other, be resources for
information, help a new person come out, share an experience with someone
who had passed through a stage you were approaching, touch a life, make a
friend.
I came back on the second night for the dinner and
talent show, as Tina was one of the lovely performers. It was a wonderful
evening, with some very talented - and some not so talented performers. But,
that didn't matter. What really mattered was the courage exhibited by all,
the freedom of expression, the love and support ladled out by the encouraging
audience, the vicarious thrills received through the performances by others.
People looking around, admiringly, enviously - "Maybe that will be me next
year up there on that stage, maybe, I will have journeyed to a new and better
stop on my train of life, maybe I'll have made one new friend to support
me, maybe I will stop one heart from breaking." So much poignancy, tears,
laughter.
As I looked around the room, the thing that made me
sad was that I didn't see very many friends and spouses of all of these special
people. I wondered how you could love someone and, despite personal pain,
not try to be there for them. Because real love is generous of spirit, love
is wanting everything for the person you love, love is acceptance even in
the absence of understanding.
What was a straight woman doing at this conference?
Well, I tell you, we all have families and we all want love and acceptance.
I am no different from anyone at the conference. And as Mary Chapin Carpenter
said, "There is a life we're given and another one we choose." People don't
choose their gender or sexuality. But we do choose whether to express it
or suppress it. We choose whether to live the lives we were meant to have
or to live a life chosen (by us or by others). We choose whether we are going
to live in fear or "feel the fear and do it anyway." And we choose love or
not - through our friends, our chosen family.
Sherri Shapiro is a freelance writer
and marketing consultant
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