When I faced harassment, the feelings of disempowerment and the lack of safety I felt as a woman were met with a deep fear of escalating violence due to my trans identity.
Sitting in the backseat of a taxi one day a bit later in my transition, I noticed the driver smiling at me in the mirror.
“I’ll give you a free ride if you take your top off,” he creepily offered.
“No. No, I’ll pass,” I hesitantly replied.
He kept asking, telling me it was a good deal.
When he asked what I was doing that night, I told him I was going out to dinner with friends.
“Oh, you’re going to be naughty,” he said through a sinister laugh. “I’ll want to find you after you’ve had a few drinks.”
When I recounted the story to friends, mostly all cisgender women, they rebuffed me for not standing up for myself and other women. I should have thought to take down his medallion number. I should have thought to rebuke him.
His actions were disgusting and I wanted to tell him off, but instead I shut up and made myself as small as possible. I didn’t want to draw any more attention to myself.
As a woman, I was scared for my safety and I just wanted to get to my destination as quickly as possible. And as a trans person, I was profoundly afraid that he’d realize I was trans. There are few things more dangerous to a transgender woman than the risk of a straight man not totally comfortable in his sexuality or masculinity realizing he is attracted to her.
Transphobia tells these straight, cisgender men that being attracted to a transgender woman makes them gay (it does not). Society’s homophobia tells them that being gay is bad (it is not). These prejudices mix in their mind, threatening both their sexuality and their masculinity. One step too masculine, one stride too manly, one word too deep and I risk the violence that often comes to a trans woman who commits the crime of attracting the interest of a straight, cisgender man.
But in the same way that my gender as a woman and my identity as a trans person intersect to foster discrimination or violence, my other identities combine to provide me with a cloak of privilege not offered to others.
While trans people are twice as likely to live in poverty than the general population, trans people of color are three times as likely to live in poverty. Dozens of transgender people are killed each year in the United States and every year trans women of color make up a majority of those killed, a significant overrepresentation that results from the toxic combination of racism, misogyny, transphobia, and homophobia, a blend that can have deadly consequences.
As a white person, my race provides me with certain securities that are refused to people of color. My family and friends provide support structures denied to those who are rejected by their communities. My economic security grants me resources to escape situations that would put me more at risk. And even if my landlord had found out that I was trans and responded negatively, I never feared that I wouldn’t be able to land on my feet and find and afford housing that would welcome me.
Having certain privileges does not mean that your life is easy or that you do not face challenges. It just means that you don’t experience specific kinds of obstacles or barriers faced by someone with a different identity or background. And our empathy should require us to acknowledge the plight of others in both its similarities to ours and in its differences.
Indeed, as lifesaving as transitioning was for me, it was also life-altering. The relief was profound when I found an affirming space. The overwhelming fear and anxiety that would fill my mind in more public spaces would wash away.
I was fortunate to have those places. American University was one of them, in large part because of the relationships I had forged as student body president.
But it was another space—an unexpected one—that quickly became a refuge in the months after I came out. It was a building that I worshipped so much throughout my childhood, the one that had sparked my initial interest in politics: the White House.
I had been on tours of the president’s home while growing up, and as student body president, I had attended a small outdoor press event there; but like most people, I had never been to an event inside.
Three weeks after publishing my coming-out note, and the swirl of media around it, I received an email from the White House Social Office, the staff tasked with hosting events at the White House. I opened the email to see an invitation topped with the gold seal of the president of the United States. Under the seal, it read, “The President requests the pleasure of your company at a reception in celebration of LGBT Pride Month to be held at The White House.”
In addition to serving as the home and office of the president and the first family, the White House’s bottom two floors, known as the State Floors, serve as a large, ornate event space. Presidents traditionally host receptions and events commemorating different groups and communities, but it wasn’t until President Obama that the LGBTQ community had been invited for an annual reception honoring and celebrating our lives and basic dignity.
Walking into the White House for the Pride event three weeks later was awe-inspiring. Uniformed Secret Service agents greeted guests as we made our way through the small East Wing, down a long windowed corridor, and into the central part of the White House, the famous structure that appears on the twenty-dollar bill.
Drinking from a champagne flute, I took in the grandeur of the rooms I had intensely studied as a kid. The State Dining Room, with its portrait of a thoughtful Lincoln. The oval Blue Room, constructed at the request of George Washington and the inspiration for the construction of the West Wing’s Oval Office. And finally, the East Room, a large ballroom adorned with stunning gold curtains and three large chandeliers.
You could feel the history in that room. Presidents have been inaugurated there. The legendary painting of George Washington hangs on the wall. The bodies of Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and Kennedy lay in state in the center of the room after their deaths. And in 1964, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. looked over the shoulder of President Johnson as the Civil Rights Act was signed into law there.
President Obama was scheduled to address us from a lectern placed at the far end of the ballroom, but until then, I mingled with the guests. It was the first time I had been in a space filled with this many LGBTQ people. Same-sex couples were walking around holding hands. A transgender person proposed to their significant other in the central hall. The feeling in the room was celebratory. And standing in the White House surrounded by people like me, I felt at home.
A bustling at the front of the East Room signified that the president was about to speak. As I made my way up to the front of the room, I bumped into a young man, a handsome twenty-six-year-old transgender attorney named Andrew Cray.
“Oops, I’m sorry,” I apologized and moved forward as the announcer boomed, “Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States.”
The president, greeted with rapturous applause, made his way from a side room, up onto a stage, and to a lectern marked with the seal of the office.
“Now, each June since I took office,” he opened, “we have gathered to pay tribute to the generations of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans who devoted their lives to our most basic of ideals—equality not just for some, but for all.”
I had heard the president speak at rallies and on health care, but I had never witnessed him speak entirely about LGBTQ people. It was an empowering experience, and as he spoke, it felt like he was speaking to me.
“And as long as I have the privilege of being your president, I promise you, you won’t just have a friend in the White House, you will have a fellow advocate for an America where no matter what you look like or where you come from or who you love, you can dream big dreams and dream as openly as you want.”
It was an affirming and memorable experience, but I didn’t fully realize how pivotal the White House would become
in my own journey, beginning with that young transgender man I had bumped into just before Obama’s speech.
Frankly, I didn’t think much about that chance encounter with Andy. It didn’t really register until a message popped up on Facebook two months later.
“Hey, Sarah! So…I’ve seen you at more than a few events around D.C. But I am a little shy about introducing myself—so hi, I’m Andy,” he continued. “Despite being pretty bad at introducing myself, I’m actually not that shy, and if you’re interested in getting coffee or drinks or something sometime, let me know. I think we’d get along pretty swimmingly.”
The message appeared in my Facebook inbox on August 14, 2012, just as I was getting ready to leave my internship for the day. I’m not usually one to fully engage with strangers on Facebook, particularly while at work, but for some reason I felt compelled to. Maybe it was the fact that we were both transgender, or maybe it was our list of mutual friends, or his adorable use of the word “swimmingly,” but it was clear from the start that he was someone special.
Over the next several weeks, we chatted on and off over Facebook and by text messages. I learned he worked on LGBTQ equality at the Center for American Progress, a prominent advocacy and research institution known in D.C.-speak as a “think tank.” I found out that we both loved terrible reality television, James Cameron’s Titanic, and Star Wars (although his love for the trilogy was unlike anything I have ever seen!). We had both studied film earlier in our lives, I as a high school student attending a creative and performing arts school and he as a film major in college for a period of time.
After weeks of chatting and escalating flirtation on Facebook, he finally asked me to dinner. “Please don’t take this as pressure, but just as a testament to how great I think you are—I haven’t locked in any plans for tomorrow. Would you like to go out?”
Like any twentysomething girl, I was anxious about taking that next step, to go from flirting online to a real-life relationship. Despite how wonderful he seemed, I wasn’t yet sure how I felt about him. But that wasn’t why I was so nervous.
I was nervous because this would be my first first date since transitioning, since taking the initial steps to live as Sarah. At the time, I still worried that people—even those who hadn’t known me before coming out—saw me as a walking costume.
My natural hair wasn’t in a place where I felt comfortable with it, so I was still wearing a dark wig that fell to just under my collarbone. I had been on hormones for only a few months. And while none of those things should invalidate my gender identity, I worried that Andy, even as a transgender man, would be disappointed. I worried that, to him, I wouldn’t be the woman I knew myself to be and the woman he had so clearly built up in his mind.
But of course I said yes.
* * *
Our first date was on an unseasonably hot early fall evening in 2012. It was a clear night and probably slightly cooler than it felt to me due to my nerves.
It was just after dusk when I stood impatiently on my front stoop waiting for Andy to pick me up. The restaurant was only about six or seven blocks from my house, but Andy, obviously wanting to make the date feel as traditional and perfect as possible, picked me up at home.
Our chance encounter at the White House Pride Reception hadn’t registered with me, so I had never truly seen him in person, just in pictures on Facebook. As he stepped out of his spotless black Audi, I couldn’t help but be taken aback by just how suave he seemed to be in person. He was immaculately but casually dressed, clean-shaven, and wearing square glasses with big black rims that can be described only as nerdy-chic.
He walked me to his car, and we took the short drive over to the restaurant, which actually was closer to his apartment than my house was, making his gesture to pick me up all the more ridiculous and sweet.
We parked and walked half a block to the restaurant. With every step, as with all my public adventures, it felt like a thousand eyes were staring at me, wondering the same question: Is that a man? Much of it was in my own mind, but some looks were undeniable.
Andy and I sat down at our table at a small tapas restaurant on the main drag of Adams Morgan, a lively, colorful D.C. neighborhood filled with restaurants, bars, and, at that time of night, young professionals beginning their drunken evening out. Our table was imperfectly situated for my insecure self, located just on the edge of the restaurant’s small outdoor patio and in the line of sight of everyone tipsily walking by.
Our server approached from behind Andy, catching a glimpse of me and making a face I had grown to know all too well, a look that might as well have included the verbal confirmation “Oh, you’re transgender.”
The server was kind and didn’t do anything out of the ordinary following the initial, subtle look, but I could tell she knew. I wondered what she thought about Andy, handsome and not “visibly transgender,” clearly out on a date with me. I could imagine her inner monologue. How disappointed this guy must be in his date.
As proud as I had grown to be transgender, I was still struggling with the same insecurities that a lot of transgender women face. The message we so often receive from society is that to be “read,” as we call it in the trans community, as transgender is an implicit and negative statement about your beauty.
Sitting there, I envied Andy. He seemed so cool and comfortable in his own skin, so unworried about the world around him. As someone much further along in his transition than I was, he carried himself with a confidence that I had not yet mastered. I did a good job of hiding the insecurity, doing my best to come off as the confident person I’d presented online to Andy.
The server took our orders and left. Andy and I continued our conversation until a few seconds later, when he stopped mid-sentence, tongue-tied, clearly overtaken by something. I braced for the worst.
“I’m sorry, but, my God, you are beautiful,” he blurted out.
And with that, in that moment, my insecurities washed away.
In the three months since coming out publicly and living as my authentic self, I had never genuinely felt seen until that point. In every other interaction, I still felt as if others saw me as either the person they previously had perceived me to be or, entirely, a trans person at the beginning of my transition.
With that simple comment, Andy was the first person who seemed to see me and be interested in me as Sarah. He was the first person who showed me that in transitioning I could still be loved and could still find a partner, something I had worried was out of the question.
In that moment, Andy was the first person to make me feel genuinely, remotely beautiful in my own skin. It wasn’t the validation of a man, it was the true recognition of myself by another person that felt so good.
The rest of the dinner was a blur of comfort, laughter, and good food. Following dinner, we hopped into his car and drove back to my place.
On the short drive, Andy, who had told me that he loved to make mix CDs, put on his most recent. The first song was new to me. I asked him what it was and he replied, “ ‘Safe and Sound’ by Capital Cities, and I bet it’s going to be pretty popular soon.” I listened to the lyrics.
Even if we’re six feet underground
I know that we’ll be safe and sound.
The song would eventually become our song, returning at some of the most dramatic points in our relationship, sometimes by chance and sometimes intentionally.
We pulled up to my home as the song ended. Andy quickly got out of the car and ran over to open my door. As I stepped out, I felt Andy’s hand connect with mine. When I looked at him with a smirk, he appeared terrified, wondering if he had done something wrong. Andy raised his eyebrows to ask if it was okay for him to hold my hand. My smirk turned into a smile, I squeezed his hand tighter, and we walked to the door.
And that’s where we first kissed, for a few seconds, then ten, fifteen, and twenty.
As
we separated, trying to play it cool, I wished him a good night and thanked him for the amazing date.
“Can we do this again?” he asked with almost childlike excitement.
“I would love to, Andy.”
CHAPTER 3
“Sarah.”
A few months before coming out publicly, I had applied for a White House internship, a six-month, full-time role within the building I had worshipped my entire life. Ever since I was nine or ten years old, I had always dreamed of interning there, imagining myself walking the halls and entering the building every day for work.
I had hoped to apply for the fall semester during my senior year—the first semester following my term as student body president—but when I came out to my parents and began to quietly transition, I thought about holding off.
I knew that this White House had been supportive of LGBTQ equality, but as far as I knew, there had never been anyone like me, an openly transgender woman, in any White House position. The thought of rejection so soon after coming out frightened me, and I wanted to protect myself. Thousands of people apply for a White House internship each semester. Being accepted is a crapshoot for anyone, but if it didn’t happen, I’d always worry, Was it because I’m transgender? Did they think I’d be a liability? Or, worse, an embarrassment?
In the end, the years of unbridled excitement I’d had since I was younger won out. I didn’t want to pass up the potential opportunity to work for this president and vice president and be a part of their historic administration.
Given that the White House internship required a security background check, I had to submit the application under my legal name, which was still my birth name. The application also included a box for a preferred name or a nickname. Most applicants write in a shorter version of their legal name, or maybe make clear that they go by their middle name instead. I put down “Sarah.”
Tomorrow Will Be Different Page 6