That night, my parents and I sat down for a celebratory dinner at a small neighborhood restaurant that we refer to as our “happy place.”
“This was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” my mom said. “But it’s also the most fulfilling thing I’ve done in all my life.”
“And we did it together, as a family,” I toasted.
As our glasses clinked, I got a message from one of the transgender people who had helped us pass the bill. He was out with his family at a restaurant, too. “I’m out to dinner with my folks,” it read. “And for the first time in my life, I feel like I belong here. This place finally feels like home.”
Jack holding up Delaware’s newest law, the Gender Identity Nondiscrimination Act of 2013. Mark (right) and Representative Bryon Short applaud behind Jack. I had never felt more hopeful than I did at this moment.
When you’ve never felt like you really belonged somewhere, it’s almost impossible to know what it will feel like to finally feel at home. As openly transgender people, we had taken the steps we needed to alleviate that constant feeling of homesickness when it came to our gender identity. But without social and legal equality, as tranquil as we may feel within our own identities, our souls still ache for a physical home, a place where we can feel welcomed, affirmed, loved, and seen. It’s a desire at the center of our shared humanity as people and one that mirrors our own experiences transitioning.
And while no law will ever be a silver bullet, no bill can change every heart or open every mind, and no protection can stamp out every act of discrimination, these laws provide a foundation. That night, we were one step closer to justice.
CHAPTER 8
“Will you still love me?”
From coming out at the end of my term as student body president, to the experience at the White House, to the gender identity nondiscrimination bill in Delaware, it had been an eventful year. Honestly, I was exhausted. But as ready as I was to move back to Delaware and settle down, I also felt compelled to continue the fight.
In Delaware, I had seen the power of our voices to make change when they were matched with resources and institutional support. But throughout that effort, and particularly in the aftermath, I couldn’t stop thinking about the people still denied the basic rights we finally had at home. Until every single LGBTQ person is protected by the law and treated with fairness, our fight isn’t over.
A person’s safety or dignity should not depend on their state or zip code. Equal means equal. But a majority of states still lacked the same basic yet critical protections from discrimination that we had just fought so hard for in Delaware. Arkansans and Texans and Virginians deserve these protections every bit as much as Delawareans and Californians and Minnesotans.
As has been the case in every effort for basic equality, there is only so much progress that can be achieved by going state by state. National laws, such as the Civil Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, are necessary to ensure equal protection from discrimination regardless of whether you live in the most conservative rural county or the deepest blue city.
With the Delaware bill passed, I felt much more comfortable coming back to the state I love, but it was too soon. I didn’t want to “get mine” and then go home, ignoring the widespread problems that remained. I wanted to help, in any small way that I could, to bring the change I worked on in Delaware to the nation. I knew that we could make strides at a national level, and I wanted to be a part of this important moment of change.
In D.C., there were hundreds of advocates spread across dozens of organizations doing just that at places like the Human Rights Campaign, the National Center for Transgender Equality, and the Center for American Progress. Andy, who was one of those advocates in D.C., was a big draw for me to stay in town. Throughout my work on the gender identity bill, we would spend weekends together, alternating between Delaware and D.C., where he was still working at the Center for American Progress on LGBTQ equality in health care. While we could have maintained a somewhat long-distance relationship—after all, Delaware and D.C. are only about two hours apart—both of us were ready to begin the next phase of our relationship under the same roof.
Delaware would always be there for Andy and me in the future, but for now we both wanted to be part of what was shaping up to be a historic moment in the movement for equality. With more and more states passing marriage equality bills, and the decision by the Supreme Court in June 2013 striking down the nationwide act that barred federal rights and benefits to legally married same-sex couples, the momentum on that issue was picking up steam.
Trans visibility was also increasing at a rapid rate. Laverne Cox burst into the mainstream consciousness with the premiere of Orange Is the New Black on Netflix. That year, 2013, was eventually dubbed the “transgender tipping point” by Time magazine. And D.C. felt like the center of it all.
I applied for a job on the same team as Andy at the Center for American Progress, the Washington-based think tank that has been called the “brain of the Democratic Party.” CAP worked on every policy issue, from the social safety net to national security to immigration to LGBTQ equality. The offices are located two blocks from the White House and the four floors of roughly two hundred employees were filled with both past and future Obama administration and White House staffers.
Always a conscientious employee, Andy notified HR of his relationship with one of the applicants. They didn’t see it as a problem; he wasn’t a part of the hiring process and wouldn’t be managing the role I was applying for. And after an interview with the incoming director of the LGBT Research and Communications Project, I was hired for my first full-time job as an advocate.
The team I would be working with was small, only about seven employees. I was the most junior, but given my experience in Delaware, my focus would be on our work advocating for LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections. The federal effort at the time centered on a bill known as the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, which everyone called ENDA. In Delaware, and in most of the states that had passed nondiscrimination protections, advocates had pushed for comprehensive laws that would protect LGBTQ people throughout life, from the workplace to housing and public spaces. But for the previous two decades, what was once a comprehensive civil rights bill had been whittled down to just protections in the workplace, the area of life with the most public support for passage of a law.
The theory was that because employment protections were the centerpiece of nondiscrimination laws, we’d focus on achieving those protections and then build out other protections incrementally, one bill at a time. First employment, then schools or housing, and then, down the road, public accommodations, which would include the dreaded discussion on bathrooms.
The approach had its drawbacks. First, access to a job does not begin and end with the application process; it also includes access to shelter, goods and services, and a quality education. For LGBTQ people to be able to live and thrive without fear of discrimination, it’s not enough to be protected from nine a.m. to five p.m.
The strategy also presented a practical dilemma. Yes, employment protections are arguably the most important area of life, but if we pass the most popular part of our agenda by itself, the more controversial parts that we leave for later become even harder to pass. I wasn’t inspired by this approach, but it was the strategy I was joining, and I was just one junior member of one team in one of a handful of organizations working on these issues. And in the end, I was thrilled to be able to continue to work on something that I was passionate about at one of the nation’s leading advocacy organizations.
As I prepared for my first day at CAP, Andy and I moved into a new apartment together. Our new place was in the same building as his old apartment, but in making the decision and signing the lease together, it truly felt like our home. I had fallen in love with the apartment because of its gorgeous views of a park across t
he street. The large windows in our living room looked out over stately trees that parted in the middle to reveal a long grassy stretch frequently filled with picnickers and, on Sunday, a drum circle.
When I told friends that I would be going to work with Andy, several questioned, “Don’t you think it will be hard to work with your boyfriend?” We’d now be living together, commuting together, and at CAP, our desks would be only about twenty feet apart. For some, it would be a recipe for disaster.
Both of us loved every minute of it.
Some of our colleagues didn’t even know we were dating. We kept it as professional as possible at work, relegating our more coupley talk to Gmail and Facebook messages. Between calls with coalition partners and researching and writing on issues of equality, Andy would message me his traditional greeting of “Hellllllllew! Is a bean there?”
We did a pretty good job of keeping our professional lives separate from our home lives, focusing, as we always had, on cooking together and watching mindless reality shows to unplug at the end of the day. Other days, though, we would vent to each other about something outrageous or hilarious that had happened. After all, our jobs were a big part of our identities, and our work was inherently personal for both of us.
We squabbled and bickered, as any couple would, but the fights were always mild and quickly resolved. We were happy together and each inspired by our work. We capped each week with Andy’s signature sangria on our rooftop and views of the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial.
It was a pretty good life.
Throughout the summer and early fall of 2013, as two young transgender people falling in love and fighting for the community we love, it seemed like we had a world of possibility and potential before us. I was twenty-three years old and I felt more fulfilled and happier than I’d ever imagined. But that all changed when Andy went in for a doctor’s appointment in September.
Back in March, while we were on vacation in Barbados, Andy had started to complain about a sore on his tongue. Months went by, but the sore remained. By August, I was getting a little annoyed with him. The pain was beginning to sour his mood and I was agitated by the mood swings.
“Go see a doctor. You need to do something,” I said, probably not fully grasping the pain he was in.
Eventually, I joined him at a small surgery center in suburban Washington for a short outpatient procedure to get rid of the sore. We had assumed that it was just a benign growth on his tongue, uncomfortable but easy to fix. It never occurred to us that the situation would be more than just a nuisance. Even after the doctor stopped the procedure early, saying that the growth was a bit larger than he’d anticipated, we were still completely unfazed.
“Young invincibles” is what they call people like Andy and me. The thought of illness for young people like us is so abstract that many don’t even bother to purchase health insurance. While we were insured through our employer, the obvious never occurred to us. In retrospect, our obliviousness feels absurd.
A week after the aborted outpatient procedure, Andy went in for a follow-up that quickly crushed any feeling of invincibility. I was home in Delaware visiting my parents and we didn’t expect it to be anything but a simple follow-up. Driving back to D.C. on my way to work, I got a call from Andy.
“Are you in a place to talk?” he asked me, his voice a bit shaky.
“I’m pulling into the garage at the office right now, but what’s up?” I nervously asked.
“Um, just call me back when you aren’t driving,” he replied.
If the thought of serious illness had been nonexistent before, it all came rushing into my head at once. I immediately knew where this was headed.
“No, no, what’s going on?” I pushed.
He paused for a moment and cleared his throat. “I have cancer…”
I have cancer. Three life-changing words you never want to hear.
He sounded completely defeated. Still driving down into the lower levels of my office’s garage, I could barely say anything before my cell reception started to go. I got out of my car and ran upstairs to my boss.
When I reached her office, I was out of breath. My knees were weak and I felt like I was going to throw up. I told her I needed to leave. I was hesitant to share Andy’s information, particularly since my boss was also his boss and I felt like it was his place to share that information, but I also needed to explain why I had to leave.
“Andy, uh…Andy, uhh…” It felt surreal to say the words myself. “Andy just found out that he has cancer.”
I felt like my world was upside down. I felt like I was propelling forward without any idea of where and how Andy and I would land.
“Go!” my boss responded, immediately understanding my need to be by Andy’s side.
I raced back to our apartment. It felt oddly still and calm as I burst in; the juxtaposition of my racing and cluttered mind and the deafening silence of the apartment was jarring. I walked through our small front hall and found Andy sitting on our couch, deep in thought, staring straight ahead. I ran over to him and gave him a big hug, interrupting an almost trancelike look on his face. He told me that the doctors had explained that the tests of the cells from the growth had come back and that it was malignant oral cancer—specifically, tongue cancer. They weren’t entirely sure how much there was, but it was possible it had spread to the throat and the lymph nodes in the neck.
I think for anyone, when they hear that they or a loved one has been diagnosed with cancer, their minds almost immediately jump to the ultimate fear: death. I know mine did, and I’m sure Andy’s went there as well. But we didn’t talk about that possibility, at least not yet. Still, a dark conversation we had just a few weeks before was at the front of my mind as I tried to comfort Andy. Driving around doing errands, we had started talking about our biggest fears, and both of us had expressed just how scared of death we were.
“No, you don’t understand, Bean,” he told me as I drove us to Target. “The degree that I’m scared of death is unique. Some people are resigned to fate, but I’m not. I think about death a lot, more than most people.”
Sitting on the couch in our apartment a few weeks later, he didn’t have to remind me of that conversation or verbalize that fear. It was self-evident.
As Andy called his parents and stepparents in Wisconsin to tell them the frightening news, I stepped out of the apartment and called my parents.
“Oh my God,” my mom exclaimed, and began crying. “Call Sean,” she said. My older brother had recently begun working as a radiation oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York City, one of the nation’s premier cancer hospitals. Of all the focuses Sean could have decided on, he happened to be specializing in head and neck cancer: the very kind of cancer Andy had just been diagnosed with.
Pacing outside our apartment building’s back door and under a bright, flickering orange fluorescent light, I peppered Sean with a million questions—some heavy, others more superficial.
“Uh, will Andy lose his hair?”
“Probably not.”
While he couldn’t provide me with too many specifics because he hadn’t seen Andy’s records, he told me that the likeliest path forward would be surgery, followed by radiation and chemotherapy. He described the surgery, a likely significant dissection of Andy’s tongue, which would require a graft from his arm to rebuild the removed part.
“Is he going to be able to talk after that?!”
“Most likely, but it depends on how far the cancer has spread and exactly where it is in the tongue.”
Most likely, I thought. Jesus Christ.
I was scared to ask the question that was at the front of my mind. I was afraid of the answer. All of my questions danced around the central issue. I couldn’t ask, “Is he going to die?”
What if I ended up knowing more about Andy’s future than he did? What if the prognosis wasn’t go
od? My role now was to be the moral support for Andy as he underwent treatment. And I knew that if I appeared pessimistic in the least, he would be able to sense it.
“I don’t know what to do, Sean!” I felt completely overwhelmed, a feeling that I’m sure paled in comparison to the fear that was consuming Andy.
“Have Andy’s records sent to me. I’ll take a look and I’ll see if I can get him into Johns Hopkins,” he reassured me, referring to the major hospital in Baltimore that, like Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York, was known as a leader in cancer treatment.
The next few days were oddly normal as we began to scout out treatment options. Andy and I went in to work. We cooked and watched our shows. But throughout everything, the cloud of cancer hovered, both of us bracing for an impending storm.
Sean managed to get us into Hopkins. As we drove the thirty minutes up to Baltimore for our consultation before surgery, we knew how lucky we were to have access to the resources and skills that would no doubt aid Andy’s chances at a successful treatment.
“This is already so scary. I can’t imagine having to do this without Sean’s help and guidance,” Andy told me.
Just like with my coming out two years before, Sean had rushed into the situation as a reassuring voice of support. Now he was helping to shepherd my boyfriend through what already seemed to be very serious cancer. Almost no one has an ally like Sean to help them get the best possible care available; many do not even have access to health insurance, something that took the cost of Andy’s treatment down from well over a hundred thousand dollars to a few copays.
Tomorrow Will Be Different Page 16