Women Born Transsexual

It took 46 years but the water and wind wore away the rock.

I came out to my friends in January of 1969, almost 7 years after I first came out to my parents.

It was a busy spring. I started hormones, fought in the battle for People’s Park in Berkeley, went full time.

Across the bay in SF gay men were picketing a cruise ship line demanding non-discrimination in employment.  Even then there were gay and lesbian people agitating for the right to marry.

All before Stonewall.

Two years after Stonewall I went to a demonstration in Sacramento demanding Marriage Equality.

Now I am old.

So many people I knew then, hippies, lefties, LGBT people are dead and gone.

I wish they were here for this day.

As for me…

This fall Tina and I will formally get married.

We have been together for years.  We have grown old together.

We have a little house, we love and care fore each other.  Let the young fight the fights we shall tend our own garden.

The most important lesson I learned over those many years was to live as though our rights were a given even if they were never formally recognized.

I learned to ask why when told I couldn’t live freely and as though I had the same rights as anyone else and to defend myself when someone tried to take away my rights.