Honestly as long as I’m talking about the porn store though, which I don’t do often because client privacy is paramount and so I don’t often talk about it, let me address the sweetest and saddest thing I’ve ever seen, which not incidentally is why is will go to war for trans folk

The place I worked was...let’s say seedy. Times Square in the 70s, if what I’ve heard was accurate. It’s not the “adult shop” you bring your vanilla wife to if you’re looking for a racy addition to your eight year of marriage.

this place wasn’t even orgasms, it was to jerk off.

So we had two rooms we called theaters, which was a nice euphemism for big screens and couches nobody would sit on unless they wanted to be gross-dirty

Main room showed straight porn, smaller room showed gay porn. Place was popular with the kinds of couples who wanted to feel daring and gay dudes who were in the closet and the occasional just wonderfully honest lonely guy

(All of the couples who showed up were experimenting with swinging and bdsm, which isn’t a knock on those sexual proclivities but this place was like the early-teen tit grabs compared to say polyamory or actual dungeons)

Anyway so we had this one client who in their daily life was Very Amazing. Not even important exactly outside their field, just Jesus this person was a genius and grappled with existential humanity and i was always so so impressed with them as a single being

In that line of work, one does not merely ask a customer why they’re in a place like this

One day, I did.

They tell me it’s the only place they can wear the clothes they want to and nobody will judge them.

Obviously at this point I ask what they mean

Turns out this is a woman who’s known for ages who she is an she’s carefully found the place within a round trip drive if she’s got two days in a row off

She ain’t here to get laid (though fine if it works out like that)

She’s here to be called her cause she can’t do it IRL

Like this lady can’t be herself in her average life so she drives hours to come to this shitty place because nobody knows her or will connect her to her professional life and tbh in this place we’ll call you queen of England if you pay cover

And we won’t let anyone fuck with you

Now I knew this woman before I knew what trans was

But I spent just endless hours on the overnight shift with her while she was dressed as a lady and I always thought it was fucking tragic she’d have to hide it and that’s being a porn theater clerk

You see and keep secrets

That was two decades ago and the public understanding and language has evolved, and hell so have I

But anytime I hear about some bullshit about trans folk or I see someone afraid to be the brilliant person I saw come out of that shell when she could be herself without fear?

I wonder what that woman could have done had half her brain not been taken up with her double life and her keeping up straight man appearances and her stifling her dysphoria

And I’ll be goddamned if I don’t fight for a world where she could be a regularly tortured genius

Point is as long as I’m on the topic I do not have to understand to know.

Call me anytime and I won’t get it but I will know who you should talk to and I’ll connect you and you’re not alone

I wish I could have done that for her, but she told me a thing once and I live by it:

She said, and this is when I was telling her how I couldn’t quit my job because my boss took my ID

“Linda. Nothing any authority does makes your soul change. They will make it hard. They will fuck with you. Make it work. Jump on he hurdle.”

I used quotes loosely. Her direct quote that’s in my head is this:

“Pain is life. Our pain is extra. That’s how you know we matter.”

Friends let me tell you about this legend that lived before “trans” was in the lexicon

She’s doing well now but just so you know

I mean also I hate her a lot because she borrowed my bra one night and it looked better on her so I angrily insisted she keep it

Like goddamn buy me the same one a band size up, that’s just etiquette, obviously I can NEVER WEAR THIS AGAIN welcome to being a lady