#decision day

Sodom - Decision Day(2016)

Today, the day the Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional for a state to deny same-sex couples marriage licenses, kind of sucked for me.

First, let me say that I’m excited about marriage equality. I believe marriage inequality was one of the most severe ways that discrimination was codified into the laws of our nation; it was a United States government-approved message that same-sex relationships were marked as illegitimate or at least less legitimate than ‘opposite’-sex pairings. I also believe bans on same-sex marriage violated the Constitution. I believe this ruling was just. And I am thrilled and moved when I think about my friends who understandably feel like their relationships finally got the validation they deserve today. I am thrilled and moved when I think about the fact that no child will again grow up in the United States thinking that marriage, the validation that comes from a marriage license, and the rights that are awarded as part of being married are off limits to them simply because of whom they love or might love in the future. I think about those of us who did grow up believing that, the people who only in their wildest dreams believed they would someday have access to this institution that (like it or not) is fundamental to our society’s understanding of family – they got that today. Their wildest dreams came true. I am so happy about that. And, full disclosure: as a transgender person, I have a horse in this race, too. Regardless of the assigned sex of my spouse, before today, marriage was a complicated thing for me as no governmental office could really straighten out whether my future marriage would have been “same-sex” or not. And I do plan on getting married and am excited about that part of my future. Let me be clear: I am very happy about this ruling.

And I didn’t want today to suck. I accepted a wonderful friend’s invitation to watch the SCOTUS blog’s live updates and celebrate should they decide for marriage equality. I toasted with champagne and I texted friends – I was glad this was the decision. I was moved and excited for all the reasons I describe above. And I tried to really connect with that – I watched videos of people in my state of Kentucky get marriage licenses that mere hours prior had been prohibited to them. I read statements and listened to speeches praising the decision. I clicked “like” on all the statuses celebrating the ruling. I even had friends get engaged. I also clicked “like” on all the pride-themed facebook photos of my friends (especially my straight and cisgender identified friends). I repeatedly told myself how remarkable it was that I was witnessing this outpouring of mainstream support for same-sex relationships.

I wanted so badly to be purely exuberant. I wanted to lose myself in the celebration of this decision. I wanted to be able to look back in a year or a decade and say “on the day the Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage equality, I couldn’t contain my happiness.” I wanted to join friends for drinks and take instagram pictures with big smiles. I wanted to hug my friends for whom this was really personally meaningful and toast to them. And for the record, I’m mostly really really glad that lots of people were able to do all this. But I couldn’t. I spent most of my day in bed.

I kept thinking about how just yesterday, my partner and I were at a close friend’s house helping him gather his suit so that he could attend the funeral of a veteran and trans woman who took her own life this week. I thought about the people who cared about her pressing their suits and slipping on their black shoes. I thought about this scene of a group of people mourning the deeply felt loss of a trans woman while the streets outside filled with confetti and rainbow flags and celebration of marriage rights. This image kept returning to my mind and I became increasingly pained by the hashtag #lovewins. Love just didn’t feel like it was winning yet to me.

In 1973, Ursula Le Guin wrote a short piece titled “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.” It describes an amazing, exciting, energetic, and beautiful summer festival in the utopian city of Omelas, where people are truly joyous and successful.

“A boundless and generous contentment, a magnanimous triumph felt not against some outer enemy but in communion with the finest and fairest in the souls of all men everywhere and the splendor of the world’s summer; this is what swells the hearts of the people of Omelas, and the victory they celebrate is that of life.”

This utopia, however, is contingent upon the imprisonment and suffering of a child, who is locked in a basement. LeGuin describes the town’s awareness of the child’s existence and the absolute rule that not even kind word be spoken to it. She writes that the townspeople of Omelas are often disgusted or angered by this, but ultimately they accept the child’s suffering and ignore it in order to allow for the success and happiness of Omelas.

In many ways, the atmosphere of Omelas that Le Guin describes sounds like the amped-up, utopian version of celebrations happening today. I think it is easy to draw the analogy that like Omelas and its willful ignorance of a suffering child, much of the celebration happening today is contingent upon ignoring the continued suffering that marriage equality cannot change. Plenty of people have written (in more eloquent and informed ways than I can) about this suffering, which sadly extends even beyond the aforementioned epidemic of trans suicide to the violence against trans women of color, to the lack of anti-discrimination clauses that include gender identity (and yes even sexual orientation in some states), to systems that continue to leave no room for non-binary gender identities and expressions, to systems that continue to oppress and further marginalize low income communities and people of color, etc.

Maybe I struggled to fully lose myself in celebration of the marriage equality ruling, because it felt too much like Omelas. That’s what I felt like I was watching play out when the trans woman of color and immigrant who staged a protest during President Obama’s speech at the White House pride gala was laughed at, mocked, dismissed, and called a “heckler” by the crowd of mostly white cisgender gay men who just wanted to celebrate the (albeit exciting and awesome) LGBTQ victories of the past year without having to think about the groups of people they aren’t fighting for.

I think I also believe a few painful things to be true: 1) no victory for trans people or another more marginalized sector of the “LGBTQ” population will ever be celebrated this loudly; 2) the ‘swift change’ that is so exciting regarding public support for same-sex marriage came from hard work and visibility that was possible because there was a lot of financial investment in this fight – because unlike the other issues facing my community, being denied marriage rights is something that actually affects people with privilege; 3) there is a huge risk that support of the LGBTQ orgs who need to continue to fight for the causes listed above (and so many more) will lessen as the rallying cry of marriage equality can no longer be utilized; 4) many of the people celebrating today are part of the social currents and systems that continue to oppress members of the LGBTQ community that are not white, cisgender, typical in gender expression, upper SES, and male.

I don’t fancy myself very radical – I am not really challenging the institution of marriage, and I think marriage equality is important, and I am truly happy and proud that our country has achieved it.

But I couldn’t celebrate it today. Not the way other people were, and not the way I honestly wanted to. I’m glad for people who could. I think a lot of people are very aware of all of the pain and concerns I described and pretty successfully shut that off for a day in order to enjoy a big victory. And that’s appropriate. I’m glad they could.

I couldn’t. And so today kind of sucked.