NONFICTION | Patricia Martin PRIDE

NONFICTION

PRIDE

By Patricia Martin

The day came when I was ready to step forward and claim my identity as the parent of a transgender youth. It was the day of the Chicago Pride Parade, June 2016. I woke early and made a sign to carry. The sign was a riff on the I heart NY logo. I wrote with giant magic markers: I (heart) my trans child. I colored the heart in with rainbow colors. A little corny, I thought. But it was my last sheet of poster board; it would have to do. Texting one of the members of my trans-parent support group, I let her know I was heading to the meet up spot. I stuffed a backpack full of sunscreen and water bottles and burbled my way to the car.

By the time I arrived, people were lined up waiting to march. It was still morning, but the heat was already bearing down. Everywhere I looked was an explosion of color. Floats were festooned with rainbow archways made of balloons. Flashy dancers, drill teams, men wearing stilettos and lace corsets — it was like being backstage at a Tim Burton send up of Vegas.

I’d promised my friend, Kit, that I’d find her. Swimming past men in hoop-skirted ball gowns and feather headdresses,

past the Women in the Trades marching band and a gay politicians’ float, I made my way to the Lambda Legal Defense Fund megafloat. There, Kit stood at the prow, arms akimbo. I waved. She saw me and gave a loud whoop, popping two thumbs up.

In any direction it was a flotilla of reverie. Suddenly, police whistles blared, and cops whizzed by on bikes signaling us to get rolling. I found my group and stuck close to the middle of the street, not sure what to expect on the periphery. As we snaked through the streets of Boystown, I held up my sign a little higher. People shouted to me. A bevy of queens up in a highrise balcony got my attention and blew kisses at me. I scanned the onlookers. Teenage kids with acne and braces, old dandies with rainbow ties, all waved and cheered us on. Young mothers held up their toddlers who clutched little rainbow flags in their tiny fists.

The cacophony was deafening, and I couldn’t make out what people were shouting. But they were smiling. All of them. An anthropologist I once worked with taught me the axiom that in no country, province, or village anywhere in the world are the upturned corners of the mouth a sign of menace.

We turned down Broadway, the parade slowing to a crawl as bumptious floats stuttered around the corner. I was edged to the curb, where a boy saw my sign. He looked to be 12 or 13. Hollering above the din, he shouted hoarsely, “You, lady, hey you.” Pointing at me he pushed his way through the crowd. I moved toward him so he wouldn’t have to keep yelling.

“You, yeah, you!” I stepped closer. “You’re a good mother,” he said. I lifted my sunglasses to meet his eyes, long enough to see the kid was crying a little. I thanked him and gave him a wobbly smile. “Where are you from?” I asked.

“Southern Indiana, ma’am,” he said.

“Are you heading home after the parade? Or do you plan to stay?”

“I’m not sure,” he answered timidly.

“Listen, you go home or at least someplace safe. You promise me,” I said gravely.

A grin curled up the corner of his face and the marchers swept me along until he was out of sight.

It’s hard to imagine that parents kick their gay teens out of the family home in this day and age. But every year, scores of gay and transgender young people arrive in Chicago seeking safe haven. Living on the streets they soon become prey, a fate I couldn’t imagine for this sweet-faced boy.

Marching along the next few blocks I was grateful for my sunglasses. They made a gutter to catch whatever ran down my face — sweat or tears, or both; I could no longer distinguish. The heat was staggering. The blocks stretched on, and I was down to my last bottle of water, which was warm.

Sometime later, I can’t say when, we came upon a crowd of spectators holding signs with hateful messages. The protestors shouted with contorted faces and shook their fists, condemning us for our sins. There were no upturned corners on any mouths. Looking tense, the police lined the curb standing shoulder to shoulder to form a safety barrier. I lifted my sign. The crowd thundered. My chest pounded. Everything was reeling. Then I hoisted it as high as my arms could reach. More jeers.

The next thing I recall is throwing my head back to let loose a howl that shook my body. I didn’t look at any of the other trans-parents in my group, this was just me now. From my belly I gathered up another bellowing howl. I was a wolf, now. Again, louder. Pumping my sign in the air, I roared at the protestors. Each howl a soaring primal release of all my petty agonies, my

tormented fears about who I was or wasn’t as a mother, all my misplaced anxiety over my child’s decision to change genders. The mob had given me permission to unleash an angry shadow of myself. But I wasn’t thinking that at the time. I was doing exactly what felt natural to me: standing in the middle of a street in Chicago in broad daylight, howling like an animal.

Later that day, my son Henry and I planned to meet at a pub near the parade’s end point. Nine months into his gender transition, I was curious to see how he was doing. Having taken a summer job at a grocery store to help with college costs, he had to miss the parade for the first time in years. My phone juddered.

“On train.”

“K”

“WRU?”

“Street in front of pub”

Cool (emoji)

Waiting in front of the old brownstone tavern for Henry to arrive, I rested my sign on the iron fence and sat down on the stoop. When I sat, the full weight of the day, the crowd, the heat, the affirmation, the zaniness, the conflict; it was all wrung from me at once. Looking down at my legs, I saw they were sunburnt and streaked with dirt.

“Mom!” Henry called from across the street. There he stood, waving excitedly and holding a bouquet of flowers. He looked so different; his shoulders seemed broader. As he jogged across the street, I noticed his gait was more masculine. Smiling, he handed me the bouquet. “Here, these are for you,” he said. “Thanks, Mom. Thanks for marching.” We hugged and went inside where we were grateful it was cool and dark. We got a table near the window and watched the wilted marchers and

spectators stroll by as if in slow motion. Over cold beers and fried bar snacks, we talked about the parade. I kept the wolf mom business to myself. At one point, Henry threw back his head and laughed the way he did as a little kid when I’d toss him in the air. I felt a catch in my throat.

A line had formed at the doorway near the bar, so I paid the bill to free up the table. Henry had to go meet friends at a party, he told me. As for me, I needed a shower. We stepped out into the warm June evening. The sounds of house parties rose and flowed onto the lit streets. Henry helped me fold up my sign and wedged it into a trash can. Then we hugged and parted. I stood for a while watching him walk away, into his life.

Days later, I got an email from Kit. She had taken a picture of me from her perch on the Lambda float before the parade started. I was holding my sign. My smile was a faint slit. I looked small and timid. I was posing for her, I suppose, but for the life of me I couldn’t recall the moment or what I was thinking.