Conservative Minds

"Many times when talking to conservative people in this town I’ve thought, You’d count me as a friend if it weren’t for politics."

One of the coasters at the transgender theme park is the Coming Out to Your Parents ride. I don’t get to ride that one.

When I came out to my parents, it didn’t sound much like, “Hey Mom, hey Dad, just wanted to let you know I’m a woman now, and I’d like to be called Heather.”

I was seven, and it sounded more like, “Mom, Dad, I want my name to be Dusty.” They named me Aaron, but I wanted a cowboy name. They said no, but I was stubborn so Dusty became my more-or-less masculine alter ego for the next four decades.

The next time I came out, I was in my twenties and it sounded like this: “Hey folks, I’m not going to your church anymore.”

I had returned after serving six years in the Navy, and I was no longer the Limbaugh-listening homophobe they had raised. The military trained me to do my job and not concern myself with other people’s sex lives. I suggested to our church friends that Jesus would not approve of our hating gay people, which brought the accusation that I was gay. When I said I wasn’t, I was accused of wanting to be gay.

My next coming out went like this: “Hey guys, I, uh, don’t believe in God anymore.”

I moved away from Texas, settled in Maine. We’d visit and continue to share in each other’s lives, but mostly we spent the next couple decades finding less and less common ground between us; until, finally, I came out one last time. This time it was, “Sorry y’all, we don’t treat people like that at my house,” and now we are no longer on speaking terms.

When I came out as Heather—like full-on, I-get-what-this-is-now Heather—I happened to be serving on my town’s select board (if you’re unfamiliar, that’s a colonial term for “city council” that we still use in Maine). The closest I got to going on the Coming Out to Your Parents ride was telling my fellow selectmen why I was showing up to meetings wearing nail polish. I didn’t want them thinking I’d cracked under the pressure of frugally spending taxpayer money, so I came out to them before one of our meetings.

It sounded like this: “Hey guys, just wanted to let you know I’m a woman now, and I’d like to be called Heather.”

And they responded, “Hi, Heather!”

My term was ending that year, and I would be running for re-election in a few months. I’d already petitioned to be on the ballot as “Dusty,” so I served out my term under that name, too. But because Trump never stopped campaigning after he lost in 2020, we were in a mid-term where national politics mattered, even in a town of less than four thousand people.

And because I intended to change my name right after the election, win or lose, I felt I needed to let people know. I didn’t want complaints that I’d misrepresented myself and won votes from people who never would’ve voted for a transgender candidate.

So, I transitioned very publicly in front of my whole town. I was in the newspaper wearing lavender and lipstick. Videos of our meetings were posted to Youtube.

It was hard to judge the town’s reaction. I didn’t get re-elected, but I got more votes than I did the first time I ran. Wherever I went, people were mostly accepting. Including conservatives. In fact, the only people in town who gave me any grief for transitioning were Democrats.

The staunchly conservative member of the select board asked me very sincerely at our next meeting, to make sure he heard me right, if I wished to be known as Heather. He and his wife have called me Heather ever since.

Many times when talking to conservative people in this town I’ve thought, You’d count me as a friend if it weren’t for politics. I have so much in common with them. My favorite compliment from anyone while serving on the board was: “I appreciate your conservative mind.”

I had to think about that one. Ok, yeah, I can see that. When it comes to the budget, I pretty much want you to have your shit in order.

I can sense when people have a philosophical objection to my existence. They are usually friendly or precisely neutral. Most are friendly. I understand the struggle. It’s conditioned in us deeply, and maintained socially. I came out in my twenties as merely not homophobic and lost my whole community. I won’t ask people to get my pronouns right if they have to give up their families to do it.

So there are some places I don’t go anymore. There are some old friends who no longer get in touch. I would have preferred to keep them, but gender is identity, and if I have to hide who I am so someone will like me, it isn’t friendship anyway.

Mom and Dad most likely have heard that I’ve transitioned. I doubt they were surprised as I suspect they knew this about me, but I doubt my claiming and embracing it will ease our estrangement.

Maybe a few of these folks will surprise me. The ability to accept people as they are comes from maturity and growth, so some of them may come back around. Probably not Mom. She has dementia, and since we’re looking at a pause on any social progress for the next four years, I suspect she’ll drift away with the comfortable memory of me as a little boy named Aaron. Maybe Dad will get lonely after she’s gone and want to reconnect, but I’m not placing any bets. People move on in life—that’s just part of it—and there will always be new faces to fill the spaces left empty by those we have loved.