Introduction To Therese Scott

"A Woman's Lament"- By Therese Scott

In the seventies, I thought nothing of strolling down the beach smoking a joint. I called it hiding in plain sight. Those days are gone. This being said, I am still hiding in plain sight.

I work in a grocery store. Daily, I am asked things like:

“Dude, where’s the beer at”?

“Excuse me, sir, do you have a bathroom”?

In the course of my day, I can hear:

“Tell him thank-you honey”, when I help a child locate their desired treat.

Or told:

“Thanks buddy, this is just what I need”.

I don’t mind being asked questions or being thanked for doing my job, I only mind that the people addressing me aren’t really addressing me; they can’t be addressing me, I’m a woman.

I’m not Transgendered, I’m not a “Separatist Lesbian Feminist, I’m not a Butch Dyke. I am a woman who refuses to insert myself into a reality that limits me; unfortunately, my resistance limits me.

I was raised by a runway model, a woman described by one fan of her racing career as “a cross between Audrey and Katherine Hepburn”. She often wore faded jeans, a watch cap, an old sweatshirt and worn sneakers.

Me, I was grunge before it existed.

I’ve been living in baggy jeans, layered shirts, Pendleton’s and comfortable boots, ball caps, horn rim Ray Bans and funky ski caps since 1974. I wear sports bras, I am not afraid of “uni-boob syndrome”. I really don’t care to follow fashion trends and I flatly refuse to dress to let people know what sex I am; if they can’t tell, it’s their problem.

When I was about fourteen years old, I declared to my family and friends that I was gay. My mother was unsurprised and responded to my declaration with:

“I figured something was up when you didn’t ask for refills of your birth control pills.”

Pragmatism is something we share, my mother and I.

Mom and I fought about my fervent dislike of dresses long before I came out to her. I know that this society needs visual cues but to force myself to dress in complete opposition to my true nature is anathematic to my deepest being. I am here to care for others and myself, I am a steward of humanity, but I will no longer subject myself to the senseless behaviors of individuals who refuse to really see the people with whom they interact on a daily basis.

My partner of fourteen years has no sympathy for my indignation because she was trained to “dress for success”. After my mom stopped fighting with me over clothing, I dressed as I pleased and was comfortable. I am a human woman, not a clothes mannequin for the masses.

I am a woman who looks into peoples’ eyes. I spent too many years as a shamed recipient of childhood sexual abuse and young adult brutal physical and psychological rape; I have had to force myself to be present, I would like the rest of the people around me to join with me in reasonable human behavior.

If the world is in the path of a paradigm shift, why do people resist really seeing each other? Why is it so scary for people to look, really look at each other? Who is the one who started the rumor that gay will infect you if you let it near you; let it live in your neighborhood? It is time for the nonsense to stop, it must stop, now.

My father can’t speak to me because he feels guilt for not being there for me when I was a child; he’s fearful and guilty because I’m gay. He isn’t ashamed of the fact that his only son won’t venture into the states to see his son because he has a child support judgment against him in Costa Rica that is much less expensive than the one against him from Atlanta Georgia.

But I’m gay…

When I came out to my father he said:

“Good thing you said something little girl cause I was just about to hit on your girlfriend”. Did he talk like that to my brother when he brought his girlfriend(s), over for Scott family events?

I don’t think so.

The fact of my homosexuality has lived as a divisive undercurrent in my life since I came out. Society placed me in a category, parts of my family set me aside, my “community”, would have nothing to do with me because I was underage and reason for incarceration.

“You’re fine little sister, but fifteen will get me twenty”.

The world was still too close to seeing gay as a disease, a punishable offense back in 1974. It was not pretty to be gay, there was no LGBTG community to embrace my fellow lesbians and I back then. The shadow of Lyndon Larouche would hang darkly over the Gay community by 1978 and we all lived with the threat of legislation that would threaten our human rights.

We were labeled as lesbian separatists. If a straight mother saw me talking with her daughter, I was subjected to a withering glance and the all too familiar “I’ll kill you if you even think of touching my daughter”, subtext. It was not me that these women needed to protect their daughters from but their male friends and family members. It was my uncle who turned me out when I was eight years old, my neighbor, who wanted to watch me, his teenage neighbor “service”, his wife.

The world now and the world of the seventies are so very much the same; the only thing that has changed is the dialogue. I as a Lesbian am protected in my free speech now by the same rights that were not supported in the seventies; if the laws existed, they weren’t enforced.

In the seventies, I was supposed to jump at any chance to warm up some guys wife while he “enjoyed the show”, possibly “spanking the monkey”. I trust my experiences, the only thing that’s changed is the way we use our words in public. I am not a ravening, howling, rabid dog, maddened by my rampant disease of Homosexuality. I did not then nor do I need now, “the right man”. I’ve been with plenty of men, and I still feel I get the better of the deal by being friends. The fact of the matter is, they often treat their friends better than their lovers.

I am a woman, a woman on a maddeningly fine edge.

This lament may be finished but my life is not. I’ll keep hoping and working toward an acceptable solution. I’ll keep being present with those I engage, keep acknowledging people for who they are, not for what I want to see them as. I’ll manifest humanity in my interactions and hope for the same from the world.

I know, I know, good luck with that…