I voted.
I am 43 years old and for the first time in my life I voted
in a presidential election. I am not sure whether I was not taught the importance
of using my voice or if the lesson simply fell on deaf ears – more interested
in chasing butterflies and romping joyfully around, blissfully ignorant of all
the comings and goings of the world.
A little over a year ago, I was educated. I was taught about
women’s suffrage. I was taught about how brave and bold and courageous women
fought to give me my right to vote – for even though I do not identify as a
woman, my driver’s license makes it so in the eyes of the US government.
Since that time, I have been surrounded by a host of
wonderful queers who have educated me about things like racism and sexism and
gentrification and islamophobia and ableism and misogyny and privilege. My eyes
have been opened to a world of power and privilege and injustice. I have had my
own experiences with homophobia and transphobia. There is so so much work to be
done.
So I voted.
This is the third time I went to the polling place a block
down the road from my office to vote. The third time I made sure I had my ID.
The third time I went to exercise my right as a US citizen to participate in
the electoral process. I was nervous. And I was proud.
I was disheartened to see that for every Clinton sign, there
were at least five Trump signs surrounding it. Every Bennett sign was lost in
sea of Comstock ones. There was a Trump/Comstock table set up, just at the edge
of the “No campaigning past this point” sign. They had donuts and coffee and
white Christian heterosexual upper middle class people. I stood straight,
shoulders back, proud of who I am, and walked past them and their Trump donuts.
I held the outer door for a young woman and she held the inner door for me.
I walked in.
I walked up to the table and offered my driver’s license.
She took my ID and looked at it.
“Full name?”
(Nervous excited butterflies! I never get to say my full
name!)
Jackson Alexander
Clark
She looked at my ID and looked at me.
She looked at my ID and looked at me.
She looked at my ID and looked at me.
I started to panic a little. Did I say it wrong? It’s only
been my name for a year. Is that it? I’m sure it’s Alexander. I just talked to someone
the other day about that. That’s what it says on my ID. That’s my name. What is
happening? I said it again.
Jackson Alexander Clark
Now as I think about it, perhaps
she was confused by my name and the “Sex” box on my ID with the letter “F”
underneath it. Maybe she thought I was trying to cheat the system somehow.
Maybe she could not reconcile in her mind my man’s name and her perception of
my gender. Likely she has no idea how her pause made me squirm in discomfort and
in fear. Or maybe she does and does not care. I will choose to believe the
former.
“Address?”
PO Box 1…
“No!”
I jumped. It’s simply a force of
habit. To give the PO Box. It is what is on my ID. But my cheeks flushed with embarrassment
all the same.
12391…..
I spat out my physical address, feeling
the nervousness and awkwardness wash over me.
She sat and just looked at me.
The same insecurity began to
creep into my head. Did I say it wrong? Did I somehow mess this up? Am I not
going to be able to vote because she does not believe I am who I am? A lifetime
of struggling to become who I really am and now I could be turned away because
I do not match who this stranger things I am?
Moments turned to eons as we
looked at one another. I started to tremble. I want to tell you that I trembled with righteous indignation but that would be a lie. Fear. I was afraid.
I repeated it.
12391….
She handed me back my ID. She
handed me a card. Wordlessly, I walked away.
Six feet away I turned in my
card, I received my ballot, and I went and sat down.
I am grateful that I educated
myself on the constitutional amendments before I got there. My brain had slowed
down and I was having trouble comprehending what I was reading. I studied the
directions. It seemed somehow hard to remember what I was doing there. What I
wanted to do. What names meant what to whom.
Then I remembered the Trump
donuts.
OH THAT! I’m fighting against the
Trump donuts. I’m doing one very small part of MY part to fight injustice in
this world. I filled in the circles slowly and methodically.
I rose, inserted my ballot into
the machine, watched my votes be counted, and left the building.
I voted.
Those who know me well know that
now I am wondering what I could have done differently, what I could have done
better, how could I have diffused the tension/aggression/confusion that
blossomed as I handed my ID to a stranger who was charged with being sure that I
was who I said I was.
But I know the answer. I did it
already. By exercising my right to vote. By walking into my polling place in
White Post Virginia as a trans identified person and silently booming “I belong
here. I have a voice here. My vote counts, too.”
I voted.
And I’m going to get my own donuts.
Equality donuts for everyone.
