Writing While Trans: Cops and Corporations at Pride

Just over twenty-five years ago, I attended my first pride festival in Atlanta and was actually in the parade that wound through the midtown area to Piedmont Park. I was a newly out trans woman and was so excited to be surrounded by so many amazing queer people.

Why LGBTQ+ Pride is Celebrated

June 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, a pivotal moment in LGBTQ+ history when patrons of the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York, fought back against cops after years of police brutality. The first gay pride parade was in honor of the one year anniversary of the riot.

When our right to exist is regularly challenged and politicized, when discrimination and violence are still a very real threat, the celebration of queer identities is a must in our ongoing fight for equality.

But for me, the local Pride festival and parade are no longer a part of that effort. I'd like to explain why.

Pride Has Sold Out to the Corporations

When I first attended Pride, it was not only a chance to feel safe and surrounded by my diverse, beautiful, and brave community, but it was a celebration of our culture. Parade floats and festival booths featured queer musicians, authors, and other creators of LGBTQ+ culture.

Photo by Toni Reed on Unsplash

But that has changed dramatically. The cost for entering floats or renting a booth has skyrocketed so that the majority of booths and floats represent mega corporations hungry for the queer dollar.

Timeshares, banks, real estate companies, insurance companies, t-shirt companies, blah, blah, blah. Not even queer-owned business for the most part. And not always corporations with queer-friendly employment practices. But when booths cost $800+, who else can afford them? Certainly not queer authors like myself.

I am told that the money the local pride organizers charge goes toward LGBTQ+ charities and non-profits. And that is a very good thing. But the event itself has lost its soul. So I pass.

Uniformed Cops at Pride

I want to make one thing perfectly clear. I am NOT a crook. Nor do I hate cops. I personally know several cops who are wonderful people. On the flipside, I am afraid of cops and for very good reason.

Photo credit: Rhododendrites

For starters, as mentioned above, the queer pride movement started as a fight against ongoing police brutality. Cops routinely raided gay clubs. Gay, trans, and other queer people were often brutalized, raped, and even killed by the very people charged with enforcing the law.

When I transitioned in the Deep (American) South in 1992, not much had changed. I had some scary encounters when stopped by law enforcement. Driving while Visibly Trans was a nightmare scenario.

But hey! That was long ago. It's not like that now, is it? I mean, we have Laverne Cox and RuPaul and Asia Kate Dillon on mainstream television.

And yet I regularly hear stories from my queer friends being harassed and bullied by law enforcement. And don't get me started on how we're treated by the TSA. And then there is the clear message from the Trump administration that queer people don't matter. We don't deserve to serve in the military. We don't deserve any protection from discrimination by employers or even doctors. We have no value as far as they are concerned.

Photo credit: Fibonacci Blue on Best Running / CC BYCopy

Just this past week, a deputy police chief called for the extermination of queer people. Our extermination!!! Police in Detroit led a band of armed neo-Nazis right to the Pride festival to harass queer festival goers. Why are we not allowed to celebrate our community and culture free from abuse and threats of violence?

When north Texas cops are caught sharing racist memes on Facebook, when cops threaten to kill a pregnant, unarmed black woman in Phoenix because her four-year-old accidentally shoplifted a doll, do you think I want these same officers showing up wandering around the Pride festival grounds? Hell no!

I know there are many wonderful law enforcement officers. But when you are part of a marginalized community that has been historically abused by cops and continues to be, I don't want them anywhere near where we gather.

Queer cops are welcome, but not in uniform.

Pride Should Be a Safe Space and a Celebration of Culture

I wasn't always so firm on this stance, but the recent events mentioned above, combined with my personal and community history, have changed my mind.

I want Pride to return to what it was, to reconnect with our roots. A declaration of our right to exist in peace and a celebration of our culture. Not a sellout to corporate America or a place where our oppressors refuse to give us a safe space.

Dharma Kellher: The Iron Goddess Interview

by Holly West

Dharma Kelleher writes about "renegades, outlaws and misfits," but what's immediately clear upon cracking open her debut novel, IRON GODDESS (out from Alibi on June 28), is that she also writes characters with heart. Shea Stevens is an ex-con who's worked hard to make a happy life for herself, only to be sucked backed in when her bike shop is burglarized and she has to confront her troubled past.

I'm delighted that Dharma graciously agreed to an interview about IRON GODDESS, how her life experiences inform her writing and diversity in crime fiction.

HW: Tell us, briefly, what IRON GODDESS is about.

DK: IRON GODDESS follows Shea Stevens, an ex-con and custom motorcycle builder, whose finds that her shop has been broken into, an employee shot and three custom bikes stolen. She immediately suspects the Confederate Thunder, an outlaw biker club once run by her father.

When Shea reaches out to her sister, who is married to the club’s current president, she learns that the same drug dealers who robbed her shop have kidnapped her niece. Shea reluctantly agrees to join forces with the Confederate Thunder to save her niece and recover the stolen bikes.

HW: There are a few LGBT characters in the book, and Shea herself is a lesbian. While such characters exist in mainstream crime fiction, they are few and far between. Was it important to you to write a character that could serve as a role model of sorts or were you simply interested in writing a good story?

DK: I wanted both. I’ve read a LOT of lesbian fiction where the story focuses on the protagonist’s sexuality. But most thrillers and other crime fiction with a straight protagonist doesn’t focus on their sexuality. I wanted a lesbian protagonist where her attraction to women is not the most interesting thing about her and isn’t a leading part of the story.

Yes, Shea is a lesbian, but she is also an ex-con who grew up in an outlaw biker family. She runs a shop for second-chancers that builds custom bikes for women. Her relationship with Jessica is the least interesting thing about her.

HW: How does your own life experience inform your writing and the themes you want to explore? 

DK: I came out as transgender about 25 years ago in the Deep South, so roughly half my lifetime. My family rejected me and even after all this time, our relationship is troubled. So I wanted to explore the idea of family estrangement, dysfunction, and reconciliation.

Also, I’ve been a biker for several years now and love the biker subculture, though there are some very dark and sinister parts of it that are fun to explore in fiction. There is a lot of camaraderie and solidarity, but also rampant racism, sexism, and homophobia, not to mention a lot of substance abuse and violence.

HW: IRON GODDESS is set in the biker world, so the crime fiction genre seems an obvious choice. But you’ve been writing for years and you’re an avid reader, so I’m curious if you considered other genres for Shea? 

DK: I did write an early attempt at a contemporary, almost chick-lit style novel which featured both Shea and Rios, but the characters were much different than they are now.

I have found, since writing IRON GODDESS, that writing crime fiction is more fun. It’s very cathartic. High-speed chases, gun fights, dramatic rescues? How can I resist?

HW: Who are your influences, both in and out of the genre? 

DK: So many influences. Lawrence Block, for starters. Both his Matt Scudder and Bernie Rhodenbarr series are wonderfully written. I love Elmore Leonard and the complex characters he creates. Jim Butcher (of Dresden Files fame) has an unrivaled talent for vivid description with an economy of words. And more recently, I have fallen in love with the writing of Christa Faust for her unconventional characters.

HW: Job-wise, your background is diverse: you have a degree in journalism and have worked as a news director, a construction worker, a goldsmith, a caregiver and a web developer. Given the breadth of your experience and interests, is working as a full-time writer something you’d like to do?

DK: YES!!!!! I have enjoyed most of the fields I have worked in for varying reasons, but my first love has always been creative writing.

I first started as a teenager typing out short stories on a manual Smith Corona typewriter and reading Lawrence Block’s fiction column in Writer’s Digest magazine.

Then I fell away from it for the better part of 25 years to get my sh*t together. For the last ten years, I’ve buckled down to master the skills that creative writing requires, so as I turn 50 this year, I finally have a book to show for it.

HW: What’s next for Shea and/or your own writing?

DK: In the next novel, Shea finds herself forced to infiltrate an all-women’s motorcycle club as a confidential informant to find out who’s been selling lethal drugs laced with strychnine. My editor and I are still working on a title, but it promises to be filled with lots of plot twists and action.
I have some ideas for future novels in the series as well. So we’ll see how these first two do and go from there.

***

Dharma Kelleher writes gritty tales about outlaws, renegades, and misfits. Her hobbies include riding motorcycles, picking locks and getting inked. Her debut novel IRON GODDESS will be published by Penguin Random House’s Alibi imprint on June 28, 2016. Learn more about her and her writing at dharmakelleher.com.