Sappho Speaks: Hate Lives under the Softest, Smoothest Rock

What Would Sappho Say?

Lectori Salutem! or L.S. (Greetings to the Reader!)

From the inception of the following words and till now, the seeming demise of their usefulness, I have fallen under the moniker lipstick lesbian. Now lets not go overboard with me as the poster child. I am not. I merely was a slave to painted nails, lipstick and eye liner and rarely left the house without a little something-something on my face. My taste in clothes always ran more towards the designers rather than denim and flannel and I have only once been called a “dyke” with a straight face in my life and that was a case of severe ignorance and resulted in a close call with my life as well. The real kicker is it didn’t happen here in Houston with it’s multicultural views and seemingly conservative society overall. Oh no! It happened in the bastion of liberalism in the late 90’s, Austin, Texas.


I have been out of the closet and working except for those four “don’t ask and I won’t tell” years in the military since I was 18 years old to my parents, employers and pretty much anyone in my immediate path. No one I had contact with on a daily basis did not know I was gay. I had a Human Right Campaign Sticker and a Rainbow Sticker in the shape of a triangle on my car’s bumper. The most I ever got from it was positive – fellow gay people honking and pointing at my bumper and giving me the “thumbs up” sign or those pointing to their similar sticker and waving. Others just honked with approval. I had those stickers one car or another for 6 years and had them on the 1995 Honda Del Sol I was driving for 3 years at that point. I’d had 6 years of wonderful bonding with my community on the road in 1998.

As a so-called lipstick lesbian, I tended to blend in with the rest of society as just one of the straight gang. I constantly had to deal with the attention of straight men and I don’t mean because I am so beautiful. Men are easy. I am not fat, have great long, genetically gifted hair and 38-D breasts that God or the universe and laws of physics have decided are not going to sag… yet. It really doesn’t matter what I look like because I don’t think many of these guys make it to my face before they start talking. I misled you in that they are easy – they are easy to get, like a disease but hard and time consuming to get rid of. Now of course not all men are like this, but the ones who start coming on to you while you are trying to get your errands done and won’t take a nice, sweet brush off when offered, this characterization is for them. Your welcome straight women everywhere!!!!! So guys, give us a break, no is no. If we really thought you were all that we’d change the lame excuses that come out of our mouths as to why we can’t hang out with you or how we are between cell phone companies and have no phone number to offer. MOVE ALONG!!!!!

And I digress. Back to Austin circa 1998, driving around enjoying the road, almost always connecting with someone out there every trip I take. One evening I was driving home from work as an Airport Planner at the New Airport Project turning Austin-Bergrtom International Airport from an abandoned Air Force base to the full service International Airport it is today. It was a bit late in the summer but Daylight Sayings Time had not yet occurred so it was still light until almost 8 PM. I left for home around 7 PM and there was no one left at the airfield and once I turned toward Austin the roads were pretty deserted. At the time I didn’t even think about it as I had put in my own surround system in the little Del Sol with a great Sony System and Infinity Speakers and I just settled in for the 20 to 25 minute drive to the Northwest side of town. I had my stereo on pretty loud and I saw something way before I heard them.

A big countrified pick-up truck with floodlights across the roll bar came up from behind with it’s bright lights flashing on and off at me, honking their horn as well. I hadn’t heard the horn because of my music but when I saw all the commotion I turned sown the music and heard the sounds. I wasn’t sure what was up and panic had not set in yet. One of the three was standing in the back of the pick-up and motioned for me to roll down my window. Looking back, this is the part that gets me the most about my actions. Matthew Sheppard had been killed only 3 weeks earlier but my God, this was Austin, Texas where I had felt safe my whole adult life since I turned 18. I came out here for Christ’s sake. So…. I rolled down my window and they sped up to my window and tried to spit into it as one they yelled, “We’re going to kill you dyke” and I knew the I was in trouble. Thank God for that little 5-speed Del Sol because even their 8-cylinder pick-up was no match for it if I got off the highway and maneuvered the city streets I knew so well. I t was like a Mac Truck racing a go-cart on the go-cart’s track most of the time. I could tell they were not from Austin proper. The big police department wasn’t too much further through East Austin if I could just lead them there. I only had to snake him through about 7 or 8 miles of city streets before they would be confronted with the very daunting APD (Austin Police Department) building on 7th and Red River.

They made many mistakes as they chased me and came into the city limits. Continuing their hateful language gave me some allies who only saw a woman in distress being chased by a truck full of crazed rednecks so some joined the chase with bigger vehicles that mine, willing to take the fight to the street. At several points when it when it seemed they might just get out of their cars and come attack me at a light, cars on either sides were now screaming, daring the intruders to our fair city to step out of the safety of their vehicle. The closer we got to APD, there were at least 5 other cars following along to make sure these guys did not get away or try anything stupid. Slowly the idiots saw there plan had many flaws and they tried to cut out and make a U-Turn to exit. The trailing cars blocked them in as I had already called 91, giving notice of my imminent arrival. I stayed in my car until the police had the assholes in custody. I never looked at the significance of the stickers we put on our vehicles the same way again.

This was a life-changing event. It was all the reminder I needed that hate lurks under ever rock, even under the safest and softest of stone. It is the main reason why Hate Crimes Legislation is so important. These men had no idea if I was gay or not, it could have been in a friend’s car, it could have been my mother’s car… The bottom line is that it shouldn’t matter under which of these categories it or I fall, we all have earned certain inalienable rights, the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” and all it took was a bumper sticker for them to want to end mine. Every time I read of a new hate crime I think of that day and I know some things haven’t changed that much at all in some people’s minds. It is our living out and proud amongst them, instead of as their anonymous targets, that is the only way to change their little minds one by one.

Much Love.


Inspired By Sappho

MUSIC OF THE DAY
The first song epitomizes the immediate feeling that comes to me whenever I first start to tell the story of that day in 1998. It’s by the Dixie Chicks and it’s their controversial song Not Ready To Make Nice. That’s how I still feel about those who still spew hate. I’m still finding it hard to find “forgive, sounds good, forget, I don’t think I could” – I’m just Not Ready To Make Nice. For the second song, I’ve chosen Annie Lennox’s A Thousand Beautiful Things to give me hope that the glass is still half full....

Not Ready To Make Nice        Dixie Chicks
A Thousand Beautiful Things   Annie Lennox

QUOTE OF THE DAY
Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.
Coretta Scott King

Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated.
George Bernard Shaw