She told Riley about the 1990s, when she’d go to gay bars and hear men whisper “trap.” When LGBT organizations would fight for same-sex marriage but leave out gender identity protections. When the T in LGBT felt less like a letter and more like an asterisk.
Riley shook their head.
Deja pulled up a stool on the other side of Riley. “Well, kid. You’ve got two choices. You can sit here and cry into excellent hot chocolate, or you can let me teach you how to wing eyeliner so sharp it could cut a homophobe.” freeshemales tube
The back door opened. A tall Black woman in sequined heels and a silk robe strode in—Deja, the night’s headliner. She took one look at Riley, then at Marisol, and her face softened.
Riley was crying now, silent tears tracking down their cheeks. “My mom said I’m just confused. That I’m ruining my body.” She told Riley about the 1990s, when she’d
“But we stayed,” Marisol said. “We threw brick after brick. We marched in the rain. We took care of our dead during AIDS when no one else would. And slowly, the tent got bigger.”
The kid sat. Their name, they mumbled, was Riley. They’d been kicked out of their cousin’s apartment in Akron after coming out as nonbinary. The cousin had said, “Can’t you just be a normal lesbian?” and Riley had laughed, because they weren’t a lesbian, weren’t normal, weren’t even sure what they were except terrified. Deja pulled up a stool on the other side of Riley
“Both is good,” Deja said.