Home, part 1: Everywhere Isn't Texas

(Forgive the lack of me recording the reading of this. I ended up in a situation where I could not record, not if I wanted to release today. I do hope no one minds. A warning: I talk recent politics here, so racism, homophobia and transphobia are mentioned and discussed.)

Hello, my luminous beings of awesomeness! Miss Dee Jay here.

One of the most interesting things about human language and thought is this distinction between “house” and “home”.

The reason I mention this is that I’d heard - somewhat inaccurately, I think - that English was the only language that made this distinction. That said, that distinction is there. There is a place you live, and there is a place you belong.

I’ve called a few places home over the years. That said, it generally takes time for a house to become a home, for a place to take on that feeling that this is a place we belong. Homes, like the houses they are often compared to, take time to build - months or even years. My current place of residence really didn’t start feeling like home until nearly a decade after I’d first moved there. It took maybe two years for the subject of today's essay to feel like home.

Unfortunately, homes, like houses, can decay over time, or can be wiped off the map in moments. Sometimes the tornado hits town, and the house is swept away; other times, the damage and neglect eat at the house over time until the structure of home collapses. Homes, in the same way, can be destroyed in one catastrophe, or slowly eroded over time until the foundation is gone.

So… what happens when the home - not the house, the home - collapses? What happens when the place to belong isn’t so belonging anymore? What happens when the hurricane blows through, or the structure of "home" is eaten away over time?

The United States, in its entirety, is steadily eroding its place as “home” to me. This is sadly by design; the powers that be are targeting my home by eating at the very foundation. In executive order, the government has said I don’t exist, tearing up the soil of citizenship, the bedrock of its own beliefs. The feeling has become mutual; as the Olympics have taken place, I’ve applauded USians who’ve said what needs to be said, who've pointed out the raging elephant in the room, but I can’t root for them anymore. The one event I care about anymore - women’s hockey - I’ve been rooting for the Canadians, in part because the Canadian players are just that awesome (Yes, I am an MPP fangirl), but also because my own government has done so much harm of late. I can’t root for the country of my birth anymore, the only country I’ve ever called home, because there's so little to root for. Put simply, I, like so many others, am made unwelcome in my home with the intent that I will leave or die.

And one state in particular, one home in particular, has caused an especially agonizing unwelcoming.

Yes, I’m looking at you, Texas.

Of the places I have historically called home, I have spent more time in Texas than anywhere else - over two decades. I went to grade school there, graduated from high school there, went to undergrad and did some of my grad work there. I entered the state a child in the 80s, and left a thirtysomething adult in the 00’s. Critical parts of me, of who I am, were formed there.

But it was an environment that had its serious flaws. The effect of religious zealotry and pseudotheocracy made itself known from the first days; for instance, “blue laws”, laws that closed businesses on Sundays, existed well into the 1980s in Texas, and the extremely restrictive laws on alcohol purchase and consumption seemed alien to a child born in the Midwest. Racism was more pervasive, but more insidious; racism was disguised in the post-Civil Rights era in that “There’s no systemic racism!” way, even as they complained loudly at any scholarship designed to help marginalized groups, even as they complained about any remotely-accurate telling of racism in American history. And any sort of queer people were, according to the televangelists of the time, being punished with AIDS as "God's Will"; it was beyond them to actually treat queer people with the decency and respect human beings are due. Put simply, Billy Graham and Ronald Reagan and Rush Limbaugh set the dialogue and the tone for the state. Occasionally dissenting voices like Ann Richards peeked through at a state level, and the state was a gold mine for satirists like Molly Ivins, but for the most part this was deep-red conservative land, a country of God and guns.

This zealotry helped shape me in ways good and bad. They denied me information, critical information; I never found out about systemic racism like redlining or atrocities like Tulsa or the medical necessity of abortion until well into adulthood. I wasn’t allowed to know; I wasn’t supposed to know, because knowing meant questioning certain things. (Another fun example of this censorship: In middle school, I started reading Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. About a third of the way in, my copy disappeared while at school.). But at the same time, I was never completely “in”; even before transition, no matter how good a person I was, there were people who thought I was going to hell just because I didn’t go to their church. It helped hone a kind of “devil’s advocate” attitude toward religious fundamentalism; I wasn’t yet ready to question my church yet, but it opened the possibility to question others’ churches, others’ beliefs. Also, I wonder if I would have developed to the point that I could question who I am if I hadn’t been facing so many people questioning me.

People in Texas have been saying I’ve been going to hell for a long, long time… I guess, in my transition, I’ve just given them more to damn me for. And, yet, I spent over twenty years there. I still yearn for that relationship that will never happen. For better or worse, this place made me, created me. And it had its beauty, its bright spots; there were enough people their to question it all, were enough people to make it worthwhile, were enough people with "all their heart, all their soul, all their mind" who could break through all of the obstacles and all of the misinformation and live as good human beings. As I went through my career, I always thought about going back there, finishing my career there; all thought of that disappeared when I finally began to transition in 2019. That said, I never expected the full-throated bigotry that came in the 2020s, never expected the tornado of hate to sweep through, tearing homes asunder, tearing away the guardrails that held this country together. I didn’t expect them to so convincingly prove David Frum’s observation of “If conservatives become convinced they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism; they will abandon democracy.”

They destroyed my home. Destroyed the one in Texas, and possibly destroyed the ones elsewhere in this country as well.

So how do I feel about this place, about this state, as I look over the wreckage? Better to let someone from that home, that same hometown in Texas, sing about it with a far better voice than I ever possessed.

A Texan friend of mine introduced me to this week’s entry for Trans Pirate Radio, a brand-new release from singer-songwriter August Ponthier. Ponthier was born in Allen, Texas, a suburb of Dallas - a town I’d called home for many years, a town I could write volumes on, and a place I still yearn to call home. As a queer, nonbinary person, Ponthier unfortunately has reason to be ambivalent toward their hometown - an ambivalence I know too well.

Ponthier’s new album, “Everywhere Isn’t Texas” is an autobiographical exploration of the major issues in Ponthier’s life - their queerness, their music career, their family. Some works, like "Handsome" explore that queerness (and includes incredible lyrics like "Timothée Chalamet... Jacob Elordi... Oscar Isaac... There's a new "It-Boy" in town, and she's a lesbian!"); others, like "Karaoke Queen", go into the difficulties of a life in music, and how the music industry chews people up and spits them out.

All of that said, there is an interesting message woven through much of this: For all the damage we encounter, for all the hurricanes that blow through our lives, we take things from the rubble, for better and for worse, and go on. The aforementioned "Karaoke Queen" pulls love - both love for another and love for music - from the wreckage of a broken music career. "Angry Man" and "Bloodline" address family, legacies from parents and choosing not to carry bloodlines further.

And then... there's the title track itself. Or, in this case, title tracks. They are bookends; the main song, located on Side A of the album, chronicles the storm, while the softer reprise, the end of the B-side, chronicles the aftermath.

The main version of the song gives the painful details of what it means to be queer in Texas, and provides a soft urge to flee to safety. Their song shows the horror of it all: this state abuses its own people until we must flee. Ponthier's own vocals, mewling the lyrics in a soft, folk-country croon, come out like the trying-to-dissociate testimony of a survivor:

They prod and poke
And make me an example
What a joke
To say I was a scandal
They'll say it's just a friendly fire
But then they'll run me out till I'm tired

The overall message of the song is clear: Everywhere isn't Texas. It's okay to leave; it's okay to find safety. There's a world out there.

And then... in the reprise, the flip side to the initial song takes place. It has a "Songbird" feel to it, a gentle feeling of goodbye, not with malice, but with love and understanding. And in their words, we find what home really is. We understand what Texas really is.

Everywhere isn't Texas
But it's where the seed was sown
To fight despite the home
Everywhere isn't Texas
'Cause they words and laws they wrote
Couldn't touch our soul
Until the day I'm breathless
I'll always want the best for Texas
This is my confession
All those outcasts are the Texans

It's ourselves. Texas - true Texas - lies within us, and with those we love, and with those who love.

The State of Texas, in its bigotry and its zeal, is casting away its own heart - a heart every queer Texan digs out of the rubble, dusts off, patches up, and goes on. The heart of Texas is heading to every corner of the country and the globe: to more welcoming climes in the country, such as New York, or California, or Washington; to places outside of the borders of the States, such as Montreal, or Nanaimo, or Guadalajara, or Barcelona, or Dublin, or San Jose (Costa Rica), or Montevideo, or Sydney, or Bangkok. Any place where a queer Texan can hang their hat.

A friend of mine compared the exodus of queer Texans to the AIDS epidemic; she didn't know who'd be gone next, but the effect on the Texas queer community was devastating. Ponthier, in their reprise, points out that Texas - true Texas - isn't a plot of land, or a political movement. It goes with every Texan exiled from its lands.

Everywhere isn't Texas. But in this exodus, Texas goes everywhere.

And in that exodus, we begin to find what home really is.

This is Miss Dee Jay, signing off until next time.

I am going to go back to this theme of "Home" in a couple of weeks. While writing this, I realized I needed to make a detour to another subject, one that I need to write about Right Now; that will be next week's entry. That said, I will come back to this theme of home soon enough.