And then one night I showed up, all ready to consent and found each one of them perched on a huge mushroom, peering down at me and puffing on a hookah. In unison, they droned: "Who are you, and why are you here?" Well, call me George Cukor and make me testify before Roy Cohn. I was in a spot.

And I was at a loss. I could show them my little bottle of pills bearing the slogan "Eat Me." Or I could try to explain myself. I started confessing. I was definitely a T. Maybe even all the other letters, too, depending on your perspective.

The thing that got under my skin at the time was that I was being called upon to verbally define my place in the community. I thought, I shouldn't have to do that. Does anyone else have to do this? My place is kind of obvious, isn't it? I mean, they elected me to their committee, didn't they?

It wouldn't have been the first nor the last time, unfortunately, that Americans would vote without knowing what they were voting for. At least I wasn't a money-hungry warmonger oil baron.

Afterwards, I found myself having the strangest conversations. One of them told me I was brave for coming out. He even gave me a card. Another one asked me about a nice way of asking if someone is a transsexual. I said, "say, 'Are you a transsexual?'"

He said, "That seems awkward." And I said, "Well, it's usually none of your business. I mean, why would you want to know?"

Many years later, I went to The Bar. Gave H a pep talk about dating, saying "So you're not interested in a U-Haul. Just go out with her, get out of the house, etc." Then The Lesbian showed up. She totally zoomed in on me, and I really had no choice but to practice what I'd been preaching. She gave me her number and she asked, "Are you really gonna call me?"

I was all, "Hell, yeah" but she was filled with doubt. So I pulled out the cell phone and left a message on her machine while still looking at her. I left my number, telling her to give me a call. This, of course, was my last good move.

She wasn’t really my type, apart from the fact that she seemed interested in me. But anyone interested in me can’t be all bad, right? Unfortunately, it was really loud in the bar, impeding detailed conversation, and I was my bedtime, and I was stuck with the same damn trouble that I'm always stuck with: when do I let her know about the tranny thing?

Some dykes are cool with it, and some aren't. I couldn't tell with The Lesbian. I didn't have time to get into it at the bar, and I certainly couldn't do it over the phone. I mean, people have all kinds of crazy notions about transsexuals. It's the kind of thing you really need to say to someone's face.

I never saw her again. We did wind up talking a bunch on the phone, however. I gave her my web address, which is where she found out that I was a big tranny. She didn't like that one bit. She accused me of deceit. I felt, suddenly, like I was back in front of the Homosexual Unqueer Activity Committee.

What would you do? What would Jesus do? What would Bad Santa do?

First of all, it’s not like I set out to deceive her. After all, she hit on me – a fact she had conveniently forgotten when it came time to call me a liar. I was advertising “funny femme dyke” and that’s what she got. As did my little committee all those years ago.

Second – and this fits in nicely with one of my new year’s resolutions – I don’t have to justify my place in the queer world anymore. I don’t care about being on another blacklist, my next script is going to be a romantic comedy instead of a melodrama. My agent had this stipulated in my contract this time around.

Fortunately, the groundwork is being laid, and the script looks really good. I won’t yet tell you the co-star but I’m praising seventeen kinds of God it’s not Tom Hanks. Or The Lesbian, for that matter. I mean, I think we’ve all seen that movie a few too many times.

So now I’m crossing my fingers for one of those orchestral-swell fairy tale ending, and thinking back on these times when I really felt like the responsible thing to do was to plead my case while somehow remaining the outsider, hoping that I’d poke around long enough to find the compassion in my inquisitors. And I’m thinking that I was wasting my time.

But here’s what’s still bugging me about that committee: what, exactly, were we all fighting for in the first place?

******

Are you now, or have you ever been to Xantippe.com? Rahne Alexander can’t deny it – she’s always already there!