a transsexual and a republican get into a car
I suspect that this is an erroneous headline, actually. The guy I ended up in a car with didn’t read like a Republican in the traditional sense. But if the Trump hat fits, I guess?
We had been to a friend’s yard sale, and I needed to do an irritating little public transit wiggle over to my next destination; on account of the quality of the yard sale fare, I no longer had time to do it. I parted ways with Isaac and called a car to take me onward, which is how I met James. He was an older guy, with round pale eyes; his tight mouth did most of the work of his breathing. The first thing I noticed about him was the Laura Loomer podcast open on his car’s digital display.
I live in San Francisco, which insulates me from a lot of current strangeness in a way I recognise as a gift. I’d just had a great chat about the changing vibes in leftist activism with a total stranger at the yard sale, where I’d bought a thrifted coat from a drag performer who used to work at the queer historical society with my husband. I don’t like to say that I don’t live in the real world – what makes my world any less “real” than a small town in Georgia? – but I live in a very different America than a great many of my friends, and I don’t often have to reckon with that. It has made the current moment about ten times more survivable, at a cautious guess. But it does make things like “the existence of Laura Loomer” feel like an awful shock, when I do happen upon them.
This particular podcast had album art – do people call it album art anymore, oh god, am I old – prominently featuring our illustrious President, as well as the caption (Arial Black font, punching right out of the screen) “The Muslim Menace.” Fortunately for me, James had hit pause.
This is not going to be an anecdote about picking a fight with some MAGA guy, or changing the hearts and minds of the enemy, or whatever else you might be thinking. I am not that delusional or that stupid. For one thing, you don’t start an argument with the guy who is piloting a metal death machine down the side of Twin Peaks. You especially don’t do that when you yourself are inside the machine.
I stayed quiet, actually, at first. It wasn’t a long drive, and I figured it wasn’t worth saying anything; I didn’t want to get pulled into any kind of weirdness. It would just be a story for Isaac later on, or for the person I was meeting for coffee when I made it there in one piece.
But then James made a disgruntled noise when someone pulled out in front of him at a junction, and I did what I always do when I’m stuck in a weird situation with an irascible older man: I placated. “This is a city of people who don’t know how to drive,” I said, by way of commiseration, and instantly wished I hadn’t.
“It’s more like the whole world,” said James gravely. “I call it the zombie apocalypse.” You may be wondering if this was a chemtrails thing. Reader, I regret to inform you that it was.
Here is an approximate list of James’s grievances with the present state of the world:
Fluoride
Airplanes
Phones
Insufficient vitamins and minerals
Too many bad people
Not enough good people
Not enough good people specifically doing good things
We are supposed to be in a golden age
He really lingered on that last point, as if to hammer home his disappointment at what he was faced with instead – or perhaps his conviction that things would be changing at any moment. “If your vibrations are not in sync with the world,” he told me, “then you’re going to be swept away. We’re living in interesting times. And this guy Trump says – and I believe him – this guy Trump says it’s any time now.”
“I hear that,” I said, because in a very literal sense, I did. “Crazy times.”
“Well, not crazy,” he said, and peered at me in the rear-view mirror. “I don’t know about crazy. You need to be careful what you say, or people might get a little upset.”
“Okay,” I said – and strangely, I kind of meant it. Call it an adult lifetime of leftist attention to other people’s comfort with my language. “That’s fair. Not crazy. But definitely interesting.”
I hope you know me better than to imagine that I would write a whole newsletter just for the sake of dunking on a stranger.
By this point, we were off the hillside; the road was straighter, with the distant downtown skyline grasping the clouds to my right. I felt a little safer. In a sense, I felt I’d gotten the worst out of the way. “Are you a local,” I asked, “if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Born and raised in San Francisco,” he said, with a touch of pride. “I was born at UCSF, in fact.”
“I work at UCSF,” I told him. “With the research scientists.”
It was the first time I’d seen him look anything other than acutely stressed. “Fantastic,” he declared, with feeling.
“It’s a great city,” I said, encouraged.
He shrugged. “Well, it’s not what it used to be. The Sunset used to be great, the downtown used to be great. You know what I miss?”
“What do you miss?”
“The bitches.”
I was stunned into perfect silence.
“Bitches on every corner,” he went on. “And you could sit on them, and there’d be other people sitting on them, and you could have a conversation, and—”
Benches. Not bitches. As we rounded the corner onto the street I needed, I very nearly laughed with relief.
“You know what?” I said. “I’m totally with you. We ought to have more benches.”
“It makes it worthwhile going outside!”
“Right! There aren’t enough places to sit and watch the world go by anymore.”
And that’s where we left the matter. I got out of his car, and I thanked him for the ride, and I wished him a good afternoon. More than that, I surprised myself by meaning it.
Like I said, I’m not delusional. I do not believe I did anything meaningful here – except in the sense that it was meaningful to me, clearly, since I’m taking the time to write it down a day after the fact. Getting out from under the kind of conspiracy-minded thinking that James was clearly entrenched in takes more than a single chat with a stranger; ultimately, I think I was lucky it didn’t go worse for me than it did. If I hadn’t shaved that day, or if I’d dressed more masc, or if he’d been able to read my bright pink badge (“The Moral Panic Is About Me!!!”) from the front seat – you get the idea.
But I can’t stop thinking about how different he looked when we got off the subject of his fears and his grievances. He was proud to be a San Franciscan! He was happy we had some small thing in common! And ultimately, the thing we agreed on was how difficult it is to exist in a shared world – how little space there is to simply be in public, no obligation and no cost, with the people who share your city.
Isaac and I like to joke that everywhere I go, I make a friend. It’s funny because I’m by far the bigger homebody in our marriage. I can happily go for days without going outside (though I try not to!), and too many nights per week spent socialising will drain me like a leaky tub. But lately I’ve started leaning into it. James didn’t know this, but he was dropping me off to meet a fellow dog rescue volunteer, so that she could buy me a coffee and I could give her a bespoke Trans 101 class. She didn’t understand, she’d told me weeks ago at an event we both worked, but she wanted to, and she’d be so thankful if she could ask me some questions. And frankly, I’d rather she ask me than the internet.
I have started treating conversations like this as a civic responsibility. I can’t do a lot. I’m not a citizen, so can’t vote and don’t feel great about showing up to protests anymore. My right to healthcare and my right to be in this country are both surprisingly contentious topics of discussion on the national level. But God knows I can talk to people. So why wouldn’t I try?
I did not change James’s mind about jack shit. I was never going to. But I guess I hope that, when Loomer tells him about the woke menace on her podcast, he thinks about the person with the blue hair who agreed that it’s nice to sit outside.
It’s a small enough thing to hope for, I know. I will hope for it nevertheless.
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