Last month, I had a dinner date with two trans women friends of mine. One of the women is a couple years older than me, the other two years younger. Each one of us transitioned from male to female in our 50s.
On the way to the restaurant, negotiating the parking lot, I clipped a tall granite curb with the sidewall of my right rear tire. When I got out of the car, I could hear a hissing sound which I instantly recognized as a tire losing air. As I was there early, I tried to change the tire, but after jacking the car up, and removing the lug nuts, I could not get the wheel off the hub. The two were fused together by a fine layer of surface rust.
Leaving the car’s back end balanced on the jack, I went to dinner. It was a wonderful meal of good food and good conversation with these two awesome women. When we were done, one of the women said “let’s go check on your car.”
The three of us worked on the tire for probably an hour and a half or more — and be rest assured, we were not newbies to changing car tires. I had called roadside assistance, but, to make a long story short, we managed to get the wheel off the car with the help of some WD-40 one of my friends went out to purchase, and a bit of “brute feminine persuasion,” before the towing guy could get there.
During all this time, I urged my friends to go home because I felt bad I was taking up their evening. They wouldn’t have any of it. And when I got the spare on the car, they insisted on following me home to make sure I didn’t have more tire problems.
On the way, I teared up, not because I was sad, but instead, overwhelmed by how very lucky I was to have these two women in my life, women I would have never met if I hadn’t gone to the City Council meeting last September for the proposed resolution to make Northampton a Sanctuary City for people just like us.
In a country and world where governments are trying to erase transgender people, I am happy to say that these two women are anything but erased. They are very real, and very wonderful, friends. I feel privileged to know them and celebrate them this Pride Month.
Mariel E. Addis is a native of Florence. She left the area for 16 years but returned in 2013.