This weekend, I met up with a “nonbinary” woman in my community, and we had an exchange that illuminated something about myself that I had been needing to see for a long time.
…
We met just a few weeks ago at a walking tour designed to educate locals about the wild-grown herbs in our neighborhood. We were the only two black women in our small group. She had more of a soft-butch presentation, but she seemed shy, and we didn’t talk to each other at all throughout the walk.
However, towards the end of the tour, the facilitator stopped to show us one of the plants growing on the side of the bike trail, and this black woman raised her hand to ask whether the herb was native to the region or not.
The facilitator immediately launched into a 2 minute lecture about how we should watch our language when describing plants as “native” because it also translates into how we describe human beings as belonging vs. not belonging, based on whether they are a citizen of the U.S..
I smirked. Her whole white guilt spiel was really annoying, and it felt performative. Are we not here to learn?! Why is the origin of the plant suddenly offensive?
What’s more, I thought it was so ironic that one of the only non-white people in the group was being policed so hard for using language that was supposedly exclusionary to immigrants, after asking a very basic question.
So I raised my hand and told the facilitator that, as someone who is half-Nigerian, I have personally taken a special interest in learning which plants are indigenous to West Africa, because it helps me understand which Nigerian dishes are native to the region, and which ones are made from ingredients that the colonizers brought to our land.
That was both a 100% true statement, and my way of taking the pressure off of this other black woman. And it worked.
The facilitator widened her eyes and said, “Oh yes of course that is totally valid!!”
She fawned over how that’s a totally different political context, and blah blah blah…we moved on.
After that, I started to sense that this black woman wanted to connect with me. At the end of the walk, she made really intense eye contact with me for a moment, and I gave her a polite smile before walking inside.
A couple of minutes later, she approached and greeted me by my first name. She explained that she had been looking for more black friends in the area, and wanted to know if I’d like to get together sometime. She explicitly said she had to “shoot her shot” with me. Interesting.
Now on an energetic level, I have to be honest: this is not a woman who I would opt to be friends with. I could tell that I was more FREE than her, in every sense of the word—and it showed up in how we carried ourselves.
But being that I have been craving local community, I was open to forming acquaintanceships too. Maybe my initial read on her was our first incompatibility that I should have taken more seriously, but I didn’t. I stayed open, because I thought she seemed like a genuinely nice person, and I was open to explore the connection.
I thought perhaps, we could share a wholesome activity together. So I offered for us to expand on what we learned on our plant walk by going foraging sometime.
We exchanged numbers and eventually, we made plans to meet at a local park to go on a nature walk.
When I was on my way to meet her, I had an intuitive feeling that a conversation about gender ideology was going to come up, and that it wasn’t going to end well.
I was nervous about it, but I had also made peace with it. After all, we had only planned to spend an hour an a half together before parting ways, so I had packed a picnic blanket, a book, and dessert for my own solo time in the garden. I was prepared to be left alone.
…
We met up at a local train station and walked to the park entrance together, which was just a few minutes away.
We had barely crossed the street before her questions quickly began leading us down that rocky road to gender ideology.
Totally normal questions, too…
Like, “What have you been up to lately?…Oh yeah?…Well, what kind of podcast did you record?…What’s the anthology about?”
I got completely out of my comfort zone and told her exactly what it was:
“It’s called She Holds The Line: Black Women Speak on Gender Ideology and it’s a diverse group of women sharing personal essays and poetry about the adverse impact of the trans movement on black women.”
I could immediately feel her sense of time slowing down. For a few seconds, we moved through molasses.
She shook her head incredulously. “Wh…what’s impact does it have on black women? How is it negatively affecting you?”
Her question felt like an increasingly strong grip around my neck.
“We wrote about it. I contributed to the book too. I can send you a link,” I said, breathlessly.
Seconds later, we arrived at the park entrance. She was in such a daze that she completely passed it by. I had to stop in my tracks to alert her that we had arrived.
We then embarked on what was a very silent and awkward walk through the park.
We walked for about 20 minutes and tried to talk about other things. What book did I bring with me, what else we have been up to, what herbs have we discovered lately? The energy felt heavy with discomfort.
…
Eventually my legs got tired and I suggested we sit on a bench. As soon as she sat down, she turned to me and said,
“I’m just going to be honest, I don’t think this friendship is gonna work if you don’t like trans people, because...I’m nonbinary.”