I can remember being 15 and feeling like the only liberal kid in all of Brighton, Michigan, hoping that maybe, maybe, my grandkids would live to see LGBT rights become a reality. And look, I'm a cisgendered hetero chick; the story of those intervening ten years is profoundly not mine to tell.

But, Jesus.

At 15, I didn't know a single out gay person. The issue wasn't personal to me. That's not why I cared.

Most teenagers are insecure, but I think I fell pretty far on the bell curve. If you didn't know me back then, just picture a shy, twitchy bundle of neuroses, vaguely girl-shaped. But here was one thing, at least, where I had zero doubt. It was a clear cut and dry case of right and wrong, and that kind of clarity can be addictive.

I argued, loudly and frequently, in favor of gay rights. These are some of my clearest memories of high school: leaning forward in my desk, full of helpless fury, stammering out a retort to the guy who compared gay people to axe murderers, to the guy who recited that stupid Adam and Steve rhyme like a legitimate debate point, to the girl who snapped "Why do you care so much," as though caring was the worst crime imaginable.

For the most part, I was very timid. But there's a certain kind of fight it took me years to learn to walk away from, and it was hard to escape in Brighton, Michigan.

To be clear: I don't think what I did had much impact, except probably making the actual LGBT kids in the room very uncomfortable. Maybe it helped, to hear someone making the argument? I think it's just as likely they were looking at the floor, at their hands, at their desks, wishing to god for any kind of a subject change. Their Priority Number One was just to get through the day. It had to be.

I get the sense that, even in high schools of politically conservative Midwest towns, this is a little less the case now.

Surely some people predicted the culture shift of the last decade, but it caught me by surprise. In the end it didn't take a miracle, just a critical mass of people making the courageous, radical, and at times dangerous decision to be themselves. This would be the turning point: people being honest and brave, and forcing many well-meaning heterosexuals to realize that LGBT people were not some lurking threat, not a sitcom caricature or abstract issue. That they were our friends, our family members, our favorite comedians, but also our cashier at the grocery store, our mail carrier, that guy in accounting who brings forks to every company potluck. ("Wait, Frank's gay? What does that even mean?" I don't know dude, maybe that sexual orientation is just another thing about a person, like hair color or food allergies or the layout of their circulatory system?)


So. DOMA is unconstitutional and Proposition 8 has finally died.

And of course there is still a lot of work to do. The voting rights act, the situation in Greece--the world has not stopped being an incredibly screwed up place. We need to look at these issues head on, we need to understand what's at stake, and we need to keep fighting.

But if you can't enjoy the victories, you will burn out and succumb to despair.

I keep having this imaginary conversation with 15-year-old Jess, where I try to explain to her about DOMA and Prop 8. As far as LGBT rights are concerned, America is a different place than it was 10 years ago. Because eventually we came to realize that it was personal, after all. That it couldn't not be. And none of that would have been possible without the hard work and courage of many, many people.

And she's crying. And I'm crying.

So thanks.

"Let us all be from somewhere
Let us tell each other everything we can"
--Bob Hicok, "A Primer"

So listen, I was born in Illinois
and lived there while I became me
(the first time I became me)
Snowpants and the community pool,
rescuing half-drowned worms off the pavement in Spring

Illinois: Land of Lincoln,
Land of Capone
Land of dirt as dark and rich as chocolate cake
The state crop is corn,
The state flower
is corn, as well.
It is the state tree and also the state animal.
The state motto is "Hey, don't forget about Chicago!"

Don't worry, Illinois: nobody could.
The bean and the tower and hog butcher to the world--
And in the Field Museum, the bones of dinosaurs
threaded back together with wire as if to say
it all ends sometime

But I will never stop being from Illinois
It springs up in me like a flash flood
of feelings
about deep-dish pizza
or homesickness for a decent supermarket
or the catechism of early nineties basketball players
that still somehow flows through my blood

I live in Minnesota now
The skies are bluer, the newscasters blonder,
and in Winter the air is patently trying to kill you
I like the round vowels and the Nordic stoicism
but I miss being a local
and if I'm honest, I miss the dirt, too.

My children will not be from where I am from.
Which is sad,
except they never are, not really.
In the end, every where is a when, too.
I can only say, here is my where and my when:
snowpants and the community pool,
rescuing half-drowned worms off the pavement in Spring

The state bird of Illinois
is Michael Jordan dunking a basketball
and if you don't understand,
then I know you are from somewhere else.