Baltimore OUTloud - Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trangender - LGBT - Equality - News - Arts - Culture - Baltimore OUTloud - An Independant Voice for the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Community

I remember like it was yesterday, the day she was born. When I saw her pretty little face I knew that my life had taken on a new meaning. I was in law school, newly married, and a proud father. Those days seem to haunt me, on days like this. Days when the seasons are in between winter and spring, the extra hour of light on the never-ending clock shines through, exposing my holes. Holes created by year of pain. Pain only a parent knows when they lose a child. My only child. My baby girl.

I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Mr. R. A. Walker, an African-American Transgender man born and raised in Baltimore City. Born in 1962, I asked if he remembered the Civil Rights movement. Immediately his head reared back, smirking and assuredly told me, “Yes I do!” “They took that lady’s handbag!” he recounted. See, right across the street from my church was a white church and the next thing I knew a man came into our church alerting us to ‘shut down the church, go home, Martin Luther King been shot!’ We rushed home to be met to my community in turmoil.