Speech for Marriage Equality

November 15, 2008

The followiing is a speech presented by Brittany Novotny a transgendered attorney in Oklahoma City at Saturday's City Hall rally.

We…

You and me…

We are Oklahomans.  We are LGBT.  We are LGBT allies.  We are human beings.

We are Oklahomans.

I know that many of us have been wringing our hands the last week and a half.  Some of us have even gone so far as to make broad statements about our fellow Oklahomans—who this year voted for candidates based merely on whether that candidate claimed to support “conservative Oklahoma values.”  

What are “conservative Oklahoma values” anyway?  I’m an Oklahoman, and I always thought that the values I shared with my fellow Oklahomans were the values of hard work, generosity, and treating others like I want to be treated.  Oklahoma bills itself as being in the “heartland,” but conservative politicians have been stirring people up with hatred, bigotry, and divisiveness.  These are not the Oklahoma values that I was raised with.

Some true progressive candidates were handily defeated this year.  But let us remember that they were not defeated by a margin of 100% to 0%.  There were still 30-40% of Oklahomans who chose not to vote for the politics of fear and division.  That means that AT LEAST 1 in 3 Oklahomans does not believe in continuing the politics of fear and division.  One in three.  That may not be a majority, but that is a substantial group of Oklahomans who are ready for a politics of inclusiveness and fairness.  Today, let’s make sure that we make our voices heard, and let the world know that WE are Oklahomans, too! 

As Oklahomans, we should take the time to honor and recognize those in the LGBT community who have come before us and paved the way for us to be here today.  People like Barbara Cleveland, also known by some as “Mother Herland.”  Barbara was instrumental in the creation of Herland Sister Resources.  And people like my uncle, Jules Gulikers, who started opening up gay nightclubs, such as Colorado’s and TJ’s Corral.  My uncle has told me stories of running these nightclubs in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s in Oklahoma City.  Police officers would come into his club on a regular basis and harass customers—calling them names and often times even arresting them for made up violations.  He even told me that he was arrested from time to time for violations such as having no soap in the bathrooms at the club.  Of course, the reason there was no soap was because the officers had gone into the bathroom and tossed the soap in the trash.  Jules even told me that he had to keep an emergency bank bag hidden in the bar in order to bail out patrons of the club whose only “crime” was that some police officers hated gay folks.  To be fair and clear, not all Oklahoma City officers shared this attitude, but enough of them did that it was not always safe for gays and lesbians to go enjoy a drink with their friends.

As you heard Bret say in my introduction, I am a transwoman.  That means at birth, I was identified as male.  I always knew something was different about me, though.   And when faced with having to hide my true self from the world for the rest of my life or allowing myself to be free and happy, I chose freedom.  I chose freedom. 

It was not an easy road, but it was an easier road than being phony the rest of my life.  And even my mother, who was a devout Catholic and at first was not supportive of my transition, admitted to me in the past year that she really understood, now, that this is who I am and that I’m a much happier person.  My mother spent three weeks in the ICU in August and September.  During her time there, she was in and out of a coma a couple of times.  This one morning that I went up there to visit her, expecting to find her still unconscious, I walked into the room and her eyes opened up.  We sat there smiling at each other for a good five minutes before either one of us uttered a word.  Then, she spoke, and the first words out of her mouth were, “Brittany, you are a beautiful woman, inside…and out.”  She had not only grown to tolerate me, she grew to fully accepting the human being that I am.  Unfortunately, she never made it out of the hospital.  She passed away on September 15th.  Although she’s not here physically today, I know that she is watching over me today—and it is that faith that she raised me to have that keeps me going strong today.

Now, aside from being a woman who happens to be transgender, I also happen to be a heterosexual woman.  Yet in some states, like Texas and Kansas, if I, as a woman, were to marry a man, which would appear to the casual observer to be a heterosexual relationship, both my husband and I could find our marriage to be nullified in the event that our marriage became the subject of any kind of litigation. 

Oklahoma and many other states have passed statutes and constitutional amendments defining marriage as between one “man” and one “woman.”  But who gets to decide if you are a man or a woman?  And what about those folks who are born with ambiguous genitalia, or ambiguous chromosomes?  Are they then not allowed to marry anybody? 

In Texas, Christie Lee Littleton was married to her husband for about 10 years when he was killed in a workplace accident.  Christie filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the negligent party, and in her deposition, when asked if she had ever gone by any other name she had to disclose her past as a male.  At that point, defense attorneys—paid for by a large insurance company—moved the court to dismiss the lawsuit on the grounds that she could never have legally been married to her husband in Texas, because even though she had fully transitioned to female, identified herself as such, had a birth certificate indicating as such, and a husband that loved her for the woman she was, as far as the insurance company was concerned, she was still a male, because she happened to be born with male genitalia.  And in Texas, marriage can only be between a “man” and a “woman.”  Almost needless to say, the court sided with the defense attorneys, and her lawsuit was dismissed.  After being married to this man for 10 years—this heterosexual man, the state told her that she had never really been married.  After 10 years of being married to the woman he loved, the state, in effect, told her late husband that he had never really been married to her.  The rights and benefits this couple believed to have attained with their marriage certificate were taken away with the stroke of a pen of a conservative judge. 

Thus, the issue of marriage equality really does affect more than just the LGBT community, it also affects heterosexual men and women who happen to fall in love with persons who happen to be transgender or intersexed.  It really is an issue of basic human rights. 

In a democracy, a constitution is supposed to protect the rights of minority groups against the tyranny of the majority.  Yet we live in a land today where a bare majority of voters have been allowed to write discrimination into their state constitutions.

We in the LGBT community don’t want special rights.  We want to be able to find LOVE and have that love recognized by the state regardless of our gender or the gender of our partner.  We don’t want to force any church or denomination to adjust its own moral code.  If any church or denomination wishes not to recognize our marriages, that is their right.  The state, however, is supposed to treat all of us equally regardless of our religious beliefs. 

We LGBT Oklahomans are your sisters and brothers!

We are your aunts and uncles!  We are your mothers and fathers!

We are your cousins and friends!  We are Oklahomans, and we want to be treated EQUALLY under the law.