Rodeos and TechBros

The Sanctuary Bar sits heavy tonight with that particular exhaustion that comes from being too fucking visible for too goddamn long. My body feels like it's been wrung through a corporate meat grinder, every nerve ending stripped raw from five days of navigating sixty-five thousand AWS re:Invent convention attendees at the MGM Grand. Keira sits beside me at the bar, her usual reading posture replaced by something closer to structural collapse—shoulders curved inward like she's trying to make herself smaller, which for Keira means something's fundamentally wrong with the universe.

Miguel slides a rocks glass across the bar top before I've even settled onto the stool. The liquid inside catches the light like amber caught mid-transformation, dark enough to be threatening, clear enough to promise clarity that won't actually arrive.

What the fuck is this? I ask, already reaching for it because exhaustion makes liars of our better judgment.

Elijah Craig Barrel Proof, Miguel says, his voice carrying that sultry-childlike blend that usually brings comfort. Tonight it just sounds tired. Batch C924. Sixty-eight percent alcohol by volume, which means it'll either fix you or finish what those rodeo motherfuckers started.

I take a sip. It burns like redemption denied—caramel and oak and something darker, maybe burnt vanilla or the ghost of promises broken. The heat spreads through my chest like slow-motion arson, each swallow a small act of defiance against the reality that my body still feels like it's being pressed through crowds that shouldn't exist.

Tell me about the rodeo assholes, Miguel continues, pouring Keira something clear that smells like juniper and regret. Della heard bits from Ezra but we want the full shitshow.

The Cult's "She Sells Sanctuary" bleeds through the speakers, Ian Astbury's voice cutting through the basement atmosphere like a blade through silk. The irony isn't lost on me—selling sanctuary while we hide in one, trying to recover from a world that treated our existence like a fucking punchline.

They rolled in on the last day, Keira says, her voice flat in that way that means she's using every ounce of control to keep from screaming. National Finals Rodeo. Thousands of them. Cowboys and cowgirls and every stereotypical piece of shit you can imagine, all wearing their best transphobic smirks like participation ribbons for being aggressively fucking ignorant.

We were in the elevator, I add, the bourbon making the memory sharper instead of softer. Coming back from the convention center. Completely fried from being around that many people, trying to process the overstimulation, the constant navigating, the endless goddamn eye contact and small talk and performing professional competence when all you want to do is curl up and let your nervous system reboot.

And these three cowboy motherfuckers get on, Keira continues, something dangerous creeping into her tone. Take one look at Wendy and the two Indian guys and hmmph to the bell hop.

Ezra appears from their beanbag throne, blue hair catching the light like electric sympathy. What did they say?

'I don’t wanna be on a floor with no fags, sissies, or muslim fucks,' I quote, the words tasting like battery acid mixed with shame I refuse to own. Loud enough for the whole elevator to hear. Then one of them—real piece of work, belt buckle the size of a dinner plate—says 'These California faggots are ruining Vegas. So are all these dark skinned Muslim terrorist fucks.'

Did you say anything back? Miranda asks from her corner table where she's been sketching in a journal, her MILF energy muted tonight by something that looks like secondhand exhaustion on our behalf.

Wendy doesn't have to say shit, Keira answers, and there's pride in her voice mixing with the anger. She just looked at him. You know that look—the one that says 'I've survived worse than you can imagine and you're barely a fucking footnote in my trauma journal.' Cowboy piece of shit actually took a step back.

But that wasn't the worst part, I continue, taking another sip of bourbon that tastes like liquid defiance. The worst part was the rest of the elevator. Eight other people. Not one said a goddamn word. Just stared at the floor numbers like they were suddenly the most fascinating thing in human history. That complicit silence—that's the shit that stays with you.

Miguel's jaw tightens. How many incidents?

Seven over three days, Keira says. Comments in the casino, in restaurants, in the fucking hotel lobby. Every time we walked past a group of rodeo people, you could feel the judgment radiating off them like heat from asphalt. The way they'd stop talking, watch us, then resume with that performative disgust. Like we were some kind of carnival attraction they paid extra to sneer at. They stare at Wendy, and fuck it, I just stare them back down. With the same hate.

And this was after five days of being overstimulated to the point of sensory meltdown, I add, the bourbon finally starting to dull the sharp edges. Sixty-five thousand people at re:Invent. The AWS convention. Which means tech bros, which means constant navigating of who's going to be cool and who's going to make it weird. The noise, the lights, the endless fucking social performance required just to exist in those spaces without being clocked as 'difficult' or 'too sensitive' or whatever other bullshit label they use to dismiss trans women who dare to have boundaries.

Onyx materializes from the shadows near the pool table, their presence so quiet I almost miss them. When they speak, their voice carries that particular poetry that comes from living at intersections most people can't conceptualize.

The hypervigilance is the worst part, they say softly. Being overstimulated isn't just about too many people or too much noise. It's about the constant threat assessment. Every person becomes a potential danger. Every interaction requires calculating whether you're safe enough to relax or if you need to keep your armor on.

Exactly, I breathe, grateful someone gets it. By day five, my nervous system was screaming. Everything felt like sandpaper against exposed nerves. And then the rodeo people show up and it's like—fuck, I don't even get to decompress before the next wave of bullshit crashes over me.

Miranda sets down her journal and looks at Onyx with something between recognition and invitation. You write about that intersection, don't you? The compounding effect of marginalization. How being multiply marginalized means the recovery time between traumas keeps shrinking until you're just constantly in survival mode.

I try to, Onyx answers, moving closer to Miranda's table like a moth to flame—tentative but unable to resist the pull. It comes from living it. Being Black and trans and nonbinary and femme means every space requires different calculations. The rodeo people would see my skin first, my gender presentation second, and each of those things amplifies the danger of the other.

Audre Lorde, Miranda says, and it's not a question. The intersectional work. The understanding that we can't separate oppressions because they don't operate separately in the world.

Her poetry taught me how to name what I was experiencing, Onyx confirms, settling into the chair across from Miranda. 'The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House.' But also the more personal work—'A Litany for Survival.' The way she writes about living with fear so constant it becomes the baseline, and how marginalized people have to choose between speaking our truths and staying safe, and how staying safe is often just a slower death.

Heart's "Barracuda" kicks in, Ann Wilson's voice cutting through the basement like chainsaw through pretense. The raw power of it makes my chest tighten—that particular ache that comes from hearing women own their rage so completely.

Della emerges from the kitchen carrying plates that smell like rebellion cooked in cast iron. Blackened catfish, bacon mac and cheese that could resurrect the dead, jalapeño cornbread that looks like aggressive southern comfort.

Eat, she commands, distributing plates with the authority of someone who understands that nourishment is resistance. You two look like ghosts wearing skin suits. Convention drain is real, and you can't recover on bourbon alone.

Watch me try, I mutter, but I pick up a fork anyway because Della doesn't make suggestions—she issues loving ultimatums.

Keira takes a bite of the mac and cheese and makes a sound that's almost sexual. Fuck, I needed this.

I know you did, Della says, returning to the kitchen. Now stop trying to tough your way through recovery and let people take care of you for five goddamn minutes.

Lisa approaches from the other end of the bar where she's been nursing what looks like whiskey mixed with Diet Coke—her usual magical thinking about calorie compensation. Gus trails behind her, that nervous energy of rural queers in urban sanctuaries still radiating off him like static electricity.

Can I ask you something? Gus directs the question at both of us, but his eyes settle on me. About coming out. About timing.

Shoot, I say, because exhaustion makes me generous with advice I'm barely qualified to give.

I came out at twenty, Gus starts, his voice carrying that small-town softness that hasn't been completely beaten out of him yet. Got the fuck out of rural Idaho as soon as I could, moved here, started living openly. And it's been... amazing. Terrifying, but amazing. But I hear older people talk about coming out later in life and I wonder—is it better to do it young? To get it over with? Or does waiting until you're more established make it easier?

Lisa laughs, sharp and bitter as good coffee. Easier? Fuck no. Nothing makes it easier. But I'll tell you what's different.

She takes a long drink, the ice in her glass creating a small percussion section against the rim. I came out at fifty-three. After decades of marriage to a man I never loved the way I was supposed to. After raising kids who thought they knew me. After building a whole life based on trying to be what everyone expected instead of who I actually was.

And that's worse? Gus asks, not challenging—genuinely trying to understand.

Different, Lisa corrects. When you come out young, you get to build from scratch. Everything you create is authentic. Your relationships, your career, your entire fucking life can be constructed on truth instead of performance. But you also face all the shit—the family rejection, the financial instability, the danger—when you're least equipped to handle it.

Coming out older means you've got resources, I add, the bourbon making me philosophical. Established career, financial stability, life experience that helps you navigate the bullshit. But it also means you've got more to lose. More relationships to potentially destroy. More history to reconcile. More years of living inauthentically that you have to mourn.

I lost decades, Lisa says quietly. Decades of being who I actually am. Of experiencing love that feels real instead of performed. Of going to bed next to someone and feeling like I'm home instead of just inhabiting a role. You can't get that time back. It's just gone. And yeah, I've got stability now, but I've also got this grief that sits in my chest about all the life I didn't live.

But you're living it now, Gus offers, his optimism genuine even if naive.

I am, Lisa agrees. And that's fucking precious. But don't romanticize waiting. If you can be authentic now, be authentic now. Don't wait for the 'right time' because there's never a right time. There's just now, and all the nows you lose while waiting for perfect conditions that will never arrive.

Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain" starts playing, Stevie Nicks' voice weaving through the basement like smoke through ruins. If you don't love me now, you will never love me again. The lyrics hit different when you're talking about coming out—about demanding people love the real you or accept that the relationship was built on fiction.

Across the room, Bubba sits at his usual table by the window, moving slower than normal. His massive frame shows the weight loss from the heart attack—still substantial, but diminished in that way that makes him look vulnerable instead of invincible. Remy perches on the edge of the table, cigarette dangling from his lips, watching Bubba with the intensity of someone who almost lost something precious.

You're overdoing it, Remy says, his Cajun accent thick with worry. Mon coeur, you just got cleared for light activity last week.

I'm sitting, Bubba rumbles, his deep voice showing exhaustion he's trying to hide. Pretty sure even my cardiologist can't object to sitting.

You walked here from the apartment, Remy counters. That's six blocks. In December. After the doctor said to take it easy for another month.

Can't spend my whole life wrapped in bubble wrap, Bubba says, but there's less conviction in it than usual. Life's too short for that shit. Literally, as my coronary arteries recently reminded me.

Remy takes a drag from his cigarette, exhales slowly. Life's also too short to kill yourself trying to prove you're recovered before you actually are.

There's something achingly tender about watching them—Remy's fear translating into sharp commentary, Bubba's stubbornness softening into acceptance that he's not invincible, both of them navigating this new reality where mortality isn't abstract concept but lived experience.

I'm scared, Bubba admits quietly, and coming from him the confession carries weight that could crack foundations. I'm scared of being weak. Of being a burden. Of you staying because you feel obligated instead of because you want to.

You think I want to be anywhere else? Remy's voice cracks slightly. You think after thirty years of dancing around each other, of stolen moments and almost-confessions, I'd walk away now? Fuck that. Fuck that entirely. You had a heart attack. Your body tried to quit on you. But I'm not quitting on us.

Thirty years? Ezra's voice carries from across the room, blue hair practically vibrating with curiosity. You've known each other thirty years?

Remy grins despite the heaviness. College buddies, in a suite with Wendy, back when there was no Wendy, and the person who was there was Tryin to beat the voice out of her head. Both of tryin’ to keep her outta trouble, neither of us saying a goddamn word about each other back then cuz that was a good way to wind up dead in a ditch. Bubba moved to Atlanta, I moved to New Orleans. We'd see each other every few years at different sites, always with this— he gestures between them —this thing hanging in the air that neither of us acknowledged.

And here we are , Cutie, Bubba crowed.

The moment hangs there, vulnerable and precious. Miranda watches them with something like hunger—not sexual, but the deep yearning of someone who wants that kind of connection, that kind of history, that kind of "we almost lost this" intensity that makes every moment more precious.

That's what I'm chasing, Onyx says quietly, almost to themselves. Not just romance, but that depth. That 'we've been through shit' solidity. I'm tired of surface connections. Tired of people who fetishize my body without seeing my mind. Tired of— they pause, voice cracking slightly —tired of being lonely in rooms full of people.

Miranda reaches across the table, doesn't touch Onyx but makes the offer visible. You write about that, don't you? The isolation that comes from being seen but not known.

All the time, Onyx confirms. There's this Patricia Hill Collins concept about outsider-within status. Being simultaneously inside and outside of systems. Being visible but invisible. Present but erased. It's—it's fucking exhausting. Being Black in white spaces, being trans in cis spaces, being nonbinary in binary spaces. Every room requires code-switching, requires performing some version of yourself that's palatable to whatever the dominant group is.

And in queer spaces? Miranda asks gently.

Sometimes worse, Onyx admits. Because there's supposed to be understanding, right? But then you get the same hierarchies. The pretty privilege, the passing privilege, the 'right kind' of queer versus the 'too much' queers. The people who want to fuck you but don't want to know you. The fetishization disguised as acceptance.

June Jordan wrote about this, Miranda says, her voice carrying that particular authority of someone who's done the work. The erosion that comes from constant cultural assault. How marginalized people have to maintain impossible contradictions—being strong enough to survive but soft enough to not threaten, being visible enough to represent but invisible enough to not inconvenience, being articulate enough to educate but patient enough to forgive ignorance.

God, yes, Onyx breathes. And the poetry—the poetry is where I get to stop performing those contradictions. Where I can be angry and soft simultaneously. Where I can demand instead of request. Where my Blackness and my transness and my femininity don't have to be parceled out in acceptable portions.

Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" starts playing, and my chest immediately tightens. This was one of Gizmo's songs—one we'd belt in the car during Saturday morning grocery runs, her voice hitting notes that made strangers in parking lots turn around. We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year.

The grief hits sudden and sharp, bourbon doing nothing to dull it. I miss my daughter with an ache that's become permanent architecture in my chest. Miss car singing, miss her enthusiasm, miss being the parent she trusted before my transition destroyed that foundation.

Keira's hand finds my thigh under the bar—not squeezing, just present. Grounding me without words because she knows this song, knows the memories it carries, knows I need contact more than commentary.

You good? Miguel asks, reading my face with bartender precision.

I'm never good when Pink Floyd plays, I admit. But I'm surviving it, which is basically the same thing.

The night continues its slow crawl toward closing time. Conversations overlap and separate like jazz improvisation—Lisa telling Gus about her first pride parade at fifty-four, tears streaming down her face because she'd never felt so seen. Bubba and Remy arguing affectionately about whether proper gumbo requires okra. Miranda and Onyx exchanging poetry recommendations like secret passwords to understanding.

Ezra bounces between conversations, blue hair catching light, bringing that infectious enthusiasm that reminds everyone why we keep showing up to this basement. Why we keep choosing each other when blood family chooses bigotry.

The bourbon has done its work—not erasing the exhaustion, but making it bearable. Making it something I can hold instead of something holding me. The rodeo assholes become smaller in memory, their hatred shrinking to its proper proportion: loud, dangerous, but ultimately temporary. We're still here. Still taking up space. Still refusing to shrink ourselves to make their discomfort more manageable.

Another round? Miguel offers as last call approaches.

Fuck no, I say, but I'm smiling. I'm wrecked. Keira and I need to go home, turn off our phones, and remember what it's like to exist in space where we're not being observed, judged, or catalogued as threats to somebody's fragile worldview.

That sounds suspiciously like self-care, Della calls from the kitchen. I'm shocked. Proud, but shocked.

Don't get used to it, I call back. This is a temporary lapse in my usual pattern of self-destruction disguised as resilience.

The bar empties slowly, people drifting into the December night carrying whatever healing they've managed to absorb. Onyx and Miranda exchange numbers, something tentative forming that might become friendship or might become more. Lisa hugs Gus with the fierceness of someone passing torch to younger generations, hoping they'll carry it further than she could.

Bubba lets Remy help him stand, accepting the support without the usual protests about needing help. They move together toward the door, thirty years of almost-confession finally solidified into something neither of them can deny.

Keira and I are last to leave. Miguel's cleaning glasses, Della's shutting down the kitchen, Ezra's already texting about next week's gathering.

Thanks, I say to Miguel, the word inadequate but all I've got.

Outside, the December air bites through exhaustion, sharp and clarifying. Keira's hand finds mine as we walk toward the parking lot, fingers interlacing with practiced ease.

Better? she asks.

Getting there, I answer honestly. Still feel like I've been through a wood chipper, but at least now I remember why survival matters. Why we keep showing up to spaces that see us. Why we keep choosing each other.

The rodeo assholes don't get to win, Keira says firmly. They can have their hatred and their belt buckles and their toxic masculinity. We've got this— she squeezes my hand —and that's worth more than their approval will ever be.

The car's heater blasts cold air before warming, creating temporary discomfort before relief arrives. Like recovery itself—the getting better feels worse than the numbness sometimes, but it's necessary for actual healing.

I drive us home through Vegas streets still glittering with tourists, with gamblers, with people trying to find something in neon that can only be found in connection. The convention center lights glow in the rearview mirror, the MGM Grand tower piercing sky like accusation or promise depending on your perspective.

Tomorrow I'll process more. Tonight I'll just hold Keira's hand and be grateful for basements full of chosen family, for bourbon that burns like resistance, for surviving another day in a world that would prefer we didn't exist at all.

"Revolution is not a one-time event. It is becoming always vigilant for the smallest opportunity to make genuine change in established, outgrown responses; for instance, it is learning to address each other's difference with respect." – Audre Lorde

Lorde understood what I'm learning slowly through exhaustion and bourbon and chosen family's witness: healing isn't destination, it's practice. The rodeo assholes, the convention overstimulation, the constant vigilance required for trans survival—these aren't obstacles to overcome once and declare victory. They're ongoing reality requiring ongoing resistance, ongoing chosen family, ongoing returns to sanctuary spaces where damage gets witnessed instead of weaponized. Revolution isn't the dramatic moments of confrontation; it's the small choosing to show up anyway, to speak anyway, to love each other's complexity anyway. It's Onyx and Miranda finding each other through poetry. It's Bubba accepting help from Remy. It's Lisa telling Gus that lost decades matter but so does living now. It's all of us returning to basements that smell like bourbon and acceptance, learning again and again that addressing each other's difference with respect means making space for exhaustion, for rage, for contradictions, for the messy reality that survival isn't pretty or inspiring—it's just necessary. And we do it together, vigilant for smallest opportunities to choose connection over isolation, to choose sanctuary over suffering, to choose each other over the world's insistence that we should disappear.

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