Looking back on it 11 months later, it feels like a full-circle moment in my life that my sister, Dr. Zaneb Beams, M.D. suggested I volunteer with Byron MacFarlane’s campaign for Register of Wills here in Howard County. My first meeting with him over Korean food amidst the hustle and bustle of the Whole Foods in downtown Columbia set in motion one of the best years of my life. I ended up getting involved in the campaign of almost every Democratic candidate running for office in the area and finding my calling: political activism.
Zee, as I call my sister, introduced me to activism when I was 12, and began healing the wound on my heart inflicted by feeling like a powerless, scared LGBTQ+ teenager.
Community organizing’s in our blood. My maternal grandmother devoted much of her life to it. From the time of India’s partition and the creation of Pakistan, she dove head-first into all sorts of advocacy. She held majalis, Shi’a Muslim commemorations of the martyrdom of Imam Hussain, being the passionate believer that she was. She championed the cause of displaced muhajir, those who, like her, had moved to Pakistan when India partitioned in 1947. And finally, she devoted much of the last half of her life to running the organization she began, Anjuman-Khawateen-e-Hussaini and later was a principal advisor to the local, Bazm-e-Amna charity foundation, which provided services for the needy in Karachi. It still exists today.
Later on, our parents, Dr. Atiya Khan, M.D. and Dr. Tariq Khan, M.D., were the Chairperson and Board Member, respectively, of the Human Development Foundation of North America for almost 20 years. That group builds medical clinics, schools, and model villages in Pakistan.
Related: Read my limerick about one of my best friends, Becca Niburg!
I identified as gay for much of my young adulthood. As many other LGBTQ+ folks still did in the late 1980s, I felt like I was the only such person and that my loved ones would reject me if they knew who I really was. Zee came to me and said, “We know, and we love you–no matter what.” Zee also embraced me, wholly and completely, when I began to identify as a transgender.
Keep Hope Alive
She took me and friend to the Gay Pride March in 1990 in Washington, D.C. It was the first time I felt totally at home. It was such a new experience, I stood silently on the Mall in my all-black morose teenager outfit, taking it all in. Then RuPual encouraged us to chant, “Keep hope alive” for several minutes. I had become very quiet as I realized who I was that year, retreated within, but I was almost screaming those words: “Keep hope alive!”
Meat Is Murder
On June 11th, 1989, Zee took me, a cousin, and several of her friends to the biggest animal rights march that had ever occurred in the United States, in Washington, D.C. She guided all of us as we took a banner with the blue and white logo of the event emblazoned on it in our hands and led the march.
One morning in March, 1992, she and I drove to a rally against the sale of animal skins outside Mano Swartz Furs in Towson. She let go of the placard she was holding and put her hand, yellow with cold, on my shoulder and squeezed it briefly as we marched in a small circle with fellow protesters. As we yelled. “Fur is dead!” over and over, a woman got out of her car, her floor-length fur in hand, yelling back at us for being hypocrites because we were wearing leather shoes (I know for a fact none of us were). Zee laughed when two men in a pick-up truck drove by and yelled, “Get a real job!”
A House Is Not a Home
As Luther Vandross sang in that 1980s ballad by the same name, a house is not a home. But having a house to call your own is a start to finding your home, and my sister took me to a march on Washington, D.C. whose goal was to end homelessness. As the march moved us across the Mall, it filled me with a kinesthetic electricity. “This is what acting together toward a common goal for the good of your community feels like,” I thought. It was thrilling.
And: I’ve always loved organizing stuff–and now communities, it turns out!
Register Your Will
Zee led the fight for the Affordable Care Act to pass with the group Doctors for America, as she’s a physician herself now, like my parents and several close family members. She ran for a spot on the Howard County Council in 2010 and for Board of Education in 2014. She advises sitting legislators on health care issues. And as my mom reminded me the other day, Zee woke her up and at 5:00 a.m. one day during high school to whisper to her that my parents shouldn’t be worried if she gets arrested at an abortion clinic defense.
And then, of course, she introduced me to Byron, not to mention Kim Pruim, Special Assistant to Howard County Councilman Calvin Ball (D-2) who’s running for Howard County Executive this year. I recently said to Zee, “We just get each other, in that way that siblings do.” I owe her so much, and perhaps I can give some of it back to her–not that she’d ever ask for it–by having volunteered with the HoCo Dems this year. If whatever help I provided those campaigns contributes to an ushering in of the 2018 Blue Wave, I’ll have done it because of–for–Zee.
I’m grateful for your readership! Check back with me each week here at politicalpoetrypastiche as my linguistic, literary, and generally loquacious involvement in local politics takes on a mélange of prose and poetry genres. After all: All Politics Is HoCo-al™. Join me on Facebook here, find me on Twitter at @politicalpoetr3, and follow me on Instagram using the handle @politicalpoetrypastiche.