If someone walked up to me and straight-out asked me if I am an activist, I wouldn’t hesitate to answer. “No.”I know activists, some quite well, and the ways I contribute to the social good look nothing like the passionate protesters of wrong that they are. I mean, c’mon, really, I know some of the original members of ACT UP. I know people who lived through the AIDS crisis in San Francisco in the 80s. Those people, they’re real activists. And if that’s the strict definition, then I’m definitely out. I’m not likely ever going to march in the streets, shrieking “Fairies, Faggots, and Dykes! Oh, my!” I was, however, Patience on the float for the opera premiere of Patience & Sarah in a long-ago New York City Pride Parade. But ... then I started to think a little more, dig a little deeper, go a little further into my own history, and you know what? I think I might be an activist, after all.

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