6
Prevent Erasure
IT WAS MONDAY MORNING, and my new colleague Lauren had a slight smile that kept on shifting into a wider one. “Hey, you look happy,” I said. “Did you have a good weekend?”
“Yeah, I did.” She paused. “I had a really good first date. It feels . . . promising.”
“Oh, good for you. So exciting! Tell me, what’s he like?”
She stopped for a good few seconds, her smile now gone. Finally, with a very small sigh, she said, “Actually . . . it’s she. What’s she like. I date women.”
It’s more than a decade later, and I still wince at the memory. Just one tiny word had told Lauren that I didn’t see her. That I hadn’t considered the various possibilities of who she might be. That I hadn’t been inclusive or remembered to pay attention to the ...
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