From his new novel: First Church: Spiritual Wokism in the Pews Today
(1865-1940)
We decided we would go to the Halloween party together: I, a senior gay white male liberal minister, and she, a lesbian Anglo/Native American New Age flower child experiencing her early-fifties. She was also the church’s religious education director. Her name was Fred.
We met at least weekly to discuss our work and anything else we wanted to at the Pequod, the trendy coffee shop and delicatessen named after the whaler in Moby Dick, and close to the church we served, the First Church of Sojourner Town, Cape Cod. The group had been a religious gathering since 1700.
I usually had Dirty Chai to match my world view, and if I was hungry, a cranberry scone and a cranberry pecan chicken salad. I figured I might as well support the local cranberry growers of Cape Cod. Fred chose something to match her world view, too, usually Jasmine Matcha or Honey Lavender Latte and if she was hungry, something without meat, dairy, gluten, sugar, or salt.
Unlike most of the Pequod’s female clientele who dressed in trendy track suits, Fred wore baggy men’s carpenter pants with pockets every which way just in case she suddenly needed some nuts and bolts to fix the church’s plumbing or somebody’s attitude. And of course, there was her growing beard; and there was her cap with a “B” for Boston on its brim.
I wore one of my three pairs of pants and one of my dead man’s shirts I had purchased over the years in a panoply of gently used clothing stores. In other words, I was shabby-chic.
We discussed our costumes for the Halloween party over our choice of beverages.
“I have decided to show my support for all genders: those assigned at birth, or chosen, or are gender fluid,” I said. Fred nodded and smiled.
All by way of saying that I chose to go to the party dressed like a quirky Mother Superior. I had rented my costume from the Main Street Sex and Comedy Shop in Hyannis. It was a nun’s habit with extra flourishes: huge inflatable bosoms that could wiggle and writhe under my habit, and wings that could flap, showing me off as a Flying Nun. The bosoms and wings did their thing if I pressed the buttons on the device that was hidden in one of my pockets.
But dressing as a Mother Superior for this liberal minister was not as much a stretch as it might seem, given the fact that I had once played the part of Mother Superior in a gay men’s version of Nunsense A-Men!.
Fred had prepared for the role she would play for the party by growing more hair on her face. She wanted to attend as a Bearded Lady. In fact, the stubble she had had on her chin when I had first met her three months previously had flourished, and it was added to by a discernible moustache and beard.
“I’ll add a bit of artificial hair to the mix, though, because I won’t be able to have a full beard and moustache by the time of the party,” she said. “But when that full growth does happen, you can think of me as the Bearded Lady of Cape Cod. I might even become a tourist attraction to go with the lobster rolls and cranberry bogs!”
She explained that with my arrival at First Church, and her getting to know me, she had felt free to express her true self with her hirsute goal: “You see, Reverend, I always knew I was different from the others. And when the hair on my face and other body parts started to go wild when I was just a girl, I knew that the Goddess or Whoever Is in Charge had chosen me. That I was not weird at all. But special!”
“Indeed you are!” I affirmed.
“So when I was a pre-teen and this hairy thing started to happen,” Fred continued, “I went to the Internet to learn about bearded women and discovered that I certainly was not alone!”
She went on to tell me that about 40% of all women have some facial hair, and that 8% of them have a lot of it. Most do everything they can to hide it.
“But there was a trailblazer who decided to reveal all she had,” Fred said. And then she told me the story of this incredible woman, and how she had inspired her and countless others.
She was a Frenchwoman named Madame Clementine Delait (1865-1940), who grew a full beard and moustache, with the beard reaching down to her bosoms. In 1904 Clementine received permission from the French authorities to dress in men’s clothing, something that had been illegal up to then. So, posing for many photographers who published postcards of her, she adopted both traditionally feminine and masculine gestures and clothing, making her internationally famous.
She met many heads of state and other famous people. And later in her life she starred in cabaret shows.
P. T. Barnum asked her if she would join his show, but giving the excuse that she had to take care of her ailing husband, Madame Delait declined Barnum’s offer.
“I have always felt like an outsider!” Fred told me. “I’ve never felt connected to others.”
“But I like you,” I told her. “A lot!”
Fred began to cry. And I joined her. As a gay man, I too, knew what it meant to feel different.
NOTE: Don Beaudreau is a frequent contributor to this magazine. He has 10 published books on AMAZON BOOKS and KINDLE, with two new ones coming out, including an expanded version of the story he tells in this article.
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