David Diaz, MDiv candidate and fellow in the Harvard College Office of BGLTQ Student Life, delivered the following remarks at Morning Prayers in Harvard's Memorial Church on October 9, 2019.
♦♦♦
Our love is different dear
To me it's almost heavenly
Let us guard it ever preciously
Even jealously
While we may.
A love like ours dear heart
The angels send
And as I know dear heart
That it won't ever end
For as the years roll by
You'll learn my love for you is true
And I'm sure I'll learn the same from you
For our love is different dear
“Our Love Is Different” by Billie Holiday (1939)
When I was young, I was drawn to singing. For reasons that are still a mystery to me, I became obsessed with pop music from the early twentieth century. My young parents were listening to hip hop and top 20 pop hits at the time, and a name like Billie Holiday was old even to my baby boomer grandparents. Nevertheless, I spent hours every day learning about the influences of artists, introducing myself to subgenres that spanned several decades and geographic locations, and memorizing so many lyrics.
I began to realize that, for some reason, almost all of the singers I loved were women. I didn’t think much of it at first, but I quickly learned to hide my interest, not wanting others to identify anything abnormal about it. The shower became a place where I could sing whatever I want, the sound dampened by running water. My morning showers became my most sacred ritual. The privacy allowed me to imagine performing as the women whose songs I loved. I tried as best I could to perfectly emulate Ella Fitzgerald’s virtuosic scat solos, Helen Forrest’s romantic vibrato, and Billie Holiday’s revolutionary phrasing.
I bring your attention to “Our Love Is Different,” written and performed by Billie Holiday, because its claim that a “different” kind of love can be heavenly, sent by angels, is a sacred message to me as a queer person. Knowing that Billie Holiday openly had romantic relationships with women only makes the message resonate with me more. Perhaps better than any other vocalist I have heard, Billie Holiday has the ability to evoke the sound of love in all its complexities: the ways that it can hurt, the ways that it can be pleasurable, the ways that it can be transcendent. Love songs that do all of these things bring the intimate feeling of love from the realm of personal experience to the public sphere.
Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard arguments on cases that will determine whether or not someone can be fired for their sexual orientation or gender identity. Coincidentally, this Friday is National Coming Out Day. The lack of nationwide protections against discrimination makes coming out more difficult for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people. The Alliance Defending Freedom, which is the group providing legal defense for the man who fired a transgender woman for refusing to wear men’s clothes at work, claims to advocate for religious freedom. However, their conception of religious freedom reflects a narrow vision of American conservative Christianity that empowers the economically powerful to impose their ideas of religion and gender onto their workers.
Why don’t we think of the woman’s desire to express her true identity in the public sphere as an expression of religious freedom? This type of love reflects not only love for oneself, but also for the ways that the divine affirms one’s gender even when society does not. Our spirits do not want to compartmentalize love neatly away in private life. I am fortunate to have discovered a passion for drag performance that took my singing out of the shower and into a communal space. However, I have also experienced homophobia in the workplace that has made me cautious about where I share this passion, or wear clothes that look too feminine, or talk about my boyfriend whom I love deeply. This is not freedom. Sharing experiences of love of all kinds—romantic love, familial love, love for the divine, love for oneself and one’s gender identity—is a fundamental human need, and we should celebrate all of the different ways people express their love.