Jasper Sanchez - The (Un)Popular Vote

The (Un)Popular Vote contains depictions of transphobia and homophobia. This book is about queer characters and details their struggles as well as their joy. This book is for queer readers, but please read with care. Your well-being comes first.

POLITICS, MY DAD USED TO TELL ME, IS sleight of hand. Smoke and mirrors. The art of the steal, rather than good old-fashioned hard work. Democracy, he said, is an elegant, elaborate distraction.

Take this scene playing out on C-SPAN. Its a real performance. A Republican congressman from a tiny, gun-toting district in rural Maine is giving a heartfelt soliloquy on the joys of hunting New England cottontails, which hed like to see removed from the endangered species list. Itd be a rousing speech, if everyones minds werent already made up. The real wheeling and dealing happens behind the scenes, in the cloakrooms C-SPANs cameras cant see. When the vote comes, it wont be based on rousing speeches or public opinion. Itll come down to whose money greases whose palms and who owes favors to whom.

This speech is a parlor trick. Pageantry in the name of polite society. Ive heard it all before.

My laptop streams on my desk as I go through the motions of my morning routine. The suns up, but its rays havent yet breached the sill of my second-floor window. I rummage for clothes in the dim. Moments like these make me miss my old schools uniforms. Im still not used to picking out clothes for myself. Even outside of school, femininity was another dress code I didnt want to follow. In the end, I keep it simple. Binder, packer, trunks. Dark jeans. A mildly rumpled Oxford, the sleeves artfully cuffed. My tried-and-true red hoodie. Pomade through the floppy part of my dark blond hair. Its another kind of uniform, but its one I choose.

I keep one eye on the screen as I labor in front of the mirror. The congressmans still going. His tinny voice rattles through my shitty laptop speakers. Every so often, the feed cuts away from the three tiers of podiums at the center of the House Chamber. Another camera pans around the room, taking in the rings of seats and ugly blue carpeting.

I know that room. I know the name of every scholar and philosopher whose face graces those walls, and I know there are bullet holes in the ceiling from a 1954 shooting. Ive been in that room. I did a summer program in middle school. They called it a leadership conference, but it was really a glorified summer camp. They herded us into the House Chamber before the crack of dawn, before the session started, to listen to retired congressmen extol the virtues of public service in staid, nonpartisan platitudes. Half the kids fell asleep, but I was transfixed, my white knuckles gripping the edges of my sticky leather seat.

Most of those seats are empty this early in the morning. It may be three hours later in Washington, but the sessions only just started, and this is a low-profile bill. Most representatives are in their offices. Some are still in their beds. Some arent even in Washington. There are no assigned seats in the House. But Democrats tend to sit stage right, Republicans stage left. Ironic, I know. That means I can narrow my search down by half. The camera keeps panning, and I keep scanning. The birds-eye angle doesnt help, not when half the men are balding and the other half seem to favor the same Don Draperwannabe hairstyle. Still, I can rule out the gray- and white-haired. Focus on the first few rows. Search for broad shoulders on a slim man

There. In the second row, near the center. A blot of neatly styled blond hair, green and grainy under the harsh, energy-efficient lighting.

Congressman Graham Teagan, Democrat, from Californias Second District.

Or, as I know him: Dad.

Motion sensors switch on cool fluorescent lights when I pad downstairs. Everything here is automatic, from the lights to the heat. Its smaller than the house in Marin, but its not small. This is a McMansion compared to a real-deal, old-money mansion. That place was Dads taste, old-fashioned and ostentatious enough you could see it from space. Sometimes I think Mom picked this house out of spite when they covertly separated last year. They couldnt make it formal, let alone public; Dad didnt want the scandal, let alone the speculation. So they have an agreement. Mom and I moved forty miles north, where I have the freedom to transition and Dad has the freedom to ignore me. Mom dutifully plays the part of the good wife, making public appearances and countless other sacrifices to spare me from having to do the same.

This housethis townis supposed to be my safe haven.

The kitchens empty, though a half-full carafe steams under the brushed chrome coffee maker. A note hangs from the fridge, pinned under a Harvard magnet. In loopy cursive that adheres to every stereotype about doctors illegible handwriting, Mom informs me she was called in early and she loves me.

My athletic socks slip and slide on the hardwood floors. Monty, our Jack Russell terrier, noses at my calves. I pour the rest of the coffee directly into a thermos. No cream; no sugar. The microwave whirs, then chirps when it finishes thawing my breakfast burrito. I lean over the granite island, still watching my laptop. Mom hates it when I eat without sitting down, but its a burrito. It may be smothered in locally sourced organic hot sauce, but its still a burrito. Ergo, finger food.

I love Mom, and I appreciate everything shes done for me this past year, of course I do, but I like the mornings when she heads to the hospital early. Whenever she catches me watching C-SPAN, she gives me the look she gives patients with terminal cancer. When I put up a better front, she stares at me over the brim of her mug in a way she never did when I left for school in a uniform skirt. Sometimes she straightens my collar or smooths my cowlick with her thumb, but its worst when she just looks at me. Because I can never name the emotion that storms up behind her eyes, whether its pride or wistful nostalgia. I just know shes measuring every inch of me against the man Im trying to be. When she looks at me, she still sees the doorjamb where she used to mark the height of the girl I was, and I never know how this version of me measures up.

This house may be manned by artificial intelligence, but it doesnt judge me. Not for spilling hot sauce on my shirt. Not for wearing a silicone dick in my boxer briefs. Not for watching C-SPAN on my laptop at five a.m. just to catch a glimpse of my dads face.

Pablo texts when hes outside. He honked precisely once, the first morning of junior year, and never again. Not after the informal reprimand Mom received from the neighborhood association, which strictly prohibits noise nuisances.

I hurry outside, red high-tops in hand, while Pablo Navarros Range Rover idles in the driveway.

Hey, he says as I hoist myself into the passenger seat. The rising sun burnishes his adobe skin in gold. Hes got more facial hair than just about anyone in the senior class, and he wears it proudly. Even though its pushing seventy degrees already, his blue-and-red letterman jacket hangs over his broad wrestlers buildfat, hed correct me without an ounce of shame.

Hey. I yank the door shut, and Pablo winces, as if he can feel his cars pain. He loves this thing like its his own child.

Taylor Swifts latest single spills from the speakers; Jenny calls Pablos Taylor obsession his only character flaw. The car smells like oil and leather polish. Underneath, it still has that new car scent, too, even though his parents gave it to him before I moved here.