Danica Roem - Burn the Page: A True Story of Torching Doubts, Blazing Trails, and Igniting Change

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Copyright 2022 by Danica Roem

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library of congress cataloging-in-publication data

Names: Roem, Danica, author.

Title: Burn the Page : A True Story of Torching Doubts, Blazing Trails, and Igniting Change / Danica Roem.

Description: [New York, New York] : Viking, [2022]

Identifiers: LCCN 2021050737 (print) | LCCN 2021050738 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593296554 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593296561 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Roem, Danica. | Virginia. General Assembly. House of DelegatesBiography. | Transgender legislatorsVirginaBiography. | Transgender journalistsUnited StatesBiography. | VirginiaPolitics and government1951

Classification: LCC F231.3.R64 A3 2022 (print) | LCC F231.3.R64 (ebook) | DDC 975.5044092 [B]dc23/eng/20220119

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021050737

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021050738

Cover desgn: Colin Webber

Cover art: Michael Hoeweler

Book design by Lucia Bernard, adapted for ebook by Cora Wigen

Some names and identifying characteristics have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals involved.

pid_prh_6.0_139852016_c0_r0

To Tal and Ellu

To quote the great philosopher Little Kitten... ::ahem::

Maow!

This is a book about both the importance of the stories we tell one another and the power in setting fire to the stories you dont want to be in anymore, whether written by you or written about you by someone else. Im writing it for the person I was in 2016 when I lived in a much different story than the one Im in now.

Picture it: a five-foot-eleven, long-haired brunette metalhead trans lady reporter wearing a rainbow bandanna, an A-line skirt, and a black hoodieokay, got that visual? Now shes screaming obscenities behind the wheel of her four-door 92 Dodge Shadow America (... in 2016). Shes just shy of her thirty-second birthday; shes 1.5 years into her first-ever long-term relationship and she has a negative net worth of tens of thousands of dollars after paying off her college loans. As usual, shes half an hour late to her weekend job at a kebab shop, thanks to an insane commute in her $324 rust bucket, which has been painted primer blueas in, primer and blue.

Her job involves delivering food, plus some washing of trays, the occasional cutting of baklava, the placing of drinks in the slide-door fridge, and the ladling of tzatziki sauce into tiny to-go cups. The only thing going right in her life at the moment is the state of her calves, which look amazing after sprinting up and down every apartment staircase in Arlington.

This woman is lonely as hell. As she shuffles into the kebab shop kitchen, she mumbles Hi, hi, hi to all of her coworkers, then barely speaks to anyone again for ten or eleven hours, instead staring at the walls between tasksshe cant afford a smartphone to distract her, let alone health insurance, and the weight of those facts keeps her mind busy in the silence. Her coworkers would be shocked to learn that shes an extrovert. In fact, they would be surprised to learn that she even likes people at all. She doesnt mean to be a predictably ironic lady dick to anyone; she just has no idea how the $5 hourly pre-tip wage shes ended up making at thirty-one is somehow lower than the $5.15 an hour she pulled in at fifteen.

By this point in her life, this woman has also logged ten years of experience and thousands of bylines as a local reporter. She has interviewed the last six governors of Virginia multiple times each. Shes on a first-name basis with U.S. senator Tim Kaine, who at the time was running for vice president. But shes been laid off twice in two yearsfirst from covering state and federal political campaigns for The Hotline (often referred to as the Bible of American politics, which aggregates news clips about candidates running for office and features original reporting in the morning, afternoon, and evening news releases) and then from Yoga Alliance (a nonprofit dedicated to credentialing registered yoga teachers). By mid-2016, she has been on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for 2.5 years, and while her physical appearance is aligning more with where she wants to be, it seems employers may think otherwiseshe has sent out application after application for a real job with benefits, but no one is biting.

Shes tried the entrepreneur thing by opening a mobile yoga studio that plays heavy metal. It went belly-up within months of her selling out the first two classes, though the sight of a bunch of people in black hoodies stretching out into downward-facing dog to the soundtrack of The Pursuit of Vikings by the Swedish metal band Amon Amarth made those months so worth it. It turns out she has a lot to learn. Even a nonprofit transgender-rights organization in need of a storyteller recently passed her overa transgender storytellerfor another transgender storyteller with flashier credentials. Thats a pretty special level of fail, if you think about it.

So the Afghan Kabob House it is: a job where she spends more money than she makes, thanks to the endless car repairs, but one where the boss hired her after two interview questionsYou speak fluent English? Thats good. Can you start Monday? Shes got this gig and one other: a part-time reporting job for a local paper in Rockville, Maryland, offered by an editor who told her during the interview, Why the fuck would you want to work here? This job pays for shit. She works seven days a week and has missed out on five months worth of weekends with her partner and stepdaughter, because thats what happens when youre a lazy millennial with a B.A. working two jobs without benefits.

This woman has dreamed of ditching it all to become a full-time touring musicianbut that dream is on its last legs, too. Shes been a fixture on the local metal scene for a long time, but transitioning as a live musician hasnt just been scaryit has involved her trying to figure out on-the-fly who she is onstage. Usually, metal chicks work that out as goth teenagers, but when youre in your early thirties, you can only slather on so much fake-tortured eyeliner before it creeps its way into your crows-feet.

Her friends have all been cool with her transition, but now that her voice isnt holding up livein fact, its become more and more timidshe finds herself losing confidence. Meanwhile, her band hasnt been practicing much, and the gigs are few and far between since both Jaxx and Balls Bluff Taverntwo staples of the Northern Virginia metal sceneclosed. The dream isnt just slipping; its on a glide path out the door.

On top of it all, this woman happens to live in a country where Donald Trump is about to accept the Republican presidential nomination, and forty-nine LGBTQ people and their allies have just been shot to death at Pulse nightclub in Orlando. The morning after the Pulse shooting, she drove, completely dazed, around Arlington and Georgetown, sobbing her way through deliveries as NPR reported a seemingly endless increasing body count, fighting to maintain a stoic face every time she handed a plastic bag of lamb and lentils to someone whose rent for their two-bedroom apartment cost far more than she would make that month.