Lesser Prophets

We were the despised, the unloved, the fitfully tolerated, the novelty acts, and in some fortunate places, the embraced and even cherished. In those safe harbors, we celebrated each stage of our growing emancipation even though others of our tribe were faced with hangman's gallows or less deadly alternatives and dared not show their true faces. We passed as "normal" when possible, and we were penalized when we could not pass. We only had freedom when they said we could be free. That was our world. We knew none other. But then God, or Fate, or the Omniscient Divine-or merely happenstance-negated all the rules, and our status was forever changed. This is how our new world began. We were the Lesser Prophets, and this is our story.