Community Portraits: Judge Susan Yarbrough Lesbian, feminist, immigration judge, massage therapist, and now bird-friendly gardener–the many guises of a life lived with serenity and passion by Shane Hennesey

Balance, security, self-assurance, serenity, vision, clarity. These are some of the things I want for myself as I get older. I would want them whether I was transgendered, gay, or straight. So when I got this assignment, I hoped to get to meet someone who possessed at least some of those qualities.

It was with those expectations that I met Susan Yarbrough for lunch one Friday. At 54 years young, she has a rather impressive legal career, a stable home, life partner, side business, and a gentle soul. Not too shabby for a little girl who grew up in a not-so-nurturing family of East Texas in the late 1940s. Growing up gay in hyper-religious, uneducated East Texas–nuff said ’bout that.

New York City, feminism, and a chance to practice criminal law pulled Susan out of Texas and into Greenwich Village where the time was right for growing up on her own terms and coming out of the closet. She had created her space in the world and accomplished her personal/professional goals as a criminal lawyer when she got the urge to move back to Texas. Several years later, she was asked to apply for a federal judge position, and in the process, the FBI "discovered" she was a lesbian and that she had missed a tax-filing date several years before. Any guess which of these two discoveries was of imminent threat to national security? Well, as it turns out, the only people who were thoroughly upset by the uncovered sexuality were her parents, and the feds got over the tax issue.

Susan’s federal career landed her a position in charge of judging asylum cases for illegal aliens here in Texas. She gives a focus to her lesbian, feminist energy through her passion for helping those people without a voice, whose faces are "pressed up against the glass of America." But her healing energy could not be limited to the courtroom, so she went to massage school and picked up the skills to give her a more personal connection to people.

So what’s this Lesbian, Feminist, Immigration Judge, Massage Therapist up to currently? Well, she is still trying to help the voiceless in court, she is still very much a feminist with an eye out for egalitarian treatment of all people, she has given up the physical rigors of massage therapy, and she is still quite lesbian. The part of her that is a little girl from Texas has created a business called Gardening for the Birds, for which she has a great passion that allows her to work outside on bird-friendly gardening, and this is where she hopes to plant her future.

I asked Susan what she would tell me if I were coming out to her and looking for advice and support. She told me that I was OK just the way I am, that God doesn’t make trash, to find a family of my own choosing, that it would not always be easy, and that I could come back for a hug or a kind word any time I needed it. Above all the labels and descriptions I have given her in this brief article to help you understand some of who she is as a successful older gay person, let me add Big Heart and Good Person.

Balance, security, self-assurance, serenity, vision, clarity–I got what I hoped for.