Silence is no longer an option.....
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I haven't blogged for a very long time. I found out that there are certain people in this world who hate a woman with opinions and the temerity to express them in public. Rather than doing what reasonable adults do—scrolling on past opinions that infuriate them--they will do and say some really hateful things to shut you up.
Nobody likes to be hated. Especially not me—the quintessential Southern people-pleaser, who can write a fiery blog or Facebook post but avoids unpleasant conversations in real life. I've even been known to hide behind potted plants and architectural pillars when I'm out and about, just to avoid running into someone with whom I'd really rather not talk politics or religion. (Sad, but true....)
Doxy is my alter-ego—the one who isn't afraid to say exactly what she thinks. She's who I want to be when I grow up—a fearless woman who doesn't give a shit what you think about her. But after a while, all the hate that was coming my way here just got to be more trouble than it was worth. Everyone was going to Facebook anyway, and it's so easy to pop in there and just pound out a paragraph or two when you are feeling all wound up.
But yesterday I was nearly beside myself over the news about 45's assault on the transgender community. I sat down to write a Facebook post about it, and it just got longer, and longer, and........longer. At some point, I realized that I hadn't felt this passionate about anything since my friend Terri-Lynn died, and I felt that old feeling I used to get when Doxy took over my brain and my fingers.
It was like she'd never been away. She was her usual, adamant, bossy self. She told me in no uncertain terms that what she needed to say required more room and more thought than a Facebook post.
So I dug up the password for this blog, and I'm giving Doxy her chance to start speaking again. She's mercurial and only shows up to write when she feels like it, so I don't know how often she'll post. I've noticed that she writes most when she is either furious or sad—or some combination of the two. The current political climate is almost tailor-made to get her going.
At her best, Doxy writes to change the world. She never got over being told that "life isn't fair." She thinks it should be, and she still believes in the power of words to move hearts and minds. She speaks truth to power, and she tries—always—to "kick up and kiss down." She has an opinion on just about everything, and she's happy to share it with you, whether you want to hear it or not. 😂
(And if you don't want to hear it, she says to tell you that no one is holding a gun to your head to make you read what she has to say, so just move the hell on. Thanks!)
Internet bullies are awful, and I don't expect that to change. I try to remember that "Hurt people hurt people," and that their lives must be really sad if the best thing they can do with their time is to be hateful to someone they've never even met. I wish they would get up from their computers and go play with a nice, friendly dog or have ice cream with a pal. Because life is too short to waste it, you know?
But there are worse things than internet bullies. And being silent when it counts is far, FAR worse.
The countdown has begun, and Doxy has a few things to say....
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In my line of work, I've met a lot of transgender people. I'm sure that, as a group, they are just like any other group of human beings; some are wonderful, and some are wretched. But, to date at least, my experiences with transmen and transwomen have been universally positive. Just like the rest of us, transgender people are simply trying to live their best lives. But they are so fucking vulnerable, and I will never understand the hatred and violence aimed at them.
Most of you will probably say to yourselves that you don't know any transgender people. And even though you won't mean to be callous, you'll likely look the other way when Trump and the GOP ram through new laws and policies targeting them. Because there are so many other horrible things to fight back on, and you think you don't have a dog in the fight, right?
Let me tell you something: Transgender people are the canaries in our national coal mine. When Trump comes after them, he is seeing how far he can get away with MAKING LAWS THAT DEFINE PEOPLE AS NOT HUMAN.
Because that's what you (collective "you") are saying when you tell transgender people that they don't exist. That their own experiences in their own bodies are not valid. That they have no right to live free of fear. That they have no right to safety, or love, or joy.
You are saying that your desire to enforce some 18th century notions about biology and a set of arbitrary social constructs is more important than their lives, their minds, and their hearts. (You are also demonstrating that you know jackshit about genetics and that you are pretty insecure about your own gender identity, but that's a discussion for another day...)
We've been here before, people. And if you know any history at all, you know when and where and who—and you know how it all turned out.
The groundwork is now being laid for ugliness many Americans thought was relegated to history books or limited to what we used to call "banana republics." For many people, it feels as if there are no safe places. And it's worse—much worse—when you are a transgender person.
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Did you grow up—as I did—confidently declaring that you would never have allowed He Who Must Not be Named to co-opt you into his evil?
Did you believe—to the depths of your soul—that you would have resisted the dehumanization? That you would have fought against the unjust laws aimed at a small and helpless segment of the population? That you would have had the courage to resist when people were being beaten and murdered—not for anything they did (which would be bad enough), but for who they were?
Here's your chance to screw your courage to the sticking place.
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I know it's been hard to determine if 45 and his goon squad will ever hit bottom with their white supremacist/patriarchal lack of decency. I've asked myself repeatedly if the black holes that stand in for their hearts/souls will suck all the light out of the universe before it's all over? I’ve wondered “How will I know when the situation has reached DEFCON 1?”
For me, that question has now been answered.
If you've been waiting for some flashpoint—some point at which you can say "This is the moment when we have a chance to say "No" to evil and keep history from repeating itself"—the time is now.
If you consider yourself a patriot...if you consider yourself a person of faith/morals...if you have any shred of human decency in your soul, you can prove that your image of yourself has some basis in reality by standing up publicly for transgender people and being counted. NOW. Before it's too late.
You don't have to understand transgender people—although I hope you will try. But you can believe that transgender people are wrong, deluded, or whatever adjective floats your boat if you want. You can even believe that God is horrified by transgender people if you wish. But in the name of all that is holy, we need you to stand up and protect transgender people now. Why?
- Because transgender people are made in the image of God (or, if you don't want to bring a deity into it, they are human beings). Just like you—and that ought to be enough to cause you to stand up. But if it isn't...
- Because transgender people have families and friends who love them—just like you do—and those folks shouldn't have to spend their days wondering if (when?) they are going to get a phone call that will break their hearts and shatter their lives.
But if you can't imagine how devastating it would be to get a call telling you that your child / sibling / best friend/ etc. had been beaten to death just for being transgender...
- Because transgender people have endured things you can't even imagine, just to be free to be themselves. Many transgender people have lost everything in their bids to live authentic lives—families and friends, jobs, homes, and any expectation of physical safety. They do this because doing anything else is no longer tenable; they risk everything to find a way to live with integrity.
Do you know what that costs? Or how much that kind of integrity is worth?
But maybe you’ve never had a moment when you stood up against the crowd because you weren’t willing to sell your soul to fit in. And maybe you've never experienced knowing that—even though you paid a huge price for doing it—you had done the only thing you could do, and you were left with one consolation: You could still look yourself in the mirror the next day without averting your eyes.
But if you've never experienced that...
- Because transgender people have more courage than all the cisgender people reading this post put together. I have called transgender people the canaries in our national coal mine—but don’t get the idea that they are weak little birds. For example, if you want to know what transwomen are capable of, I suggest you google Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson. That kind of courage should leave you awed and down-on-your-knees grateful at how easy it is to live your life.
But if you can't appreciate the bravery it takes to walk out in public—every fucking day—as a transman or transwoman...
- Because transgender people are the very epitome of "the least of these." Every religious/humanist tradition with which I am acquainted is quite clear about the responsibility moral people bear when it comes to caring for the most vulnerable among us.
Let's be honest here, my cisgender friends: Transgender people are vulnerable because we have made them that way. We’ve denied them health care and housing. We’ve refused to hire them—or fired them when they told us who they really were.
We’ve forced far too many of them to turn to sex work just to stay alive, with predictable outcomes. CDC estimates that between 22-28 percent of all transwomen in the U.S. are living with HIV. For black/African American transwomen, the estimate is a shocking 56 percent.
And when they are beaten, tortured, and murdered—as they are at rates dramatically higher than any other population—too many of us think, “Well, what do they expect?!”
We caused all this mess and heartache, and we have an obligation to fix it. If we don't, we need to stop telling ourselves that we are “good people.”
But if even that reason won’t move you, I’m not above appealing to your sense of self-preservation…
- Because my transgender friends may be the most vulnerable NOW...but your turn is coming. You’ve heard that Martin Niemoller quote your entire life. Did you really think that it only applied to a land long, long ago and far, far away?
And, finally .....
- Because our own humanity is at stake. What happened in that far-off land a long time ago (and in lots of other places since then) happened because ordinary people didn't stand up when it mattered. They had lots of reasons. Some were brazen antisemites. But most didn't stand up because they didn't care about people they didn't know, or they "didn't follow politics," or because they made money off the dehumanization of others, or—most likely—because they were afraid of what would happen to them if they did. I'm pretty sure they all considered themselves to be "good people."
But they weren't. They were the ones who truly became less human. They allowed themselves to be beguiled by a madman who told them that he would make their nation great again. In the pursuit of a pipe dream, they traded away their humanity, and millions of people all over the world suffered and died for their failure to act.
Protect the canaries and you set up a bulwark against all the cruelty to come. Protect transgender people and you protect yourself, your family, and everything you say you love.
After all, whether you realize it our not, transgender people are members of your family, your church, and your neighborhood. Protect them and you give yourself—and the world—an opportunity to make meaning out of your life.
Your alternatives are to to collaborate in the cruelty and viciousness or to ignore what's happening—which is essentially same thing.
Think about how you want to be remembered decades from now. Then make your choice.