The Misguided Targeting of Transgender Americans
Feeling the need to chime in on this.
FACT: Transgender is not about one’s sexual orientation (i.e. who one is attracted to), it is about gender identity (i.e., what you feel like in your skin). It is a VERY difficult thing to have physical attributes (i.e. sex organs) that do not jibe with one’s thoughts, feelings, aspects and character. That incongruity causes people deep emotional pain. It is SO difficult that for many, the only tenable solution is to change their outer aspect to conform to their inner one, that is . . . . after they try, sometimes for years, to conform their inner thoughts to their physical aspects and cannot do so. So let’s all get on the same page, Transgender has NOTHING TO DO with sex or sexual attraction.
OTHER IMPORTANT FACTS: Transgender women are WOMEN born with the wrong sex organs. If they have undergone any aspect of gender reassignment, be it through hormonal therapy, surgery or both, they look like WOMEN. They act like women. And here’s an interesting tidbit: WOMEN DO NOT MACK ON EACH OTHER IN PUBLIC BATHROOMS. Never, have I ever looked at the woman standing next to me at a mirror and wondered what her sex organs looked like. If we have any conversation in the bathroom, its like “Hey girl, I love your shoes!” or “Hey is my dress zipped all the way up?” We don’t EVER ask each other, “Hey, what’s in your panties?” NOT! EVER! Conversely, I sincerely doubt that a Trans Male, would stand at a urinal if he didn’t have the equipment to use one. He would use a stall. What kind of man would ask of another “Hey man! How come you didn’t use a urinal? What you got in your pants?” NO ONE DOES THAT!!!
CONCLUSION: So this whole hysteria about trans people and bathrooms has NOTHING to do with public safety and everything to do with trying to make a segment of the population feel like freaks. It is mean-spirited and based in a wrong-headed sense that the psychic comfort of non-transgendered persons, who just hate the “idea” of sharing a bathroom with a transgendered person, is FAR more important than the actual comfort of transgendered persons. Hey Mississippi and North Carolina! Newsflash. . . . you cannot force someone to conform to the norms that make you comfortable by being mean, hateful, judgmental, or cruel to them. It doesn’t work that way.
Kudos to Bryan Adams and Bruce Springsteen, amongst others, for standing up for what is right.