Trish MacEnulty's Blog - Posts Tagged "transgender-hb2"
One Person's Evil
The landscaper who is trying to help me revive my poor lawn came over the other day just after I got home from yoga class. We got into a conversation about yoga and he went on to say that he’d been meditating for years. We both agreed that meditation and having peace in your heart were important — “especially now.” And we both shook our heads at the current craziness of the world.
“It just seems that there’s more evil in the world right now,” he said. Immediately I thought of the program of rape that ISIS is alleged to be conducting, I thought of the racist violence fomented at Trump rallies, and I thought of the young black men shot by poorly trained and over-equipped police. But the landscaper was thinking of something entirely different.
“They’re going to let those freaks use the same bathroom as my little nieces! Now, what is that all about?”
He went on for a while expressing his disgust and dismay at the fact that lawmakers here in NC may roll back HB2 after intense pressure from the business community, while I stood there dumbfounded. I guess I had my own stereotypes. I thought that he might be worried as I was about the erosion of voting rights, the return of segregation, etc. That just shows the folly of assumption.
Now, If I were to see transgender people called “freaks” on social media, I’d be quick to anger. But here I was, standing face to face with someone whom I like but whose concern for his female relatives seemed misguided to me. Instead of getting angry, I simply said, “You know, transgender people are such a small portion of the population, I really don’t think you have anything to worry about. I’ve only known a few my whole life, and they were nice people.” Of course, I could have said any number of things, but I was so stunned that was all I could muster.
I went about my business, but I thought about the conversation and thought about what I would say when next I saw him and it would be this: “You know, I’ve had guys expose themselves to me when I was just a kid. And I’ve been raped, as have many women I know. None of those were wearing dresses. They looked just like any guy. Your nieces may need protecting but not from transgender people.”
I’m so grateful for Laverne Cox’s complex and sympathetic portrayal of a transgender woman on Orange is the New Black. I don’t understand what it feels like to be born in the wrong body, but that doesn’t mean that the people who do feel that way are somehow inferior to the rest of us. We had it right a long time ago: “Different strokes for different folks.”
By the way, my own novel about a women’s prison, The Pink House, is available now.
“It just seems that there’s more evil in the world right now,” he said. Immediately I thought of the program of rape that ISIS is alleged to be conducting, I thought of the racist violence fomented at Trump rallies, and I thought of the young black men shot by poorly trained and over-equipped police. But the landscaper was thinking of something entirely different.
“They’re going to let those freaks use the same bathroom as my little nieces! Now, what is that all about?”
He went on for a while expressing his disgust and dismay at the fact that lawmakers here in NC may roll back HB2 after intense pressure from the business community, while I stood there dumbfounded. I guess I had my own stereotypes. I thought that he might be worried as I was about the erosion of voting rights, the return of segregation, etc. That just shows the folly of assumption.
Now, If I were to see transgender people called “freaks” on social media, I’d be quick to anger. But here I was, standing face to face with someone whom I like but whose concern for his female relatives seemed misguided to me. Instead of getting angry, I simply said, “You know, transgender people are such a small portion of the population, I really don’t think you have anything to worry about. I’ve only known a few my whole life, and they were nice people.” Of course, I could have said any number of things, but I was so stunned that was all I could muster.
I went about my business, but I thought about the conversation and thought about what I would say when next I saw him and it would be this: “You know, I’ve had guys expose themselves to me when I was just a kid. And I’ve been raped, as have many women I know. None of those were wearing dresses. They looked just like any guy. Your nieces may need protecting but not from transgender people.”
I’m so grateful for Laverne Cox’s complex and sympathetic portrayal of a transgender woman on Orange is the New Black. I don’t understand what it feels like to be born in the wrong body, but that doesn’t mean that the people who do feel that way are somehow inferior to the rest of us. We had it right a long time ago: “Different strokes for different folks.”
By the way, my own novel about a women’s prison, The Pink House, is available now.
