The war on trans Americans continues unabated. The government cashiers loyal and effective soldiers from the military while trying to quash health care for young people nationwide. Apparently, parents know what’s best for their own children only when denying them vaccines. A scary time, and if you don’t think it’s your problem, then you’re ignoring how a cruel and arbitrary government can shift from one target to another. Hate is fickle.
Civility shouldn’t be. I’ve been defending trans people in print for 34 years. First, because I’m a Jew, and given our history of being on the receiving end of hatred, it’s our responsibility not to limit the compass of our sympathy entirely to ourselves.
But there’s another reason, one I’ve never explained, So today I’ll tell the story.
As a young reporter, I quickly discovered there are two ways to do the job. You can wait for someone to assign you something, and end up covering fires and zoning board hearings.
Or you can find your own subjects, ones that you are guaranteed to be interested in because you picked them yourself.
I preferred the second path.
So I’m combing the classified ads at the back of the Chicago Reader, fishing for leads, when I notice an ad for a boutique on Elston Avenue selling women’s clothing in large sizes to men.
“Now there’s an interesting business,” I thought, and headed over. Talking to the owner, I realized this is more than one shop. This is a world, a community. I saw an announcement for a dance, and decided to go.
At the dance I met “Jenny,” who I described in the opening paragraphs of my story this way:
“Jenny has sparkling blue eyes, a small, upturned nose and a cascade of curly blond hair tumbling over her right shoulder.
“With a rhinestone nail charm centered on each red fingernail, a dab of blush at her decolletage, and deftly applied make-up, it’s easy to believe her when she says she spent three hours getting ready to go out.
“The shimmery blue and silver dress is custom-made, she says, and it’s easy to believe that, too, since with the spike heels, Jenny tops out at perhaps 6-foot-7.
“‘I’m a bigger girl, I know,’ she says, smiling radiantly. ‘I can’t go out to a mall — hey, I’ve got a football player’s shoulders.'”
What I did not put in the story was my thought processes, standing there in the dim, loud dance, with my narrow pad and pen, as she spoke. Picture me, brow furrowed, gears slowly turning, as I looked up at this young woman, nearly a foot taller than myself.
“Hmmmm….” I thought. “Three hours. That’s a long time. She must really want to do this. You know … most people do what they really want to do. And in that sense, I’m lucky that what I really want to do is go home and kiss the wife. Because if I wanted to do … what she wants to do … I’d be completely screwed. Because I could either do what I want to do, and be this loathed pariah skulking around the shadows. Or I could spend my life not doing what I want to do, and isn’t that a sad way to live?”
Remember, this was in 1992. That society would become more accepting, for a while, was beyond my imagination. And don’t put too much importance on “want to do” as opposed to “have to do.” I can’t gauge the impetus driving someone to change such a fundamental aspect. But it must be powerful. In the face of enormous societal pressures — grief from your family, and now the government going after you — people make the leap anyway.
That moment of sympathy stayed with me, and tells me the current furor over trans people is all wrong, because it’s driven by demagogues, jabbing a stick into the most controversial aspects — restrooms and athletics. Those are not important, but rather harms being posited. Haters are cowards. They gin up these theoretical hurts and wave them over their heads, trying to justify themselves. I’m not saying toilets and swim meets aren’t concerns. I’m saying that for them to be Topic No. 1 is like arguing in 1930s Germany about whether Jews exert undue influence on banks. It’s buying the slur and missing the point.
The key question is: when a person decides to live a life authentic to who they are, how is that person to be received? With kindness or hostility? With acceptance or rejection? Myself, I can’t imagine putting stumbling blocks in front of such a person. It seems needless cruelty.
But there’s a lot of cruelty going around. Another key question is: are you opposing this cruelty? Or adding to it?