This is the time of the year when we celebrate people in the LGBTQ community. It has caused a new attack on gay people and others. Stores have been threatened by people who challenge peoples’ sexual identify. Various businesses who advertise online using transgender people have been targeted. Folks have asked for these businesses to be boycotted. Thanks for this goes to people like DeSantis and groups such as those wanting books banned that they say “sexualize” their children. It is one of the reasons that they have pushed for banning drag queens from reading to their children in libraries. However, I have never met anyone who woke up in the morning and said, “I think that I will be gay or transgender today!” Ethics is about choice. If there is no choice, there is no ethical issue. It is still a rough road in our culture. I thought we were getting beyond this, but thanks to Trump and Maga Republicans, we have not. Moms for Liberty, a designated terrorist group, is meeting in Philly this weekend. Latent prejudice has now been given permission to come out in the open. Shouldn’t a person’s identity also include such things as intelligent, hard-working, being a good friend? We are more than sexual beings. We are learning in recent news that people who point the finger in accusation of others are often the person doing the injustice of crime.
First, people who hold this prejudice have no idea about the nature of human sexuality. It is not black and white as in you are heterosexual or homosexual. I have been to enough seminars to know that sexuality is fluid and does not compute in the world of “I am right and you are wrong.” It requires a level of knowledge. In this case lack of knowledge is not bliss. It causes harm. Josh Hawley’s recent tweet regarding Juneteenth that America is where slavery came to die got a huge response, and it wasn’t good. He also underscored that this was thanks to Christianity. The slave owners quickly used their interpretation of Christianity to keep slaves in bondage. He has a lot of degrees from great schools, but he has no knowledge. He will forever be remembered with his raised fist encouraging the crowd on January 6 and then running away when they arrived at the Insurrection.
I do have trouble with the Pride Parades that have happened all over the nation. I think that it is great to celebrate, but I also believe in self-confirming behavior. A good many of the people in the parades are dressed in funny, often provocative ways. Some even look like clowns. If you are a prejudiced person, you can look at the parade and say to yourself and others, see those people are not to be taken seriously. It just confirms what prejudiced people think.
So, I would want an additional parade. This parade would contain those people who are not professional gay people but gay people who are professionals. Let’s have a parade with ordinary looking citizens, working class, underserved and affluent come down the street. It would be hard to have self-confirming behavior. Throw in some famous people as well, but the people from Main Street would make the greatest impact. I think that change would really begin a conversation that would NOT confirm DeSantis’ take on things and would underscore the norm of being gay.
Now, let’s take a look at the issue of drag queens reading to children which they have done for years or that they can’t perform in public with the possibility that children could be present.
I don’t agree with that. This is the old worn thought that being gay, transgender, or a drag queen that children can catch sexuality like a bad cold. But there is a problem! I haven’t seen any parents who take their children to the Dallas Cowboy football games and are seen hiding the eyes of their children as the Cowboys’ cheerleaders are “cheering” in provocative outfits. This is popular throughout the league and has become true for cheerleaders in college and high school as well. At least the drag queens are performing a public service. I have yet to hear about fans not coming to games with their children because of the provocative dress of cheerleaders. It could be because that represents the good old male view of heterosexuality. Nobody has been asked to my knowledge to cover up cleavage. But those drag queens, they are the real threat to our children’s sexuality! Give me a break!
Recently, I was with a transgender person who was female and has transitioned to male. He had his two children with him. First, I could not tell that the person had transitioned to male. She looked male. I watched him with his two children. I would hope that all parents could be as kind and responsive as this gentleman was. I have known this person for a long time, and his present kindness is an extension of what I have seen in him his entire life.
The best way that I know how to explain what it must be like to be transgender is a simple example of handedness. If you are lefthanded and try to write righthanded, it feels foreign even though people have been forced to change from being lefthanded to righthanded as young children by parents and teachers. Talk about discrimination, we live in a righthanded culture. Lefthanded people have to adjust every time we go out to a restaurant. We have to move things around on the table.
I do have a concern about transgender youth. Largely Republican states are withdrawing care and stigmatizing them in very overt ways that has put them in jeopardy. The message is “You don’t deserve care. You don’t/shouldn’t exist” The same issue rests with the issue of abortion. The political party that has overturned Roe V. Wade is the party that brings the least legislation to help pregnant mothers and funds for child rearing. This results in intergenerational poverty.
My other area of concern is two sides of the argument regarding at what age should an adolescent transition to a different sexual identity. I know the arguments on both sides of that issue and still do not have an absolute view except that parents should be involved in that decision if a person is a minor. You have to work with kids for a long period of time to appreciate my dilemma. There is so much going on with young people regarding hormones and identity that It is difficult to assign a legal age for a sex change. Kids need a tremendous amount of support during this time in their lives anyway particularly as a result of COVID.
I had two serious wrist surgeries on my left wrist. I could existentially relate to knowing what handedness I was and what I was missing. I believe transgender people are like that.
I sometimes need something to keep in the fight for what is right and ethical with issues of human sexuality. I received a Christmas card from one of my stellar former students. There was a picture and her daughter was missing from it. When I read the note below the picture, she wrote: “My daughter is now my son. It is the first time that I have seen him smile for a long period of time.” That keeps me going!
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