Bless Heather's ignorant little heart.
I can't imagine why none of her classmates confided in her. It's a mystery.
For the record, I went to school well before 2000. None of my classmates ever admitted to being gay, or lesbian, or bisexual, much less trans. Why? Because the stigma against LGBTQ people was so harsh that admitting such a thing was unthinkable. I remember when I first put a gay character in one of my stories, my readers were appalled. Why would you write about this? (It wasn't gay sex, just an openly gay minor character.) No one will publish a story with this in it.
Anyway: all of this to say that when I was 20 years old until I was about 22, I dated a guy with a motorcycle. Tall, gangly, moody, very hot. I say "guy," but she was trans. I don't know if she knew it then -- we never even came close to talking about it -- but I do know when my mother called me to tell me that she had come out, I wasn't even a tiny bit surprised.
Why are kids more willing to come out as trans now? For the same reason they're much more willing to tell people they're gay, or Lesbian, or bisexual, or pansexual, or any of the rest -- because mostly people aren't as ignorant as Heather, or as bigoted, or as mean-spirited. Because when people are openly LGBTQ these days, it is -- for most of us -- no big deal.
That's why a certain type of conservative is seizing on trans people to use as a way to gin up hate. They know no one will support their disgusting bigotry against gay people anymore. Maybe, though, they hope, they can still use trans people to inflame the rubes.
The GOP has to get votes some how. God knows they can't do it with their ideas -- those are non-starters. (Give more money to rich people. Let people die of preventable illnesses. Keep destroying the planet to make a few rich people a tiny bit richer. Solve the labor shortage with child labor.) So whipping up their base by encouraging them to hate trans people, and immigrants, and imaginary pedophiles -- that's all they have.
2 comments:
One of my best friends transitioned in college. That was in the 1990s, in Germany. They weren't particularly public about it, but all their friends knew.
It would have been in the 90's when my datefriend (as the kids today say) transitioned as well.
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