[ad_1]
Our existence, to use a technical term, weirds them out.
I guess I can understand that. When I was a child, it weirded me out too.
But what they never suggest is what trans people should do instead of being ourselves. We still don’t know what, if anything, makes people trans, but it’s clear that conversion therapy does not work. You can be upset that trans people exist, I suppose, but no amount of upset about us can erase the absolute fact that we are here, same as you, and that we have been here for centuries.
Transgender people were not put here to make Mike Pence — or Germaine Greer — unhappy. Transgender people, like everything else, were created by God — or nature, if you prefer, glorious evidence of creation’s inventiveness. We were not made to hurt your feelings. We were made to see if you meant it when you said, “Love each other as I have loved you.” Did you?
I did not know what the future would hold, as I stood there on the banks of Great Pond twenty New Year’s Eves ago. Maybe it would have raised my spirits if I’d known that in the years to come, I would get to see how truly loving some people could be.
Would it have deterred me, if I had known for certain that the world would also contain truly heartless and terrible people, at least one of whom would eventually become the president? It would not.
I would still have gone about the business of becoming myself. Which is what I did on Jan. 6, 2000. It was the night of the new moon, the first of the new millennium. It was the Feast of Epiphany.
That night I looked once more into a starry sky and said, Enough. I will set out on this journey, although I do not know the way.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected].
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.
[ad_2]
Source link
