Dear America, It's Time to Turn the Channel

Do you think this is bullying? 

The message arrived in my DMs from an old friend. If my social media inboxes are any indication, my opinion is valuable to quite a few people, although all bets are off if I’ve given birth to you or dated you. I get it; I’m better in theory. It’s not a bad place to be good, especially if you can get paid for it. 

 The thing in question was a screenshot of a Facebook post by a man with whom I have three things in common: a hometown, a mutual family member, and an ugly disagreement. I don’t require anyone to agree with me, but I do expect tact and self-control. In his case, those qualities didn’t get the invitation to his genetic-makeup party, but it appears Irrational Aggression arrived early and stayed late. 

His post that sparked my friend’s DM is a photo of what appears to be a young man dressed in women’s clothing at the local Target. While putting this young person in danger and making unfounded assumptions about their danger to women and children in bathrooms, he made sure to proclaim that he does not hate “these people.” Okay, easy peasy. I’ll go next: From here on out, despite the bills in my name, I proclaim that I am debt free. I’ll keep you posted on how that plays out. 

Although I don’t think highly of my hometown compatriot, I’m not here to degrade him. He did a wrong thing, but he is no less loved by whomever loves him, and taking him down would be instant gratification to no productive end. For my purposes, he’s simply a reflection of this country’s current temperament.

There is no evidence that trans people are a menace to women and children. Yet millions of Americans believe it anyway because we digest our judgments like we do memes: face value, no context. How do we know when we see a weirdo? They look weird! Easy peasy. It’s much more convenient to point out a trans person than a straight man who is overwhelmingly a greater threat, as evidenced by stats on rape, pedophilia, sexual assault, serial murder, domestic violence, and mass shootings. It’s easier to point to the LGBTQ+ community as the ruination of the family than to look in the mirror at causes that have been around for eons, like sky-high hetero divorce rates, addiction, and absent fathers. 

While I don’t believe trans women in women’s bathrooms pose a clear danger, I do believe the issue isn’t cut and dried. My urge to consider the complexity of our our socio-cultural paradigm shifts has earned me ire from both sides. Because I believe marriage is between whomever wants to be married, I’ve been degraded for being an ally. Because I’ve asked earnest, difficult questions about how we should arrange our world according to gender fluidity, I’ve been deleted for being “unsafe” to the LGBTQ+ community. Apparently I “offend everyone equally,” and while I don’t wear that description as a badge of honor as some do, I’m simply navigating the world in my own skin. If we are to accept people as they are, that includes me, whose thought process tends to straddle the line between empathy and reason. For label’s sake, I call myself a humanist, and to up the ante of complexity, a Christian humanist who exists on the fringe of her own faith. 

As a Christian, I’m supposed to follow a list of rules, which can be quite long if all opinions count. Some of the rules reflect the life and times of a certain carpenter while others reflect the ego and fears of certain Christians. 

Lists can be satisfying, if you’re me. I get a triple dose of dopamine from writing, organizing, and aspiring on paper (or a screen). If I’m not making the list myself, all I ask is for logic and brevity. My mind has squirrel-like reflexes, and one false move will send me straight up a tree. 

My list as a Christian doesn’t include any rules about whom I should fear on Earth, such as a (possibly) trans woman minding their own business in Target. However, life on Earth being far from paradise, fear finds its way to all of us. For me, it embodies exactly one thing: men. Straight men, to be precise. It’s a fear all women live with, consciously or subconsciously, every day of their lives. Straight men are why we lock our doors. Why we can’t walk anywhere we want at any time we want. Why we can’t end relationships. Why apartment janitors with master keys are suspect. And so on, and on. It’s an inordinately long list that sends us all up a tree. 

Fear should be used wisely. If I were making the list of what constitutes danger, it would not include the LGBTQ+ community, and while I'm at it, racial-sensitivity education and books. Yet millions of Americans have targeted all of the above with a life-or-death ferocity.  

America has become a network playing all fear, all the time. It’s time to turn the channel.