Tuesday, May 3, 2016

More Faces of Fear - Off the Chain






“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”
Plato


Various sources from a simple Google search confirm the current count of transgendered individuals at roughly 700,000.  That's also somewhere between 0.2 and 0.5 percent of the total U.S. population.  It's not many.  So why the giant uproar about transgendered restrooms?  Why is it even a topic that's considered newsworthy?   I'll tell you why.  It breeds fear and hatred and it diverts your attention from more important things. 

So, if you happen to be one of those people gripped in fear, or worse yet, hatred, because your son or daughter might be subjected to someone with a gender identity "issue," I want you to help me clarify some things.  You know.  I want to try and see things from your perspective for a moment.  After all, I have two daughters.

To be clear, you don't fear the loss of soldiers every day in a war we can't win.  You're not apprehensive about the trillions of dollars we've spent on said war.  But you're afraid you daughter might be molested by someone transgendered in a public restroom at Target?

You don't feel anxiety about the millions of starving children all over the planet, many of them right here in the United States.  It doesn't concern you that multi-million dollar megachurches run by pastors that live in multi-million dollar homes exist while these children are without food and clean water.  But you think your child might peek under the stall and see the "wrong" genitalia?

Our planet is starving, being raped, stripped, littered, and destroyed.  And, in fact, our climate IS warming, regardless of what you believe causes it.  That's not an issue for you?  Oh, but a male who identifies as a female who MIGHT be in Target's bathroom has you scared to death?

How about our political system?  The presidential election and how delegates are assigned is rigged, bought and paid for.  Your primary vote carries virtually no weight.  And even if it weren't rigged, these are the candidates we have to choose from?  After eight years for both parties to prepare, this is what they've given us?  It doesn't bother you?  It's of no concern that the media tells you how to think by telling you Bernie is a communist or Hillary is a liar or Trump is an idiot?  There may be a hint of truth to every allegation, but all of it?  Not a chance.  And you don't care?  You don't care that you're yet to think and investigate for yourself, but you think your child is in danger of being fondled by a transgender individual in a restroom?

Please, help me understand.  Because the arguable fact is, you've probably already stood next to a transgendered person in a bathroom, passed one on the street or sat next to one at a restaurant.  Maybe not.  But probably.  Did they bother you?  And if you take the time to compare the number of transgendered people in your neighborhood to the number of registered sex offenders, you'd be amazed to find out the latter far outweigh the former.  I actually did a sex offender search in my own neighborhood some ten years ago, and there were over 500 in a one mile radius!!  That's what ought to scare you.

At the end of the day, whether you believe a person who identifies as transgender has a psychological issue or not, they just want to be accepted.......just like you.  It's not as if you or I are without issues of our own.  Judge not, lest ye be judged, right?  And at the end of the day, if you're still terrified that someone sporting both a skirt and a penis is going to somehow scar your child for life, or if you think Target is home to the Antichrist (Its genius marketing, you know), you can still do what I always did.........

Don't let them go to the bathroom alone.