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There's one sure-fire way to tell when people enjoy privilege they don't even realize they have. When people who don't have the same privilege get a piece of it, the ones who already have such privilege howl with outrage. They see themselves as persecuted, and the ones who've gained a little bit of parity with them as menaces who are infringing upon their "rights".
Jeb Bush--who is widely expected to declare his candidacy for the Republican nomination to next year's Presidential election--said that Obama is using his "coercive power" to "limit religious freedom".
When right-wing politicians talk like that, you know they--and their audiences--are thinking in particular of same-sex marriage. It's almost as if such whining about "religious freedom" or the persecution Christians supposedly face are really just codes for their abhorrence that LGBT people are finally being allowed to live the kinds of lives straight and cisgender people have always taken for granted.
Really, it's no different from how some politicians--in some cases, the very same ones who feel so threatened by same-sex marriage--talk about "states' rights" or "the inner city" when they want to work their audiences into a lather about people darker than themselves getting the opportunities, and the same avenues of redress, they have. In other words, it's how they talk about race without mentioning it.
Ian Haney Lopez refers to the use of such coded language--whether it's about blacks, gays, trans people or Muslims--"dog whistle politics" in his book by that name. Hmm...What does that say about those who use it--or, worse, those who sit up and pay attention when they hear it?
None of us likes to hear ignorant, hateful comments, especially when they're directed at us--or, at least, some notion that the person making the comment has about us. I really hope that one day we will live in a world in which we--and the trans people who are coming after us--don't have to hear such things.
At the same time I oppose, and have always opposed, censorship and in any form. People--at least in this country--have a right to say what they please, even if it's something people don't like or is simply wrong. If the latter is true, it's our job to point out the error in their thinking or expression; if we find something not to our liking, we should say what we find objectionable about it.
That is the reason why I think Houston mayor Annise Parker was wrong to subpoena pastors who oppose the recent city ordinance prohibiting businesses from discriminating against transgender people.
Now, I don't want you to think that just because I've become involved in a church, I've begun to side with all members of the clergy. Far from it: I still cringe when I hear of some of the pure and simple hate some of them are spewing from their pulpits, and I have to remind myself that not all ordained people do such things. In fact, the priests at my church make great efforts to make trans people welcome and the senior pastoral associate--a very intelligent and compassionate straight woman--spends time with me and other trans members of our congregation in an effort to better understand our needs and wishes.
It is precisely because I've found her, and the other priests and the congregation of my church that I know things can be better. And that is another reason why I think that we should--no, must--allow bigoted clergy people to express their opposition to laws designed to protect us, or simply to whatever they think we represent. Simply demonizing, and trying to silence, them will only deepen their opposition to us because it shuts off any possibility of dialogue. Even if they don't want to talk to us, we can't win the right to exercise the rights God and the Constitution gave us, let alone any possibility of gaining the respect of others within and outside our community, if we deny the rights and humanity of those who want to push us back into the closet.
Please understand that I am saying things that I have a difficult time accepting myself. A part of me still wants to dismiss those "fundamentalist" pastors as barbaric and hypocritical. (After all, how can someone preach the love of God and hatred, or simply bigotry, against human beings?) Having said that, it almost goes without saying that I cringe at the thought of having to love such people. But, really, there is no other choice: No one has ever won a battle against hate by using hate.
Funny, how "religious" leaders decide that it's perfectly OK to commit one sin ostensibly to fight another.
I'm thinking now of Kendall Baker, a Texas pastor who warned that children will be victimized by "trans predators" if Houston passes a bill that gives equal rights to trans people.
Hmm...A pastor violating the Ninth Commandment: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
Had it not been for an experience of mine, my reaction to this story would be "What, this shit again?" But because of a particularly ugly incident in my life, that news turns my stomach.
You see, that "trans predator" trope has been used to rationalize all manner of bigotry, harassment and outright violence against us. I know: It happened to me.
I take that back. It didn't happen to me. Someone did it to me. If you've been reading this blog, you know who that somene is. Yes, Dominick.
After I ended my relationship with him, one of the ways he retaliated was to start rumors that I was preying upon my students. He not only told people I did that, he also sent e-mails and made "anonymous" complaints to my employer.
Worst of all, he tried to claim that I "accosted" him and that he spent five years in a relationship with me only because he was "afraid" of what I would do.
Hmm...That "trans panic" claim all over again. That's particularly interesting coming from someone who claims he's victimized in all sorts of ways because he's gay. (Right up to the time I had my surgery, he hoped that I would change my mind and live as the gay man he believed I was.) Plus, if he was so afraid of me, why did he not only spend as long as he did with me, but also threaten me when I left him and wouldn't go back to him.
Oh, wait, I answered my own question: He acted as he did because he was afraid. People who lie and start vicious rumors about others are always so. Sometimes they're just pure and simple cowards. Other times, they're guilty of the very thing they impute to others.
In Pastor Baker's case...You guessed it...He's preyed on women at his day job with the city's 311 call center.
I'd call him--and, for that matter, Dominick--a chickenshit, except that I have too much respect for chickens.
Oh, here's another irony: When Dominick was trying to win me back, he'd make some sort of appeal to me before making another threat. Once, his grandmother was dying. Another time he claimed to have cancer. And--you've probably guessed this one--he "got religion" and was praying for me.
And, no doubt, he was telling people I preyed on somebody. After all, that's what we do, right?
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