Don't Get Me Started with Linda Sharp

All Sound(bite) & Fury

By now we are all more than familiar with that picture.  The tie color may change from photo op to photo op, but the sneer, the prideful arrogance, the personification of "absolute power corrupts absolutely" are contained in each one.

It is Trump signing yet another executive order, then turning it towards the cameras to show what a yuge "get er dun"er he is.

We are now only 1 month and three days into this constitutional nightmare of an administration.  In 1 month and three days he has signed over two dozen EOs targeting everything from immigration to the Paula Abdulesque one dictating ONE step forward, TWO steps back in regards to regulations.

He leers at the camera, his cabinet sycophants surround him with frozen, bought out smiles on their faces, and his base of intellectually incurious citizens cheers.

Because nothing he has signed touches them.  Yet.

While the word "privilege" has entered the vernacular with a new vengeance, most still do not understand what it means.  

Wealth?  Position?  Power?  Sure.  Those are the definitions we have associated with the word for hundreds of years.  But in 2017, the word is far more potent, important.

Privilege, in this day of gleefully targeting groups of people, means YOU can turn away from an issue because it simply does not affect your life.

Privilege allows Trump's base of mostly white, Christian people to laugh at and disparage Black Lives Matter, to roll their eyes at the overt anti-Semetism in their party, to cheer as illegal immigrant mothers are torn from their children in raids, to make vulgar remarks and cast woefully ignorant aspersions on those in the LGBTQIA community.

I have privilege.  You have privilege.  We all have it in some form or another.  And a great many of us acknowledge it and strive to understand and aid those who do not share our particular brand.  White people marching in BLM protests.  Men carrying signs at the Women's March in January.  Citizens born in the USA standing in airports supporting those being targeted by immigration.  Straight people defending LGBT people in public places.

If your humanity is in working order, it is a natural impulse to help others, to do what you can, where you can, when you can.  When you see someone being marginalized it hurts your stomach and moves you to some sort of action.   When you read of yet another executive order targeting yet another group of people, your blood pressure goes up.

These are all the responses of a normal, decent, open minded, intellectually thirsty human being. 

But here is what I can tell you.  What I now know from experience:

No matter how big is your heart, how much you strive to learn, how tall you believe you stand in solidarity with a particular group - you simply do not/cannot "get it" until you, too, belong to a targeted group.

Hear me out.

I have been an advocate, a champion of the underdog, a "bleeding heart liberal" for pretty much my entire life.  I do not understand or tolerate prejudice.  I think bullies are the lowest of the low.  I believe love is love is love.  I believe my skin color is simply an accident of birth, not some gift from the divine Crayola box.

I have been outraged as one black life after another is snuffed out without thought, regard, due process of law - simply because they are black.  I know my friends of color are targeted when they enter stores.  I know I am not.  I know gay people simply want to express their love for one another in the same way Rudy and I do - through the exchanging of vows and rings.

I know all these things.  But I do not, nor have I ever had any way of experiencing these things.

Until roughly two years ago when my child spoke his truth to me and we became part of a targeted group.

I suddenly got it, felt it, fully understood it.  The anger, the fear - Jesus, the fear - the desperate desire to simply make others finally see how awful their thoughts and actions are.

I get it now.  My son is transgender and there are entire swaths of people in this country who wish him harm, would do him harm, for simply being who he is.  When we are out in public and he needs to use a bathroom, my blood runs cold with fear for him.  And legislation targeting him keeps my blood pressure higher than it should be.

He is seen as a lesser-than, a freak, a monster, a threat.

Just like black people for hundreds of years.  Just like brown people who come here to pick our fruit and try to make a better life for their families.  Just like Muslims who wish only to practice their faith in peace and quiet.  Just like Jewish people who wish to congregate together without fear of their synagogue being bombed or their cemetaries vandalized.  And on and on and on.  Insert any group with a target on their backs.

Yesterday, Trump continued the EO parade by signing another one - this time targeting transgender people, students in particular.  Stripping away protections and leaving it "up to the states".  

"Up to the states" - that is code for a particular group not being deemed worthy of all constitutional rights, benefits, protections.  It allows the heartless legislators at the federal level to walk away from millions of constituents, consigning them to the mercy of the even-less-enlightened, glorified dog catchers at the state and local levels of governance.

The protections he has now stripped away were first granted by the Obama Administration, defending transgender students from discrimination in their schools, and asserting that denying transgender students access to the bathroom that conforms with their gender identity violate the prohibition on sex discrimination under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.

Of course, when President Obama took these steps conservative heads exploded.  Those ignorant wretches immediately going to their oogy place and focusing on the genitals of the students in question.  Because, of course, a person's genitals completely define who they are. 

Soundbite and fury - yet another grandstanding EO signed by the reprobate who refers to himself as a "real friend" of the LGBT.  Another violent swipe of his pen signaling to his base that he is caring only about them.  Another chance for him to hold up that folder and add another picture of himself "doing something."

And in its wake real people suffer.

Transgender people ARE real people.  They are not mentally ill.  Sure, anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts/attempts, and panic attacks are rife throughout the trans community, but those are in response to living in a society in which their very lives are marginalized, made into punchlines, and threatened; in response to living in a body completely at odds with who they know themselves to be.

Still don't get it?  Imagine you are abducted, knocked out, and when you come to your entire body has been modified.  Men, you have very present breasts, and what's this?  They turned your penis inside out and gave you a vagina?  Your face has been softened through feminization surgery.  Women - your breasts are gone, down below is a surgical facsimile of a penis, your jawline has been altered to be more chiseled.  

Men, how do you feel?  Your body can be altered but there is no way to alter your inner truth.  You FEEL you are still a man.  You KNOW you are still a man.  Same for you women who now have every outward sign of a male.  You KNOW you are a woman.  But all society can see is how you present.  What YOU know matters not.  

How trapped would you feel?  How constantly conflicted?  Depressed?  Bereft?  Suicidal even?  How desperate would you be to match your outsides with your insides?

Toby is transgender.  That is one small facet of who he is.  It is not the defining characteristic of my child.  Cut him, he bleeds just like any cis person.  Hit him and he bruises just like any cis person.  And several times a day he needs to relieve himself, just like any cis person.

Here is what you need to understand about those bathroom visits:  a transgender person wants only to go in, close the stall door, do their business in private, and get on with their day.  They do not go in to leer at you in the mirror.  They do not go in molest you.  Quite frankly, they do not even want to be noticed.  A transgender person's biggest goal is to someday simply blend into the paint of society.

Toby has used the men's room on many occasions.  When he felt it safe enough.  Many other times, we go out of our way to find unisex bathrooms - when traveling, a Starbucks sign is like a peecon beacon in the night.  And other times, when he may not have on his binder or feel safe enough, he stays close to me and goes in the women's restroom, head down, into a stall as quickly as possible.

Toby will never stand at a urinal in a men's room.  His gaze will be on the back of the locked stall door.

To put it simply, all Toby wants out of a bathroom visit is peace and safety.  Coincidentally, the same things he wants out of life.

Across the country, there are tens of thousands of transgender students, younger than Toby, fully supported by their parents, who are transitioning in appearance, name change, perhaps on blockers to hold off puberty.  They ARE the gender they tell you they are.  They struggle enough as it is with bullies, ignorant adults, and society without compounding risks to their safety and emotional health by now making them enter a bathroom that does not match their gender identity.

This is cruel.  And it accomplishes nothing except more soundbites and photo ops for Trump, and more reinforced fury for his base.

To anyone who thinks that a transgender person has some ulterior motive, some sinister agenda - you are profoundly ignorant, profoundly wrong.  No one would choose this struggle.  No one would sign up to be targeted, threatened, murdered.  No young person looks at the 41% suicide attempt rate of transgender youth and thinks, "Hey, cool! I want in on that!"

No human being comes out as transgender to do anything but try to live authentically, to feel whole, to breathe.

That's it.  That's all.  

And for daring to do that, they get demeaned, demoralized, deadnamed by cruel and unsupportive family members, misgendered, clocked in public, and now targeted by their own government.  

News for Trump and his ignorant coven - WE THE PEOPLE includes ALL THE PEOPLE.  There is no asterisk in the preamble leading to a footnote at the bottom that reads: except persons of color, anyone not Christian, and those who give us the oogies.

In one month, despite this heinous EO, Gavin Grimm, a transgender student from Virginia, will take his case before the Supreme Court of the United States of America.  He has fought for years from the local level, through the U.S. Circuit Courts, and now to SCOTUS for the rights of a transgender student to use the bathroom of their gender identity.

At a rally outside the White House last night, Gavin said, “In one month, I will do what few teenagers have the chance to do: stand before the U.S. Supreme court because my lawyers from the ACLU will be asking the court to decide whether transgender students like me have the right to be treated just like our peers at school."

Gavin is brave.  He has willingly allowed the public target to be placed on his back in order to lead this fight for protections and against discrimination.

All transgender people are brave.  Hell, anyone who sits anywhere on the spectrum besides hetero - gay, bi, trans, non binary, agender, and on and on - is brave.  Living authentically, not hypocritically, takes bravery.  I see this every single day in my child.  

And I feel this every night in the cost of it to my heart as I try to will myself away from fear and towards rest so I may help him face another day tomorrow.

Yes, despite our inclusion in this group, I still acknowledge all my other privilege.  Just as Toby acknowledges his - we are white - SCORE!  We are comfortable.  BOOM!  We can afford binders, hormones, surgery - GOOOOAAAAL!

But we get it in a way we never, as mere advocates, got it before he came out.  We live it.

I ask you, while you may not be in a targeted group, imagine for a moment that you are.  Imagine heartstopping fear for your child's safety.  Imagine having to pee and worrying about getting in and out without personal attack.  Imagine going to visit your parent's grave and finding the headstone defaced and pushed over.  Imagine getting pulled over and your heart racing because your skin color may well condemn you to death.  And the next time you see another article about yet another executive order and want to just move past because - ugh, again? - do not move on.  

In that moment when you are weary from yet another Facebook article link, discussion, or news piece - STOP.  Catch yourself, check the privilege that is allowing you to scroll past, and engage.

That is our only hope in this.  Allies and advocates have to engage on our behalf.  We need you to stand with us at rallies, to call out ignorance and hate, to defend the rights of others to simply exist.

He signs these orders because they do not touch him or his family.  They are embraced by those they do not touch.  My son is not real to them.  But this train is only picking up speed and the targeted groups are only going to grow in number.

Because Trump is not going to stop.  His rabid base is only growing more emboldened with each EO signed and eventually they will not want metaphoric blood, they will demand the real thing to quench the thirst that comes from constant fury and faux indignation.

This is so far beyond a difference in politics.  This is a difference in humanity.  

 

 

 

 

I Am A Failure And Proud Of It

Since coming out publicly with Toby last year and welcoming others along for the ride as he transitions, and we transition with him, I have received daily emails and private messages from people the world over.  Support from others on this same journey, praise for how we are "handling" this, and genuine curiosity as those who do not understand finally feel they have a real person to help them widen their scopes.

Of course, as with all pendulums, the feedback swings hard to the other side as well.  Those who simply cannot help themselves and feel some moral superiority or right to tell me how awful this is, how wrong we are, that my child is a monster, mentally ill, and my personal favorite, "You have failed as a parent."

I get that one A LOT.

The most recent happened yesterday in a comment thread online.  In articulating why all those who voted for Trump must be held accountable for what they have wrought, I made my reasoning clear - I HAVE A TRANSGENDER SON - and that those who voted for him cannot have marinated in a cesspool of bigotry, racism, misogyny, phobias, zealotry, and willful ignorance for 18 months and now profess themselves somehow clean and innocent as entire swaths of people are targeted and threatened.

It took all of six responses for "You failed as a parent." to show up.

Now, the good, decent people of the world were quick to step in and confront the comment bully, which I appreciate.  Bullies come undone when confronted and their power is stripped away in real life.  Online, they tend to deathgrip their keyboard commando role even tighter and get uglier.  This particular coward, however, was what I have labeled a "shit and run" commenter.  Like their vehicular counterparts, they do their damage and leave the scene quickly.

Here is what I tell those bullies, emailers, messagers - "If "failing as a parent" means knowing my children completely, and my love for them not being some arbitrary and ignorant lightswitch - then I am failing in spectacular fashion."

My name is Linda.  I am a failure as a parent, and proud of it.

You may be wondering why this post is appearing on the DGMS page instead of on the Transparent Trans Parent blog.  Well, I will post it there as well, but what I have to say this morning is important, far beyond singing to the choir of transgender people and allies who frequent the TTP page.  

It has to do with all parents, all society.

I have been an ally all of my adult life.  My embrace of all people goes back even further.  I honestly could never understand treating decent people like shit simply because they were different.  Maybe that stems from me not fitting the "mold" as it were from an early age.  I was the chubby girl in elementary school.  I was the uncool girl in middle school.  I was a theater nerd in high school.  I was "the other" for many, many years of my life.  Honestly, I still consider myself to be "other."  I am not a joiner, I do not go along with the crowd, and I am proud of that.  My friends are many, they are varied, they cover all places on the spectrum.  They are fat, thin, athletes, couch potatos, all colors, all religions, no religions, high school graduates, and those who have Doctor in front of their names.  I have celebrity friends and friends who barely leave their homes.

They are ALL different in just about every area.  Except ONE.

They are all decent human beings to other human beings.

But, back to my status as a failure...

In my own pursuit of growth and understanding, I have joined many FB pages, groups, etc.  One in particular is a Transgender Alliance page with tens of thousands of people who cover the beauty of the spectrum as well as including allies like myself.  These people are amazing.  The page is strictly for support, a safe space where people may ask questions about their journeys, about reactions to hormones, about clothing, make-up, the changes taking place in their bodies.  A place where parents who "get it" may find one another, and may offer surrogate parenting to those who lack real parenting in their day-to-day.  It is also a place where the support is instantaneous, and oh, how support is needed.

That has been the most eye opening and heartbreaking for me as a member of that community.

You see, our journey with Toby is singular - it is OUR journey - and it would be easy to think that this is what it is like for everyone.  We are open,loving, accepting, funny, and making great strides because of it.  Has it been easy?  Of course not, but we have held onto one another and we are definitely seeing far more sun than clouds these days.

But I only need open my feed to be reminded that our story is atypical.

The abuse from family members too concerned with how this reflects on them, people losing their jobs simply for being who they are, getting physically assaulted in public for not "looking" right, those in the depths of dysphoria but too poor to attain HRT, and the worst:  the desperate cries of suicide.

That happens A LOT.

As in "so frequently that my stomach hurts daily."

Like so many who are members, I am quick to jump in and try to help.  As a mother, my heart breaks for these people.  As a mother I want to throttle the parents who abuse their children to the point of them "wanting to be six feet under."  I want to make those uncaring, unkind, ignorant members of society feel the herd turn against them.  I want to help their children because they won't.

I try.  I pull them into private messages to let them vent, to offer what parental support I can to them.  To talk sense, to try to make them understand that they MATTER, that they are not monsters, trash, garbage.  <---Those are all words thrown at them by parents.

Last night was bad - another night when I could not let it go and reached out to a young woman being heinously emotionally abused by her mother.  I spent 90 minutes trying to get through to her that none of it is true, that her mother is a bully, and that the last thing that women deserves is to have her words translated into suicide.

I cannot tell you how relieved I was to reach out again this morning and have her respond.  She is still alive.  

Yet this morning, as I type, I am simultaneously "talking" to another young women who feels close to the edge.

My point to you all is simple:  The suicide attempt rate of 41% is REAL.  And it is shameful.  A shameful reflection of a society, of family members, too stupid to step up, too cowardly to care, too concerned with how a transgender child reflects on them.

I would like someone to tell me what they gain by torturing their child when they come out?  Do you get some asshole merit badge when you throw them out?  And society - what do you get by wallowing in your own ignorance instead of trying to educate yourself and treating others with compassion?  Is there some payoff of which I am unaware?  Do you get a check each month from the Bigot Brigade?  Someone tell me how my child being transgender and simply wanting to be who he knows himself to be, means fuck-all to your life?

How hard is it to simply be decent?

I see a lot of complaints these days about the atmosphere of places like Facebook - "it's too political."  "Why can't you all just shut up?"  "I don't want to constantly see articles about <insert group>."

This - all of it - is privilege.  And privilege exists when something does not touch your life directly.  When you can turn away from something others find important or threatening, it is only because of some privilege you wear that you are not even aware of.  You're not black, not brown, not a refugee, not an immigrant, not LGBTQIA, not Muslim, Jewish, etc.

I will tell you what you are though.  YOU ARE A HUMAN BEING.  And as such you should care about other human beings.  If you are a decent person, goddammit, ACT LIKE IT.  Do not go to your church on Sundays, dripping piety and "love" and quoting scriptures, and then enter society on Monday ignoring or intentionally hurting "the least of these."

'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.' 

I no longer go to church, but that line seems pretty damned easy to interpret.  As does this one that follows:

“Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels."

Yes, that means those of you actively doing the cursing of anyone who just wants to be who they are, ARE the cursed.

Do I have privilege?  FFS, of course I do.  I am white, I am financially comfortable, I am healthy.  I practically drip privilege.  Even with a transgender son, I am privileged.  Because our journey is not fraught with suicide attempts, unending darkness, because we can afford therapy, HRT, surgery down the road.  So even in that arena, I could easily turn away from that FB page when my stomach again starts to roll.  

BUT I WILL NOT.

Because if I can spread my failure as a parent to these suffering souls, telling them they are valued, they matter, they are beautiful, they should stay, maybe I can help heal even a tiny spot in them that has been ripped asunder and left to bleed.

Compassion costs nothing.  Emotional support is free.  Yet they are immeasurably valuable to the one receiving them.

I need only look as far as my own child to see how they translate into light, strength, and hope.

I poured my heart out to Toby last night after counseling that young lady.  Through tears I told him how much I love him, how my support for him is sincere, my pride in him true, and that I cannot even begin to connect with rejecting him for simply being who he is.  

I love him today just as I loved him the day he took his first breath on my chest in the hospital.  Completely, without reserve, forever.

If that makes me a failure as a parent, I am the proudest failure you will ever meet.

Do better society.  I beg you, DO BETTER. 

And Jesus Wept (From Laughing So Hard)

OK, it is no secret that religion and I have little to do with one another.  I was raised in it, steeped in it, know it, and tapped out years ago.  It simply does not fit me.  Faith?  Yes, I took that with me.  These days I am not quite sure exactly what I am drawn towards - call it God, light, energy, zen, a feeling of Namaste - whatever it is, I feel an obligation towards it that translates into my behavior towards my fellow global travelers.

As an ordained minister, I suppose I could start my own "church."  John Oliver showed the world how insanely easy that is (incidentally just as easy as becoming an ordained minister with all rights and privileges - NO, I have never abused my Clergy placard for a good parking space at a hospital.)  

There are plenty of people like me out there and our numbers are growing.  Tired of being hollered at from a pulpit, done with the blatant hypocrisy, patriarchy, and Bible based bullying. People who have realized they do not need to sit in a pew and be threatened or cajoled in order to feel connected to something bigger.  For me, HUMANITY is that something bigger.  I guess if I did plant a religious flag and cultivate a flock, my religion would best be described as Decent Human Beings For Decent Human Beings, Assholes Need Not Apply.  My church would stress getting off one's knees and begging an unseen force for help, in favor of opening one's eyes, facing forward, and being the help and change we desperately need in this world.

And before I type any further, allow me to add my usual disclaimer:  I do not HATE religion.  At its best, it can provide a sense of comfort. community.  At its worst it divides, brainwashes, and teaches its congregants to demonize, delegitimize, and marginalize entire swaths of human beings.  If you enjoy yours, GREAT.  Have at it.  As I said, it simply does not work for me.

Examples of why are everywhere and not hard to find.  The word Christian has been so bastardized and abused by those who purport to follow the scriptures but who in reality follow their most base instincts and seek only to inflict harm and damn others to "hell."  I actually feel bad for true Christians who are loving, caring, giving, and who understand that the Bible is a collection of stories, allegories, and lots of gories, as well.  Their ranks have turned rank as more and more they are outnumbered by prosperity preachers wearing Rolexes while they fleece the flock; deplorable cherry pickers who take one line from an entire book to justify their hatred of others as sanctioned and right; and a stable of politicians who use the word Christian as a political cudgel.

The brand is seriously tainted.

Which brings me to Ken Ham, that oh-so-enlightened <insert gag> Christian who teaches that the world is 6,000 years old, fossils are a test planted in the Earth by God, and anyone who believes differently is going to hell.  Oh, and be sure to buy a ticket to his Super Walmart Ark.  You know, that theme park monstrosity that was built with $18 million in tax incentives and subsidies in Kentucky?  The one with tickets prices of $40 to wander through a vast space of crates that contain speakers emitting animal growls, belches, and farts?  Yeah, that one.

The Ark employees only those who sign a statement saying they, too, believe the planet is only 6,000 years old, and that they decry homosexuality.  Yep, step right up if you are bigot who failed science.

Ham has now taken his hatred of the LGBTQIA community and turned it up to 11 - visually.  Apparently, poor Ken has lost much sleep over the LGBT community using the rainbow flag as a demonstration of pride, unity, the beauty of ALL people.  In the decades it has been embraced and flown, it has been modified from 8 colors down to the current six - presented as red, orange, yellow, green., blue, and violet - incidentally the way light is refracted.

Rainbows are beautiful, as are the human beings who are part of the LGBTQIA community and the allies who support and defend them.

Well, Ken isn't having any of that peace, love, unity garbage.  I mean, seriously, acceptance?  Inclusion?  So NOT God-like. (In Ken's canned ham of a brain.)

So, in order to "reclaim" the rainbow (warning to Skittles:  you may be next in his crosshairs), Ken has installed lights that will forever now illuminate the Christian Costco Ark each evening.  Voila:

His goal is to "discredit" any association with the LGBT.  

I'll let Ken explain himself:  “In recent times the rainbow has come to represent… the LGBTQ movement.  Indeed when the US Supreme Court legalized gay ‘marriage’ last year, the White House was lit up in rainbow colors.  Sadly, people ignore what God intended the rainbow to represent and proudly wave rainbow-colored flags in defiance of God’s command and design for marriage.  Because of this, many Christians shy away from using the rainbow colors. But the rainbow was a symbol of God’s promises before the LGBTQ movement—and will continue to be after that movement has ended.  As Christians, we need to take the rainbow back and teach our young people its true meaning.”

Apparently that true meaning is that God is getting ready to exterminate again - only this time not with waterworks, but with the much more effective holy flamethrower.

“Although God promised He would never judge the earth with a global Flood again, He is coming to judge sinful mankind a second time. This coming judgment won’t be with water but with fire.”

OK, Ken, sit the fuck down.

First of all, while you are able to continually scare those with brains the consistency of melted brie, those of us with critical thinking skills, basic decency, and humanity are calling bullshit.  Seriously, even Jesus is weeping, but that's because he is laughing his ass off at your display.

Let's look at that Home Depot Ark of yours again.

Sadly, the first thing it demonstrates is how you, too, failed science.  Your rainbow colors are not even in order, Kenneth.

That fractal faux pas aside, do you realize how fabulous your pile of timber now looks?  Like, gurrrrrrrrrrrrl, seriously FABULOUS.  And do not get me started on how awesome it is that you added a tribute to the transgender flag on either side!  Add a couple disco balls and a dance track and Lady Gaga would descend from the heavens (or stadium roof) and hold a concert!

In all seriousness, you simply look like an ass.  Not history making for you, I realize, but your desire to take back that which is not yours to begin with is just laughable.  And the fact that your attempt looks more like a tribute to the Pulse Nightclub than a warning of death to gay people?

You know, Ken, you may be right.  If there is in fact a God, He may well be getting pissed off at how we treat one another down here, how we treat the planet.  And He may well be planning some pyrotechnics as an act of retribution, but methinks that massive wooden tribute to your brain empty space makes a pretty tempting flammable target to start with.

As for the LGBTQIA community and folks like me that stand with them?  We will continue to wave our hate and flame retardant rainbows with no fear.  Our behavior falls much more in line with biblical teachings than your Satanic ramblings of damnation and cursing others to hell ever will.  Basically, we love each other, and do not give a flying fuck about little devils like you.

So as for you trying to take back the rainbow?  Well, I'll let Bianca Del Rio sum it up for you

The Death of Empathy

We are a country divided.  Now more than ever the rift is wide, a gash oozing hatred, suspicion, bigotry, racism, and misogyny.

Now, it's not like that laundry list of heinous human behaviors has ever not been in existence.  None of those things have ever truly gone away.  They just get beaten into submission from time to time and decent society manages to make strides forward.  The reality is that all of this just sits beneath the surface, roiling, festering, the heat of a resentment born of not being allowed to express the ugliness in the open, building and building.

We have all known these people in our lives.  Their caustic comments about "the other," their suspicious side eye to anyone who doesn't look like them.  Growing up, my grandparents, products of their generation and upbringing were openly racist.  I can remember recoiling at the casual way the n-word was thrown around in their conversations.  

I was 10.

Ten years old and I instinctively knew it was ugly and wrong.  Much the way I began to call bullshit on organized religion, recognizing the glaring hypocrisy and openly encouraged separation that filled the pews, my home.  

I was 10 then, too.

Ten years old and I understood that something was broken in these people, something was missing or dead.  I did not know the word for what I sensed was lacking, but as I grew older, the word empathy filled that blank.

Empathy, n: the ability to understand and share the feelings/experience of another 

Over the past eight years this country, despite constant and childish obstruction by politicians, was making strides forward.  We were forcing our founding fathers' words to fulfill their meaning.  We were insuring liberties and rights for ALL, not just some.  We were welcoming into the light those constantly marginalized and kept in the shadows.  We were celebrating love in all its forms and fashions.

We watched as our first black President was constantly belittled, as effigies swung in trees, as his skin color was all it took to make people lose their fragile minds.  (I have always wondered - as President Obama is also half white - what the years would have been like had his mother's skin color been dominant in his appearance.)

Year after year we pushed forward, making it clear that the time had come to allow marriage for all, seeing that protections for those who do not fit the binary were needed, that decent society was ready and encouraging these changes.  Open hearts and open minds were finally making this country live up to the words that we are all "created equal."

Yet, under the advances, that resentment, that irrational hatred was reaching a boiling point.  The scar tissue holding it in was weakening and with the election season, it broke open, the poison slithering, oozing, festering in the sunlight.   

Crowds gathered to cheer on a morally and fiscally bankrupt (multiple times) carnival barker who not only embraced their bigotry and biases, but emboldened it, stoking their fears, feeding them conspiracy theories and lies made up on the spot.  He disparaged Mexicans, Muslims, immigrants, refugees.  He reTweeted Nazi propaganda.  He got into 140 character fistfights with former beauty queens.  Waking up each morning, it was anybody's guess who he would have in his Twitter crosshairs.

And 61 million people loved it.  61 million people threw off the shackles of polite society, elevated themselves above anyone unlike them, and took a sawed off shotgun to any shred of empathy that may have ever tried to exist in their cesspool-like hearts.  61 million people stood shoulder to shoulder with racism, ignorance, phobias of all ilk, zealotry, misogyny, and boldfaced, easily called out lies.

And they cheered.

They cheered when he screeched about building a pointless, meaningless, expensive wall.  They wet themselves in glee when he bellowed about throwing Hillary in jail.  For what?  Meh, details.  Did not matter that Republicans have tried to go after her for decades and repeatedly come up short.  The crowds' violent tendencies were repeatedly directed at the journalists he put in pens.  They roared their approval when he castigated an entire religion.  They grabbed each other's pussies in solidarity when his own foul words of admitted molestation filled the airwaves.  His defense against those women who bravely began coming forward?  They were too ugly to grope.  That made his throngs cheer louder.

And any hint of sympathy, kindness, support for those people - those women, Mexicans, Muslims, refugees, LGBTQIA - all were met by these kneekJERKs with vitriol, hatred, repugnant comments filling threads.  

That has bothered me the most.  That the mere mention of acceptance, tolerance, hell, LOVE, sends these reprobates into a violent meltdown.  What is so profoundly broken in a person that concepts such as kindness trigger such a hostile response?

Empathy has died as "alternative facts" have been born.  Anything that does not reinforce their way of thinking, their hatred, their biases, is instantly tagged "fake."   Their orange leader did it this morning when he tweeted:  

And they will embrace it because he has given voice to their specious fears, validated their ignorance, and made their hatred of others "cool."

His ill conceived ban on entry into this country by those from 7 countries? Muslim majority, mind you, but none where actual terrorists have come from.  (Hint:  The Venn diagram of countries left out of his ban and countries where he has business interests are one overlapping circle.)  Well, when that hit the airwaves, his cadre of "constitutional scholars" seal clapped in unison as they saw families, refugees, visa holders, green card holders - psst, brown people - stopped and denied entry.  His talking empty heads defended handcuffing a five year old, separating a breastfeeding 11 month old from her mother, denying entry to a baby with a heart condition who was coming for life saving surgery.  They shrugged when this ban resulted in a family missing the death of a mother, they were denied their last chance to be together.

Syrian refugee families that had been vetted for two years were denied boarding in their country of origin, told that their dream of shelter, promise, hope was flushed by a tyrant who has zero understanding of governance, the Constitution, or checks and balances.

Airports were immediately the site of protests as thousands came out against the ban, thousands marching in support of those being denied.

And online?  Trump's flying monkeys were in their glory.  Every comment thread that followed an article was filled with ugliness, ignorance, reprehensible, sometimes incomprehensible verbiage, and a complete "Stay the fuck out of MY country" mindset.  Did not matter to them that many being denied were card carrying citizens of this country.  They dared to be brown, and originally from somewhere else, so they obviously want to blow up the cul-de-sac or trailer park in Middle Of, Nowhere, USA.

Try to engage these people and explain the actual plight of Syrian refugees.  You get nowhere.  Nothing but hate, wishes for their deaths, not a drop of sympathy, no attempt at empathy.  

That inability, or complete unwillingness, to even imagine what someone else may be suffering is their hallmark.

It is there when they laugh at dead children washed up on the beach in Turkey.

It is there when they mock those with disabilities.

It is there when they say those who died in the Pulse nightclub shooting deserved it because they were gay.

It is there when they physically threaten or actually assault a woman wearing a hijab.

It is there in every bullshit, bogus bathroom bill targeting transgender citizens.

It is there when they burn down mosques, call in bomb threats to synagogues.

And it was there again last night during the Super Bowl.

As those expensive ads filled the airwaves, they lost their collective shit.  Adding to their current boycott of Starbucks for daring to state they will be hiring refugees, they are now boycotting 84 Lumber for displaying empathy and hope, and boycotting Budweiser for creating an ad about their founder - himself an immigrant, and how he came here to find a better life.

This one, from 84 Lumber, taglined - "The will to succeed is always welcomed here" threw them into spasms of hate and vitriol.  Simply because the company tried to HUMANIZE the plight of so many who risk their lives to pick our tomatoes and cut our grass.

They became apopletic that Budweiser would dare create an ad of this type.  Now, nowhere in the ad does it openly indict a specific group of people in contemporary American society, yet these cretins with filth in their hearts intuited it as a blow against them and their beloved leader's desire to keep everyone out.

Seems to me they need to take a better look in the mirror and ask themselves why they kneejerk so hard at depictions of hope, kindness, and promise winning over hate, bigotry, and ignorance.

It stymies me how they cannot see the hypocrisy in their actions, the brutality in their words, the violence in their souls.   How they completely ignore their own history.  We all came from somewhere else.

Take the ban.  So it seeks to hide behind many showy words that all Muslims are bad and must be kept out for fear of a bad one getting in.  Even one of Trump's sons callously and proudly compared refugees to a bowl of Skittles during the campaign.  Basically saying that if there were three poison ones in the bowl would you still grab a handful.  OK, 1 - he is an entitled, spoiled little boy whose biggest suffering in this life has been a penchant for getting shitfaced in college and peeing himself while passed out.  And 2 - Refugees are not Skittles.  They are flesh and blood human beings trying to protect their families.  Oh, and 3? - Idiot.

So we take a massive paintbrush and use it to paint ALL refugees and ALL Muslims as terrorists out to do us harm.  

Fine.  By that same logic then, other countries need to close their borders to every white male in this one.  Want to travel to Ireland?  Vacation in the Caribbean?  Fulfill a dream to see the Eiffel Tower?  The Great Wall?  Machu Pichu?  Sorry, all they know is that white men in the United States repeatedly blow shit up and kill people.  STAY. OUT. YOU. POISON. SKITTLES.

Last night, Lady Gaga was mesmerizing in her half-time show.  She sang live (take notes, Mariah), danced, and provided balm to millions of badly bruised hearts.  Of course, those 61 million who chafe at accepting anyone different took to the comment boards before the show had even ended.  How dare she sing her hit song Born This Way - you know, the one that is an anthem of acceptance, and pride in being exactly who you know yourself to be?  

No matter gay, straight, or bi,
Lesbian, transgendered life,
I'm on the right track baby,
I was born to survive.

No matter black, white or beige
Chola or orient made
I'm on the right track baby
I was born to be brave

In reading their hatred as it froths forth, it is very easy to see that messages like Gaga's literally cause these people pain.  Empathy, showing compassion, extending a hand, helping someone up, defending someone who is different - all instantly cause them to lash out.

It is shameful behavior.  It is the behavior of profoundly broken people with nothing but ugliness inside them.

As my son Toby said while we were discussing this current state of affairs, "It's just sad that being a decent human being is somehow a political thing now."  And he's right.  Being kind, being caring, considerate, decent should be the most apolitical things possible, yet somehow Trump's coven wants to make these into some sort of character flaws.  Whatever - if that is how they want to roll, then consider my politics to be those of inclusion, compassion, LOVE.

Personally, I'l take being called a cuck, a libtard, a bleeding heart, and their current favorite - snowflake.  They all mean I am willing to break my heart to help mend other people's.  Those monikers indicate that I do not hold myself above someone who sits somewhere else on life's spectrum.  My heart does bleed and my eyes fill with tears when I see a refugee child in shock, covered in ash.  Yes, it means I am open and friendly with people who are adherents of Islam, I support women who wear hijabs, I happily greet people of every color, not instantly wondering how they got here, why they are here, are they legal.  

I see human beings.  And a true human being understands suffering.  A true human being sees it, and wants to help, wants to make it stop.

So, enjoy your wretched cesspool of hate and intolerance.  Your empathy drowning in the hot poisonous lava of your irrational anger, fear, and repulsive behavior.  And yet even as it bubbles up and seeps out, threatening to destroy everything it touches, bear this in mind...

It was not acceptable then when I was 10.  It is not acceptable now when I am 50.  It was Voltaire who said, "No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible."  Well, we snowflakes are building into an avalanche and will be proudly responsible for smothering your hate and shoving you back into your sewers where you and your venom belong.

Winter IS Coming.