Musings on tolerance.

I have no time for hate. The root of hate is always fear or a tribal casting of people into "otherness". I am, thankfully, not a representative or spokesperson for the trans community, but I am often the only example of a T-girl that many people come into contact with. I do not tolerate abuse, but neither do I take umbrage at confusion.

I cannot expect that most people will understand dysphoria. The connection for virtually everyone between their sense of self and their gender identification is profound. That I would rather die than continue living as a slave to my genotype is beyond the pale and so far outside the experience of most people as to be incomprehensible.

Some years ago I participated in a group that was working through "A Course In Miracles." There was a lot in that discussion that was difficult for me to accept, but one thing that has stuck with me was the notion of otherness. Humans are tribal in nature. We tend to objectify those outside of our tribe or group. If you are different from me then you are "other" and I have no moral responsibility towards you. As a class, transgendered people are so much outside of the normal experience of most people that understanding takes effort, and it is simpler to to castigate and ostracise than to make the considerable effort necessary to understand. I think that is a root cause of the horrible violence we experience, and the self destructive behavior so many of us resort to.

When you are treated as nothing, you become nothing.

What I can do is to be better than people who find me odd, weird, and wrong. I hold my head up, engage when approached, and never ever return invective with invective. In practice I am almost never treated disrespectfully. This isn't because I am beautiful, but because I see myself as beautiful.

I am the best woman, friend, person that I know how to be. That is a full time job, and I don't always do it well, but I always try. It is my privilege to live an authentic life, and my delight in living it every day. I do not fear that spiritually "turning the other cheek" will encourage aggression from the broader community, and sometimes I am able to teach by example or by explanation. Hate for anyone or anything is the antithesis of serenity. Serenity with who I am and with my place in the world is what an authentic joy filled life requires.

Namaste,
Julie

@JB_Girl
Dear Julie:  Wow-whee... a very well written and wonderful to read treatise on living life as best we can.

...the only points of your writings that I have more specific comments about....

"I do not tolerate abuse, but neither do I take umbrage at confusion."
I might need you to clarify your postion on this:  In this sentence, the way it is written,  it could possibly be interpreted that you might take "offense" to confusion.  I agree with you about not tolerating abuse ever... but I will indeed tolerate confusion, heaven knows that I can get confused at even the simplest things at times.   Particularly for transgenders, those outside our community of like-mined individuals can certainly be allowed to be confused or taking umbrage regarding our life's journeys.   I guess that it perhaps depends on your specific definition of umbrage.

"I am the best woman, friend, person that I know how to be. That is a full time job, and I don't always do it well, but I always try."
I like this ....  in my opinion this is what all of us should strive for. 
As transgenders we need to present to everyone we come across that we are not weirdos or a threat to civilization.
In my small town I am told by many here that I am the only trans-woman that they have ever met or ever seen....    therefore it is incumbent on me to make certain that the impression I make is a good one.   
I have my own business here with conservative clientele... so I dress and act respectively, and conservatively, not trying to stand out and not flaunting and shoving my trans-woman lifestyle in their faces...  for the most part, even though I am "out an full-time" to everyone here and also involved in the dating scene, my mode of operation is to fly under the radar with respect to my transwoman life change.

Again Julie, thank you for posting this.... very important thoughts for all of us to read and to digest.... and to apply to our lives.

Hugs and well wishes,
Danielle

Hi Danielle,

I'm glad that my thoughts resonated with you.  I actually wrote this three years ago and published it on Facebook as a response to another's comments, when It came up in my "memories," I thought that it might be useful here too.

To take umbrage is to take offense or annoyance. By refuting that, "I do not tolerate abuse, but neither do I take umbrage at confusion." I was trying to convey exactly the same thing as you pointed out.  Confusion is to be expected when people interact with us. 

The wonderful thing is, that as time has passed and I have become more comfortable and more confident in myself and who I am, the necessity to deal with the confused has essentially vanished from my life.  I do not emphasize being trans, but neither do I shrink from that reality.  The question I ask myself is one of usefulness.  Does disclosing bring clarity or confusion?  If clarity I disclose. If confusion (or worse, my trying to be a celebrity) I do not.

I spent a year volunteering at a shelter for LGBTQ youth.  Spending every Thursday night with them in the basement of a church near the University of Washington.  That I was there, an old lady, willing to listen and share her strength made a difference to kids who had largely been thrown away by their families and society.  This I think is an example of value in disclosing my story and perhaps that I why I am here today.

Thank you for your thoughts and your affirmation.  Hopefully I'll write something else one of these days that piques your muse.

Peace,
Julie

That was very well expressed, Julie.

Something I just wanted to pick up on, though, is this paragraph:

QuoteSome years ago I participated in a group that was working through "A Course In Miracles." There was a lot in that discussion that was difficult for me to accept, but one thing that has stuck with me was the notion of otherness. Humans are tribal in nature. We tend to objectify those outside of our tribe or group. If you are different from me then you are "other" and I have no moral responsibility towards you. As a class, transgendered people are so much outside of the normal experience of most people that understanding takes effort, and it is simpler to to castigate and ostracise than to make the considerable effort necessary to understand. I think that is a root cause of the horrible violence we experience, and the self destructive behavior so many of us resort to.

That may be part of it, but I think it's only a small part. Hate comes in many flavours.

There's a saying I subscribe to wholeheartedly: "Criticism tells us more about the critic than the criticised." The same is true of people who profess to hate anyone else, or indulge that hate in the form of violence. I don't think that it's necessarily a case of being simpler. I think it's a case of being unwanted.

The vast majority of people who don't understand something... don't take it upon themselves to single people out who they don't understand and make their lives miserable. They are content to live and let live. Only a small proportion of people go that extra mile. Only a tiny percentage go out of their way to actively punish people who they feel don't fit into their view of the world. And you have to ask yourself why.

Personally, I feel that as people we use those around us as mirrors. Who they are reflects who we are. What they do, and what they have, makes us question what we have and what we do. They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. I think sometimes they are mirrors to our own soul. And in everyone else we question ourselves. I feel that the most hateful people in the world are also the most insecure. They're the people who, when they see someone else, it brings up feelings about themselves. Feelings they don't want to deal with. And to deflect that, they feel it better to hate the other person for making them feel that way.

Hatred is borne of many things. Envy, for example. People hate what others have that they wish they had. Be that looks, charisma, courage, hope, desire, ambition... you name it. It's easier for someone to hate someone else for having something instead of going out and getting it yourself. It takes far, far less effort to scrutinise someone else than it does to examine ourselves.

Hate can also be borne of uncertainty. Who we are as people can make some people question who they are as people. Someone for whom gender was always so clear might feel suddenly uncomfortable when they meet someone for whom it was never clear. And the very notion isn't as set in stone as was first thought. It plants seeds, of questioning. And people don't like examining themselves. They don't like thinking about things they always thought were rock solid tenets of life.

I don't think it's effort. Taking the effort to understand someone. I think it's desire. Empathy isn't hard. You just have to want to even entertain the notion. And some people don't. You don't even have to understand something in order to accept it. Only to understand that the person dealing with it understands it. But again some people don't. Because they don't want to. But that's more because of who they are than who someone else is.

And understanding that is the first step to understanding why people behave the way they do. How we deal with our own lives as reflected in the lives of others. And there lies the path of tolerance. Understanding ourselves is the first step on the road to understanding the world.

I think that hatred, like resentment, and like anger is always rooted in fear.  Fear of loss, fear of being thought a fool, fear in a thousand guises.  That fear is what we use to define "other" and once so objectified, a negative and even violent response becomes justified and ultimately even morally acceptable.  For people like us, walking through fear to authenticity is the holy grail.  If I am living an authentic life, one where there is no longer daylight between who I am and how I live, then empathy is second nature.  If I have not reconciled myself to my life then I am fearful and also quite incapable of connecting empathetically.  I encounter people who suffer from an inability to simply be civil much less empathetic from time to time and while I do not need to understand them, I do need to have an awareness of their fears.

I am never, in my daily life, publicly accosted as trans by people that I interact with.  But I do not shy from telling my story if it can be helpful to another's understanding.  How much and If I disclose has more to do with utility than anything else, but more often, because I drive a pickup truck and have LGBT stickers and such, am identified in the real world as lesbian.  This happened to me a week ago and because I get my hand slapped for using profanity there are some asterisks.

I was coming home from work and sitting at the stoplight when a car pulled up next to me and a young man motioned for me to roll down my window. You know the pointing at my window and making that silly circular motion as if cranking the window down. It's funny to me because I haven't had crank windows in decades. But I guess that miming pushing a window switch isn't quite as meaningful. Regardless, I pushed the switch and my window lowered and to my smile he rejoined. "You f**king lesbians think that you are so f***king good. Well you're not! F**k off!!"

Okay my truck is a 2011 bright red crew cab F150. It may have a few rainbows on it and CoExist might be emblazoned on the canopy. It might have been affectionately called a dyke-mobile a time or two. But I wasn't looking particularly butch that today, why was he so angry? Why did I feel a little afraid? Does it matter at all? I responded with a wink and a blown kiss. Pretty brave with 5,000 lbs of steel around me and a dog in the back eh? Go ahead, attack me with your Civic, I'll put it in 4WD and squish your a**!

He clearly does not get the differences between who I am, who I love, and who I sleep with. What is sadder is he didn't try. I don't know his story, maybe he was competing for the affection of a woman and losing the battle. But he was aggressive, and I left the light wondering what if anything this represented? Maybe I'll go get a KD Lang haircut, throw away my pretty clothes and seal the deal. Then again, maybe I won't.

Who I love and whom I sleep with is the business of myself and my partner, I don't know why anyone else cares. Misogyny isn't confined to the President. Intolerance isn't confined to places less liberal than Seattle, but I wish it wasn't so.

So why did I relate this to you?  I think it has to do with the effort to understand.  I do not understand such behavior and probably never will.  But a I do not want to be a denizen of his fear.  I cannot fear, or loath, or hate him because, as you point out, that becomes my reflection and if I am not careful, my reality.  I am much more the reflection of my behavior than the reflection of behavior directed towards me.  I still struggle with recovery from decades old sexual assault and rape.  I still pay the psychic price of being rejected by lovers and family for being who I am.  But this does not define me nor does it define my relationship to everything that is.

With few exceptions I live a fulfilled life and a joyful one.  If I can project that outward, even to those who look upon me with disgust then my reflection is radiant and perhaps theirs will become so.  Whew, another wordy response. 

I wish you well,
Julie