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‘Knowing Is Too Hard’

Why the general public prefers not to acknowledge what's happening on transgender rights
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A reader e-mails about the “What? Trans? Here?” post. His e-mail was so startling I decided to give it its own separate post. I have edited it slightly to protect privacy:

I just got back from [state] visiting my in-laws and my wife’s childhood friends and we just had this exact same experience.
My wife’s friends do well. The husband is a union guy and makes more money than I do. I like him, but he’s what the progressives might consider to be… a problem. He has three kids, the oldest being a girl going into seventh grade. After a few beers he says things like, “Look. I’m OK with anything just as long as they ain’t gay. And no black guys.”
See what I mean?
Well, we were talking school stuff and the mom very casually drops the news that there is a trans kid at the seventh grader’s school. My wife and the mom went to school with the mother of the trans kid. I guess she was weird and “goth” and all the rest. They agreed that if the trans thing have been a thing back then, this mom would have been the most likely person to declare. Fair or not, I don’t know. But there it is.
At any rate, my wife’s friend sort of just mentioned that this girl came out as trans. Let’s say her name was Mary. Well, my wife’s friend sees her at a park this summer and says, “Hi, Mary.” And the former Mary very testily replied, “I am not Mary. I am Mark now.”
My wife’s friend and her union husband sort of rolled their eyes and looked mystified but left it at that. I was surprised. The “no black guys, and no gay” dad seemed to be taking it in stride. So I said, “So where is this kid showering?”
They said: “Huh?”
I said, “Where is this kid going to shower? You know the kid gets to shower wherever he/she says or the school district will lose their federal money.”
They looked at me like I had two heads.
The mom said, “I think that the school told the kid to shower in a faculty locker room and they were OK with that.”
I let her know that this will be fine as long as another kid doesn’t push it further than that. Because others have tried it and lost.  And their school will lose, too. Still, they seemed to be OK with it mostly because you know, I guess … who’s it hurting?
Until I said, “Well, yeah. The parents of that kid aren’t nuts. You throw a biological girl into a boys locker room and something bad will happen fast. The problem is going to be when there’s a biological boy who wants to shower with your kid.”
The dad looked like I hit him with a pipe wrench. “No,” he said. “That ain’t happening.”
I said sure it is. The Obama administration’s advisory says it is.
I told him about the MTF trans kid in Alaska who medaled at the state competition. I am telling you that this guy looked actively wounded. Like I was lying to him or something.
He said he couldn’t believe it. I said haven’t you heard about this and that and the other thing? He had heard of all those things but he just … never thought there would be a penis in the girls locker room. He is still having trouble believing it.
This is not a religious family. I have never, ever known them to go to church of any kind for any reason. Neither does anyone in their extended families.
It’s not like this is a huge secret. They honestly just don’t want to know. Because knowing is too hard.
And again, this is a guy who WILL police the family in terms of the kids being gay. He WILL make his views on race known to his kids. It’s not like he’s not willing to go out on a limb or say unpopular things, many of which I disagree with.
He can’t even compute the trans stuff. Even though there is one at their school. He just sits there saying, “No.”
I don’t know what they do if it hits. I bet they just live with it. I doubt they can afford a religious high school. The cheapest one in their area is like $21,000 a year. Their kids will think it’s normal, and their dad’s objections will get filed away with his retrograde views on race.


They honestly just don’t want to know. Because knowing is too hard.
This is true. This is profoundly true. If priests and pastors are not speaking clearly and directly to their congregations about this, they are failing them.

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