A Less Acknowledged Prejudice

I was just in grocery store with my mother, and some of the people she works with. While in the store there was a middle aged man in a Freedom to Marry shirt, shopping without a second glance from anyone, people of all ages and people of all ethnicities. In particular, there was a young Hispanic woman with her Caucasian daughter. None of these people garnered a double take, or sneer, and the Hispanic woman and her daughter even got a big smile and wave from the woman who moved easily out of their way in the narrow aisle.

But the people my mother and I were with seemed to be a different story. My mother works in a group home for disabled adults. We were shopping with two of her clients today. One of them I don't know very well, but doesn't seem overly violent, and is generally quiet and well-behaved. He is, however, rather obviously disabled, because his facial structure and movements are off. The other man is one my mother and I have known for just over a decade. He is incredibly kind and peaceful, and not at all taken to outbursts. He is merely very, very autistic. And his posture and manner of speaking make this rather blatant.

In the pasta aisle, the same woman who waved and smiled sweetly at the Hispanic woman and her daughter, who didn't bat an eyelash at the Freedom to Mary man, glared and waited for my mother and I to move my mother's clients out of her way. She looked at us with such complete disdain. And we encountered this through out the store. One man moved to a different, longer, line when he saw them. People skirted around us like being disabled was the flu or something else they could catch.

It made me so unspeakably ill to see people acting like that. Just because someone is a little bit different, a little slower, doesn't know how to act, just because something went wrong when they were born, or something was off in their genetic code, doesn't make them less of a person. It doesn't make them some contagion to be avoided. It doesn't make them the butt of all of your jokes. Just because they don't show their feelings the same way you do, and just because you think they're too stupid to understand you, doesn't mean they don't get hurt.

I've been around disabled people frequently sense I was about ten. The summer before I started high school I worked in my mom's classroom all through summer school. And those kids are some of the sweetest people you'll ever meet. And sometimes I forget that not all people have the exposure to them that I do, and I hate seeing people through them sideways glances and walking around them in the halls, and generally trying to pretend they aren't there.

People are people, no matter what is different about them, be it their size, gender, orientation, race, or if they have a mental disability. And the fact that this prejudice in our society is generally brushed off as a non-issue is disgusting.

Time to Crack Open Pandora's Box

Time to discuss the big (but actually little) word (that's really a concept) that causes friction in every community. It even divides the notoriously liberal queer community.

Any guesses?

Did you say: Gender? THAT'S RIGHT! You go, blog reader, four for you blog reader.

Funny references aside, gender is a serious issue in all communities.

I suppose I should explain why the gender spectrum is relevant to my life.

Biologically, I am female. As in I have breasts, a vagina, a uterus, etc etc etc. Emotionally/Mentally/What have you? I am neither male nor female. Some days I just say I'm human, genderless. Some days I'm both. Gender, much like sexuality, is fluid. At least in my case, the case of a few of my close friends, and also my boyfriend's case. He's genderqueer, one of my best friends is gender neutral, my own mother has come to the conclusion she's gender apathetic, and I have a few friends who are gender apathetic. Another one of my best friends is an effeminate gay boy who's an aspiring drag queen/occasional cross dresser. Basically, I know very few heteronormative, cisgender individuals.

I am female in presentation mainly due to my inability to pass as truly androgynous or male because I am rather well-endowed in the chest area. My boyfriend is male in presentation because he is scruffy as all get out. Though he does wear skirts on occasion.

The basic point of this post is : Gender is not a dichotomy. And that's okay. For anyone confused, picture a bar of color fading from darkest black, to white. Black represents cisgendered people (people born male or female and identify as their birth gender) and white represents transgendered people (people who are born biologically male or female and feel as if they should be the other gender, like they are trapped in the wrong body). Now, this is a grayscale. Are there only two shades, black and white, on a grayscale? No, there are infinite shades of gray. And that is where myself, my boyfriend, my friends, and thousands, if not millions, of other people lie.

There is a definite prejudice amongst our society for non-cisgenders, even amidst our own community: the queers. We seem to face much the same challenges as bisexuals, pansexuals and the like face. Now, why on earth should the very community who knows JUST what we're going through, be against us as well? I don't know. But then, many of today's societal views boggle me to no end. I am fully aware not all LGBTQQIA (and any neglected acronym components) discriminate against the trans and genderqueer folk. Many are wonderfully accepting and open. But those who do discriminate are there. And there are heterosexual cisgenders discriminating too.

Just because a woman has a penis, doesn't make her less of a woman than one born with the proper equipment. Just because a man was born Jill and now wants to be Jack doesn't make him less of a man than a man who always wanted to be Jack. And just because I refuse to pick a gender, doesn't make me any less of a person than anyone else in this world.

When the people of earth can start to figure out gender isn't just what's between your legs or under your shirt, but what's in your head and your heart, we'll be on our way to a better brighter future.

In Jesus Name I Pray...

I just viewed this video. It's part of what my blog will be about today, so take a moment and watch it.

Done? Okay, cool.

That video there? It's almost exactly my main complaint against religion. The ability of those people to blindly follow a "deity" that no one can prove exists is astounding and terrifying. In any situation not involving religion, hearing and listening to the word of someone no one has ever seen, and who doesn't have a physical body, and living your whole life by their word would be considered a MENTAL DISORDER. Now, I am fully aware that not all Christians, Catholics, etc. are bible thumping, tongues-speaking, brain-washing, Potter bashing nut jobs. But those people? They are definitely a little on the nutty side. And people like that scare the living shit out of me.

Okay. Here's a little background on my religious experience. I went to bible school with one of my best friends for three days when I was five. Being an impressionable child, I asked my mom if I could start going to church. My mother said no. My mother, who finds organized religion frightening, didn't want me to attend church until she thought I could judge what they were saying and make my own decisions. So, obviously I had a decidedly nonreligious childhood. And boy, am I glad. Now, I'm still friends with the girl I went to bible camp with. And she's still Christian. And I'm a devoted atheistic agnostic. (Meaning I don't believe in god, but if you proved God existed, I'd believe you). She's a logical human being. We get along fine. I have a few other friends who are Christian, and I get along fine with them too. What I mean by all this is I want to make it clear. I don't hate all religious people. I hate religion itself. I think it's an absurd concept. But as long as you're somewhat smart about it, and don't jam it down my throat, we're fine. Onto my issues with religion.

First of all, you should never follow anyone or anything THAT blindly. I don't care if it's God, Allah, Obama or your great aunt Tessie. You should analyze information you are given, dwell on instructions you receive no matter WHO they're from. If a homeless man, or even a well dressed business man, that you'd never seen before walked up to you on the street and gave you a slip of paper and told you if you followed the instructions on the paper, you'd live in paradise for eternity? No, you wouldn't. You would probably run screaming in the other direction. Because that is the smart and logical thing to do. Blindly following your "all powerful" leader is how cults get started. And religious people like this didn't just drink the kool aid, they fucking chugged it.

Second, those poor, poor children. Parents like that are literally FORCING their religions down their throats when they're far too young to even attempt to judge what they're being told. It gets to the point where, as this video tells you, it's brainwashing. Those kids don't have a chance to choose their own beliefs. They're born and immediately indoctrinated into the religion of their parents. The Christians think us queers our indoctrinating people into our lifestyle? They need to look in a damn mirror. When was the last time you saw a homosexual leave a "Join the gay lifestyle!" pamphlet on the doorstep? Never. But chances are you've been visited by a Jehovah's witness.

That brings me to another point: HYPOCRISY. Religion is wrought with hypocrisy. Many Christians disdain homosexuals because it says in the Bible it's an abomination. Know what else it says? Never work on Sundays, don't eat shellfish, don't cut your hair, never think about another man's wife, if your children or your wife misbehave STONE THEM TO DEATH. Last time I checked, Christians paid no mind to most of those things. And we're restricting THEIR freedom by disallowing prayer in school, but THEY can infringe on OURS by wanting to require it? What if a student doesn't WANT to pray, GOD FORBID. And we aren't preventing anyone who wants to pray from praying! We're only keeping it from being required. If your kids want to pray, they can pray. It is fully within their rights as citizens. But you know what? It's fully within mine to NOT pray. Surprisingly enough, AMERICA IS NOT A THEOCRACY. YOUR RELIGION HAS NO PLACE IN THE GOVERNMENT. And whatever happened to "Love thy neighbor"? Or did it get rewritten when I wasn't looking to read "Love thy neighbor, but only if thy neighbor is heterosexual and god believing"?

Yet another problem I have with religion is how it basically removes all personal responsibility. Everything is done because it was "God's will" And "Love the sinner, hate the sin". So, a man murders my best friend, and I'm supposed to hate the sin, and not hate him? Fuck that shit. And the idea that when horrible things happen to good people, they're just being "tested". When an innocent child is raped, god is just TESTING them. So, God gave innocent 15 month old me retinoblastoma (retinal cancer) and took away my sight in my right eye to TEST me? Oh wait, maybe that's because he foresaw I'd become a godless queer when I grew up. And homosexuality is just a test too, by the way. To see if we can resist "temptation".

The basic point of all this? Religion is dangerous in the hands of the human race. We are fanatical by nature, we want to know everything about everything, and we want to be happy. Give people something to believe in that promises those things, and most of the time that fanaticism takes over. People turn a blind eye to reason to feel like they know why we're here, and to feel comforted by the idea of an afterlife. If it makes them feel safe, included and informed and, most of all, powerful, they'll drink all the kool aid they're given. And after they drink? they'll simply ask for me. Religion is a drug, more powerful and addictive, and far less expensive than heroin. But, in my eyes, it's just as dangerous. But unlike heroin it's free and readily available. And that? That scares me.