What’s Really Behind Homophobia And Transphobia?
The person to be wary of is the one who’s the most frightened — frightened of confronting something buried deep within themselves
“No one, in the history of the human race, has ever been angry, without that anger being a direct response to fear. The two things are always directly proportional, anger always a reaction to fear, without exception.” — Louise Carole Sumrell
One of the many serendipitous benefits of trans advocacy is the amazing trans people you end up meeting. While learning how to best support my own trans kid, it seems about monthly that I end up with even more incredible trans folks in my life who I’m proud to call friends. Frequently, from both trans and cis people, I’m told how “lucky” my trans kid is to have me as a parent, but from my perspective, just the reverse is true:
I’m lucky to have my trans teen. I’m lucky I get to be her/their mom (my child was assigned male at birth, but uses both female and non-binary pronouns). I’ve grown as a person more in the 13 years that I’ve been mom to a trans kid than I have in my entire 45 years on this planet.
I haven’t done anything special; I’ve simply loved unconditionally. Isn’t that what all parents should do? Letting go of expectations — gendered or otherwise — and realizing it’s not my job to make a clone of myself, but try to make someone who’s far better? That doesn’t make me any sort of hero. If anything, it makes me a bit embarrassed that it’s taken roughly 30 years to understand the concept of having privilege: cisgender privilege, heterosexual privilege, (“cishet” for short), and white privilege, to name a few.
I was so steeped in cishet, white privilege, I didn’t even know I had it, and certainly, wouldn’t have ever admitted to having any at all. It took having a trans child. It took being forced to experience life through their perspective (albeit through a very small window), to see exactly how many things I’d taken for granted or never even thought about.
Louise is one of those trans people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting — at least online. Through our brief chats, and from just absorbing her writing, I’ve heard the profound, calm, rational life-wisdom…
