Rejecting cruelty of a nation bent on squashing trans Americans

Moon over Alabama, by Richard Linder

     The war on trans Americans continues unabated. The government cashiers loyal and effective soldiers from the military while trying to quash health care for young people nationwide. Apparently, parents know what's best for their own children only when denying them vaccines. A scary time, and if you don't think it's your problem, then you're ignoring how quickly a cruel and arbitrary government can shift from one target to another. Hate is fickle.
     Civility shouldn't be. I've been defending trans people in print for 34 years. First, because I'm a Jew, and given our history of being on the receiving end of hatred, it's our responsibility not to limit the compass of our sympathy entirely to ourselves.
     But there's another reason, one I've never explained, So today I'll tell the story.
     As a young reporter, I quickly discovered there are two ways to do the job. You can wait for someone to assign you something, and end up covering fires and zoning board hearings.
     Or you can find your own subjects, ones that you are guaranteed to be interested in because you picked them yourself.
     I preferred the second path.
     So I'm combing the classified ads at the back of the Chicago Reader, fishing for leads, when I notice an ad for a boutique on Elston Avenue selling women's clothing in large sizes to men.
     "Now there's an interesting business," I thought, and headed over. Talking to the owner, I realized this is more than one shop. This is a world, a community. I saw an announcement for a dance, and decided to go.
     At the dance I met "Jenny," who I described in the opening paragraphs of my story this way:

     Jenny has sparkling blue eyes, a small, upturned nose and a cascade of curly blond hair tumbling over her right shoulder.
     With a rhinestone nail charm centered on each red fingernail, a dab of blush at her decolletage, and deftly applied make-up, it's easy to believe her when she says she spent three hours getting ready to go out.
     The shimmery blue and silver dress is custom-made, she says, and it's easy to believe that, too, since with the spike heels, Jenny tops out at perhaps 6-foot-7.
     "I'm a bigger girl, I know," she says, smiling radiantly. "I can't go out to a mall — hey, I've got a football player's shoulders."

     What I did not put in the story was my thought processes, standing there in the dim, loud dance, with my narrow pad and pen, as she spoke. Picture me, brow furrowed, gears slowly turning, as I looked up at this young woman, nearly a foot taller than myself.
     "Hmmmm...." I thought. "Three hours. That's a long time. She must really want to do this. You know ... most people do what they really want to do. And in that sense, I'm lucky that what I really want to do is go home and kiss the wife. Because if I wanted to do ... what she wants to do ... I'd be completely screwed. Because I could either do what I want to do, and be this loathed pariah skulking around the shadows. Or I could spend my life not doing what I want to do, and isn't that a sad way to live?"

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