Voice Or Choice?
The topic of transgender teens has, and unfortunately, probably always will be a pretty touchy subject with most people. Tonight's Glee did a fairly tasteful job of doing an episode containing this issue. I can't help but wonder, though, does putting these teens struggle on television give them a voice or does it offer a choice to teens who feel uncomfortable in their own bodies?
Let’s face it; no one did High School gracefully. I wasn't so much popular as notorious: people still recognize me and I often have no idea who they are. I'm pretty good with faces but I chalk it up to having been in the dramatic spotlight one too many times throughout my youth. Still, having dramatic friends and being look at as somewhat as a freak in high school is nothing compared to these teens who don’t even identify themselves as the sex of their body parts. I can't imagine going through my life with girly bits and always feeling like I was a man.
I’m not typically the
kind of person who wonders these things. I know that when I saw the character
Wade stand up for himself and for who he wants to be I swelled with pride for
the character, and when he/she started singing I was in awe! I mean I’ve seen
drag queen performers who weren’t this convincing. It was obvious to me that
Wade really was Unique. To me, I
think any opportunity for a show to stand up for those who are different is a
great thing. But I do have the voice of some people, who are less open minded,
in the back of my head. Almost every show on tv now has a gay or lesbian couple,
and while I love my LGBT community I sometimes find myself wondering if this
isn’t so much giving a voice to the LGBT community as it is almost glamorizing
it. Showing a boy who feels like a girl and that moment when he embraces who he
is and puts on that dress and high heel shoes and have a glorious moment fills
me with pride for this boy, but to a younger child this image might be
confusing. Why is this boy dressing like a woman? He seems so happy, should I
be wearing dresses? Might be some questions a very young child might ask
themselves. It goes back to the nature vs nurture issue. How much of who we are
is programmed in our DNA and how much is the way we are raised? I probably
wouldn’t even be thinking these things if I hadn’t worked with children and
seen for myself how moldable their little minds can be. There was a student at
one of my schools who wasn’t even two years old and wanted to wear high heeled
shoes and dresses, even when offered the male alternative. His parents just
went with it, his father even said to me “If he ends up being a cross-dresser
at least he’ll be the best damned cross-dresser out there.” Gotta say I love
his attitude, I just wonder; were they nurturing his nature or were they
nurturing one possible outcome for this child’s future? It’s certainly not the
easy way things could go for this kid, for any kid, being LGBT is one of the toughest
lives out there.
So what’s my point? I
love the LGBT community, I love every time I hear they have won a case for
their fight for human rights, I love seeing LGBT embrace who they are and
succeed, I just can’t help but wonder about this very touchy subject. Could they
have had it easier? Of course, we could all pull our heads out of our butts and
accept them for who they are, give them the rights they shouldn’t even have to
ask for, and then there wouldn’t be an issue at all, but until that time… well,
what do we do? I guess one way is to be sure that our children are really and
truly emotionally ready for the television we allow them to watch. There’s a
fat chance that’ll happen, so the real option seems to be to talk to our
children, constantly, even if the
topics are uncomfortable for us adults, and to pull our heads out of our butts
and accept everyone for just being who they are. Because, really, who cares why they are who they are as long as
they are happy? And they would be, if humanity weren’t so stubborn about
acceptance.
I have to stop thinking
about things and just accept them.
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