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- Who The Hell Is This Guy?
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Dana -- My designated gentlereader
"Rejecting your gay or transgender child will not make them straight. It will only mean that you will lose them." -Christina Engela
Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Stickies,
Lets review. I ended last week's letter thusly:
As far as I'm concerned, as long as no one is getting hurt (that doesn't want to be), the door is closed, and the window treatment prevents me (and anyone else) that doesn't/shouldn't want to know what people get up to in private from hearing/seeing what people get up to in private -- have at it.
But when they insist on getting in my face, and/or demanding everyone's approval, that's a/the horse of a different color, Dorothy. Which is why there's going to be a part two.
This is part two. First, the low-hanging fruit.
There are men who have decided they are women but ain't going to dose themselves with chemicals or submit to surgery and I - don't - care. I personally don't know (as far as I know...) anyone who has chosen to live this way but if I should cross paths with such an individual I would treat them the same way I do everyone else. I'd take them as I find them and hope that they were a fellow gentleperson. If not, depending on the circumstances, I'd act accordingly.
[For the record, I did have a casual acquaintance, in the late 70s, with a gay gentleperson who enjoyed performing in drag but dressed like a (quite stylish) man when he wasn't on stage. I'm not mentioning this just to point out that I had gay friends, and a gay roommate for a year, long before it was cool for a straight man to have gay friends.]
Big But
There are men who have decided they are women but ain't going to dose themselves with chemicals or submit to surgery that have also decided that since as far as they are concerned they are women they have the right to compete in women's athletic competitions. This is a thing, it's already happening, regulatory bodies have started to go along.
This - is - nuts. If the emperor has a penis and the requisite amount of testosterone in his system but likes to wear a tasteful dress, and enjoys being a girl, good for her. But a cheat and bully by any other name is still a cheat and a bully.
Please re-read the first full paragraph at the beginning of this letter, I'll wait...
Okay? Good. Alright, open-minded and tolerant is one thing, forced acceptance quite another. While Stinky McGardle has as much right to hang out on the playground as anyone else, Lulu Lollobrigida, heartbreaker in training, has the right to flee the sandbox when Stinky turns up. She doesn't have the right to ban Stinky from the sandbox, or anything else for that matter. He doesn't have the right to demand she stay.
Lulu, who is being well raised by good parents, would never make fun of Stinky (who is actually a good kid that's being poorly raised by bad parents) as a lot of her friends do.
[In fact, a childless couple, Stinky's uncle Johan and his wife, Gretchen, will shortly take Stinky into their home, much to the relief of his reprobate parents, and eventually adopt him (after essentially paying them off). Stinky will turn out to be a very bright, if eternally socially awkward soul, who eventually becomes a doctor, a pediatric brain surgeon that works full time at Shriner's hospital and fills in at St. Judes on the weekend. He will mary Lulu and have three perfect children after bumping into her while volunteering at a homeless shelter. Lulu is a nurse with a Ph.D. that coordinates health care services for all the homeless shelters in the city of Golden Glow, state of Winnemac. She chooses Edmund's (Stinky's real name) brand of cologne for him and regulates its use as he has a tendency to go overboard.]
Leave us set aside Lola and Stinky's inevitable destiny for the moment and return to the here and now. Stinky and Lola both have the right to make use of the playground. All rights come with corresponding responsibilities. The most fundamental responsibility of any right is to acknowledge that all the kids on the playground have the same rights.
The second most fundamental corresponding responsibility, in fact, it may be tied for first, is that Stinky and Lola have to be constantly seeking compromises that allow both of them to enjoy their rights, as much as is practically possible, without stepping on each other's toes.
Maximum freedom requires a certain minimum of rules to ensure maximum enjoyment of the playground by the maximum number of kids.
Lola and Stinky, neither of whom is a jagoff or a bully, have found a way to share the playgrounds amenities peacefully by employing common sense.
We are minorities of one. Like snowflakes (I speak meteorologically), while having much in common, for all intents and purposes, we are unique. The overwhelming majority of H. sapiens on the planet Earth feel that there's me, and there's everyone else... and that their version of reality is the correct one.
This is why compromise is hard and complicated -- and unavoidable -- if we'd like to spend our brief time on the playground enjoying ourselves instead of endlessly bickering. Carrying on like spoiled children with chips on their shoulders competing in the Grievance and Victimology Olympics (which take place every four seconds, not every four years).
Aw geez, I'm already over my word limit... Lookit, if you enjoy being a girl but your naughty bits are clearly those of a male H. sapien (or vice versa), feel free to believe that biology is a social construct having no basis in reality. If you can "pass," feel free to use the women's room (or vice versa). But use a stall and keep the door closed. Do your business, and keep your business, to yourself.
Better yet, lobby for the addition of a third standardized restroom: Men, Women, Optional. While you're at it demand locker/slash changing rooms with the same designations.
Want to be accepted? In any given social situation choose to be the highest functioning high functioning primate in the room, and make the world a better place for everyone.
By the way, my three-way system compromise is a win/win/win/win. Middle of the road Normies who like things as they are, win. Transgender folks, win. Progressives can opt for Optional and send up a virtue signal, win. Righties of all stripes can honor/be made comfortable by traditional designations, win.
Compromise, don't demonize. Poppa loves you.
Have an OK day.
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Don't demonize, compromise