I was surprised at the gentleness in Jennifer Finney Boylan’s recent article in The Tribune about mean conservative responses to trans people. She told of her experience in a public bathroom as she stood in front of a mirror and reflected on the harsh comments of the woman standing next to her as a trans woman exited a stall behind them. Her neighbor’s disgust was expressed to her without this person knowing that she, too, was trans.
It made me wonder about the different reactions we have in these unexpected moments. We know so little about our fellow strangers on this planet, and yet we are so quick to judge and ridicule.
Boylan saw this as our inability to put ourselves in someone else’s place. It always goes back to the great epiphany in “To Kill A Mockingbird” (Harper Lee): that you don’t know a person “until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” We still lack the ability to become someone else with his thoughts and circumstances.
Many children have some of that ability to imagine, to feel, to become someone else even for a “twirl” in a princess gown, or a “fly around the block” on a witch’s broom. We’ve lost that capability to imagine, to feel, to become someone else long enough to stop our harsh judgments, long enough to speak the words Boylan wanted to say, but couldn’t: “I, too, am trans, and I am worthy of your respect.”
Bev Terry, Salt Lake City