Cause and Infection
CAUSE.AND.INFECTION
I’m not Lucky I’m Blessed4/18/2020 So a long time ago, back in sophomore or junior year in high school, I was harassed by what seemed to be two latino boys. There was a water polo match at the high school closest to my house. I was the boy’s team manager. After the games were over I decided to walk home rather than take the bus back to my high school down town and wait to be picked up by my mother. While I was walking along the back gate of the high school two boys started following me and as we rounded the corner they started yelling things like “show us your dick” and “hey! Tranny!”. Well I was dressed like a pretty stereotypical high school girl honestly, short shorts and a tshirt. I had also recently watched on tv a special about the murder of Gwen Araujo. She was a beautiful girl who went to a party after graduating high school and was murdered for being mtf. I didn’t really understand or know of the animosity towards transgendered folk before that. I was scared shitless of these two boys following. I started panicking and crying. The boys disappeared. They weren’t behind me anymore and I didn’t know where they went. I sat with my back to the fence of the high school and called my sister two lived about five miles away to come pick me up and drive me back to our parents house which was less than a mile from the high school I was at. She was thoroughly annoyed.
Years later, I am sitting in my rites of passage masters course and we are talking about gender and sexuality. I am mildly frustrated that the person I got paired up to share with does not understand the difference between gender or sexuality. Anyyyywho, we started having these circle times in our class where our professor gave us time to share about things that came up for us. I shared my story about those boys following me in high school and I am sobbing in front of my entire cohort. After class Lia gives me a hug and apologizes that I had to experience those things because I identify as agender. I wish she had stopped before including how I identify. The thing is those boys had no idea that I am nonbinary nor what I am packing in my short shorts. I was dressed like a perfectly average high school girl. I am not heterosexual passing. This amplified by the fact that she had talked about in class how she is heterosexual passing. Another one of our classmates cane up to me and apologized for the same thing at the end of the day. Their assumptions made me feeI pretty miserable. These were the two girls I got naked in a hot tub with for christ sake! But maybe that was part of the reason those were the only two who reached out to me after my sharing that experience. I don’t really experience sexual attraction very often, its not quite what gets my nethers goin. Gender is a construct that I don’t really identify with. I am not really a creature of sexuality to begin with, but people look at my body type and seem to assume I am a lesbian. My father, brother, classmates, and strangers have told me or seemed to have assumed I am sexually interested in females. From what it seems to me it is based mostly on how I look. There was another time I was standing in front of a liquor store with a friend smoking. This liquor store was on a street that is lined with gay bars. A drunk man came up to us and asked which way we were transitioning cause he has always wanted to have sex with a man, he just shipped in because he is in the navy, and has a wife and kid back home. It felt pretty scummy all around. Being heterosexual passing is a privilege in a heterosexual dominated society. It is a strange disquieting feeling to me to know that I am not deemed hetero passing for the structure of my body. I imagine that this like one billionth of a fraction the discomfort that people with darker shades of skin feel with race privileges. I am currently listening to the audio book “So You Want to Talk About Race” by Ijeoma Oluo. It is a wonderfully written book. I feel heartbroken and informed why listening to it. If you are in the mindset to listen to a woman of color talk about race and intersectionality I highly recommend it. If you cannot wrap your head around the concepts I recommend doing more personal work. Privileges and advantages given to people at birth that they are not aware of that others have to struggle to earn are a difficult things to wrap ones head around. Race Ethnicity Class Sex Gender Sexuality Ability Religion Country of Birth Language Where you are I have and have had many advantages in life. I don’t think anyone would benefit from feeling bad about their privileges. I do believe it would behoove us all to use what privileges we have to better the lives who have had less. As always take care of our needs before assisting others, like the flight attendants and everyone else in a health profession says. But! Wallowing in feeling bad about having been born with more than others doesn’t help anyone. It’s counterproductive. I think using our gifts to make the world a less dichotomous place could benefit everyone.
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