Now, more than ever, the word transgender is in the news. And it elicits strong reactions from all sides: for and against, as it were. One of my common phrases is "you catch more flies with honey than vinegar" and I find that having a kind and loving conversation about why I'm for rights and protections for trans folks is a much better way to educate people. Shouting won't change hearts or minds.
Folks are far more likely to listen to me if I am calm, make concessions to their points of view and speak in language they understand. If I'm speaking to a person using the bible as support for their bigoted opinions, I'll speak to them in biblical terms. Something like, Genesis 1:27. "So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." If God created man and woman in his image, God must be man and woman. If someone believes that being transgender is a choice, I ask them when they first chose their own genders and begin a discussion. If they tell me there are only male and female genders and nothing in between, I engage in a conversation about what it means to be intersex and point out how many cultures, including some Native American tribes, recognize up to seven genders. But when it comes to the science of things, I'm not as informed.
This weekend, a friend sent me a post she had read on the march for science Facebook group she belongs to. It was a post written by a high school biology teacher using *gasp* science to show that there's no such thing as a strict binary when it comes to sex and/or gender. This post has gone viral. Not just because it's a well-written, cheeky defense of trans folks based in fact, but also that there's so much love for equality out there that this post went viral. Defense of trans folks...viral online.
With permission from the author, I am sharing that post here.
And in the immortal words of Forrest Gump, "That's about all I have to say about that."