Jane (not her real name) is an exquisite poet, nature photographer, educator and all-around raconteur.
And Jane, who I am proud to call my friend, is a sweet person with a captivating smile who cares deeply for others and especially for people who are ostracized and worse because they are out of the mainstream.
She knows about life outside of the mainstream. Jane went down a road that most of us will never travel when she underwent gender reassignment because she is a woman who was trapped in a man’s body. That as her personal decision and no one has the right to criticize her.
Her decision was not made lightly. It came after years of self-torture over nature’s cruelty that gave her the feelings of a woman and the physical attributes of a man. She has had her share of disappointments but has persevered, become a success in her field and never regretted her decision.
Jane is a transgender woman and as a member of a minority group she is an easy and continuous target for bigots who feel her very existence is a crime. Why she is such a threat to such people is for the psychologists to examine. Why the government does not protect people like Jane from persecution is for us all to consider.
All that Jane wants is to live her life fully and for the nation to allow all of its Janes to find happiness, protection and equality under the law. It would not seem a lot to ask. She just wants to be left alone with her many friends, her poetry, her love of nature and her books.
I have no problem with people who feel that their gender is defined at birth. I do have a problem when those people attempt to decide how others should live their lives.
Those who feel righteous indignation will not leave the transgender community alone and would simply like them to all disappear. But they are not going anywhere because they have fought the good fight for so long.
I am so angry and sad that once again the Trump administration has taken aim at the transgender community with a proposal that would make it legal for health insurance companies, doctors and other providers to deny coverage based on a person’s gender identity.
The administration’s move would reverse a provision of Obamacare that barred health care providers and insurance companies from discriminating because of a person’s “gender identity.”
Trump issued the rule at a time of the COVID 19 pandemic when health insurance coverage is often a life or death issue. There could not be a worse time to issue such a cowardly, cruel and insensitive ruling.
As an added measure of the administration’s calculated inhumanity, the move was announced on the fourth anniversary of the massacre at the Pulse, a gay nightclub in Florida. It also comes during Pride Month, a time when people and governments across the country make a statement in support of LGBTQ people.
I say to Trump, it is none of your business how people want to live their lives as long as they harm no one. Stay out of their lives. Leave them alone. These are not cannibals, murderers, sexual predators. They are human flesh, no different in their hopes and dreams than anyone else.
It is despicable although totally predictable that Trump would make such a transparent, obvious and craven political move. He could care less about transgendered people. He only cares about pandering to those who could help him win a second term in office. I gag at the words.
Trump’s decision is nothing less than part of an overall plan that would keep transgender people out of the military and lacerate any protections against discrimination in employment, housing and education. It is nothing less than a concerted, orchestrated and relentless effort to dehumanize and disenfranchise the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community.
Jane is the antithesis of Trump. She cares deeply; he cares for nothing but his own fortunes. She is an artist; Trump cannot fathom beauty. She is kind; Trump is a sadist who glories in bringing other people down.
It is one issue that has only one side.