So according to the stats page, everyone who has stumbled across my blog lives in Russia. Ohhhhkay. How odd the world has become since the internet. In the loosest sense of the term, I have an international audience but still no readers.
Anyways, today in my narrow little retail world, a transsexual came in to shop. And y'know, she was very polite...nicely asking for product locations (using both "please" and "thank you"!), asking for product recommendations, wishing all the employees to have a great day when she left...all in all, a model customer.
And yet, the moment she was out of earshot, there were employees huddling together, whispering and giggling.
Is it a shim? A she-he?
Did you see his hand when he reached out to the shelf? His nails were PAINTED!
Gross. Just gross. I'm going to have nightmares.
Unnatural. How wrong can you get?
Now, way back when I was in junior high, there was a rumor flitting around the school that the gym teacher was a lesbian (we were too young to recognize a stereotype when we heard one). More often than not, I would catch a ride home with my best friend and her mom. When she repeated the rumor to her mother, from the woman's reaction, you'd think the gym teacher sacrificed kittens to a pagan god while smearing turkey blood all over her nude body while dancing around a maypole. Big gasps and flailing hands and lots of sputtering about how "outrageous" and "unnatural" that was and on and on and on.
Later that night, curious to see how my own mother would react, I repeated the rumor to her.
The reaction I got was not what I expected.
My mother was outraged, yes. But not at the possibility my gym teacher could be a homosexual. She was more outraged that I participated in spreading a hurtful rumor. My mother actually dragged a chair into the kitchen, made me sit on it, and then lectured me for ten minutes about what other people do with their personal lives is their own business. If the gym teacher were gay, so what? Did she act on it? No. Did she conduct herself inappropriately? No. Did her choice of life partner have any impact on my life and well being whatsoever? No. And so and and so forth.
Looking back, the whole incident seems very after-school-special to me and I'm sure my mother could've made her point a bit more tactfully than just blurting out, "don't be prejudiced". But what's important is that she /did/ make her point. She wanted me to learn that I should judge someone by their actual actions. So the next day when the other girls giggled in the locker room about the gym teacher's very masculine wardrobe (polo and shorts! A gym teacher! Whodathunk!), I just shrugged when my turn to giggle came along.
Was my gym teacher a lesbian? It was fifteen years ago and who cares? She did her job and if at the end of the day she came home to the loving embrace of a female partner, what bearing did that have on my life? She didn't corner us in the showers or try to convert us with the GAY AGENDA. She just lived her life and I've lived mine.
And that's what's bothering me about today. Yes, that customer was born male. Six and a half feet tall, Adam's apple and deep voice. But she was very polite. She actually said, "Excuse me, Miss!" That's very rare. I've gotten all varieties of, "Hey, you!" or "Lady! Lady! Lady!" or the infamous dog whistle for my attention. She wasn't pushy when told that the product she wanted wasn't stocked in our store. She actually thanked me for my time and wished me and everyone else a good day.
And huddling in the aisle to whisper about her jean shorts and deep voice is how we acknowledge her respect?
I realize a lot of us are brought up to equate "different" with "bad". I'm sure it's some left-over evolution thing that prevented our ancestors from being eaten by giant salamanders or something. But calling someone gross and unnatural because he feels more comfortable as a she? Slap the "disgusting" label on a pedophile, not on someone searching for the better can opener.
Just...it shames me.
Like I did all those years ago in the locker room, when my turn came to make a jeering comment, I said nothing. But...seven hours later, I am regretting that. I'm not saying I should've formed a one-person Pride Parade right then and there, but would it have really killed me to at least said something along the lines of, "Knock it off?"
So...
Ma'am. Thank you for your politeness this afternoon. Customers like you are extremely rare. I apologize for our subsequent behavior...both their sniggering and my silence.
Gotta start somewhere, I suppose.
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