The Failure of Diversity

Sometimes it does not get better . . .

Sometimes the only lesson one can glean is that the hope for a better day is in the stubborn march to meet it . . . never sure if we'll find it when, or indeed if, we should arrive.

As the nation begins to seriously invest its time in the much needed national conversation around LGBTQ bullying it's ironic to note that my children respond to the potential of being bullied by holding me rather beyond arm's reach. In so doing they are in effect saying to me:

Dad, we're ashamed of you, we're ashamed you're trans. We're sad to know that you changed what we knew of you and became something that we don't understand and aren't sure we wish to know. Notwithstanding, "he" was angry and distant . . . and sad.

Silence . . . and still more secrets. Secrets upon secrets wriggling like a newborn nest of adders.

Now, because I love my children with all my heart I DO respect both their wishes and their space by allowing myself to be held at beyond arm's length. It's a terribly painful and alienating place to be sure but I'd be heartbroken to find that my children were being tormented on my account; over the fact that their parent is transgender. I do know how cruel children can be but I cannot help but note that such cruelty does not erupt in a vacuum as maggots to flies born of spontaneous generation. I also know how cruel these children become when they carry these unexamined and unchallanged lessons into adulthood.

I respect the past. However, to be honest about it is to know for a certainty that we don't make history . . . we are free only to acknowledge that we are each indelibly made by it.



I am Tomasz The Golem of Lodz












©2010 Renee Thomas all rights reserved