We were discussing gay marriage in class and some girl was like ‘God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve’ and another girl was like ‘God ain’t create that cheap-ass lace front on your head either. That shit is Lucifer-made.’

We were discussing homosexuality because of an allusion to it in the book we were reading, and several boys made comments such as, “That’s disgusting.” We got into the debate and eventually a boy admitted that he was terrified/disgusted when he was once sharing a taxi and the other male passenger made a pass at him. The lightbulb went off. “Oh,” I said. “I get it. See, you are afraid, because for the first time in your life you have found yourself a victim of unwanted sexual advances by someone who has the physical ability to use force against you.” The boy nodded and shuddered visibly.“But,” I continued. “As a woman, you learn to live with that from the time you are fourteen, and it never stops. We live with that fear every day of our lives. Every man walking through the parking garage the same time you are is either just a harmless stranger or a potential rapist. Every time.” The girls in the room nodded, agreeing. The boys seemed genuinely shocked. “So think about that the next time you hit on a girl. Maybe, like you in the taxi, she doesn’t actually want you to.”

Why do some folks feel that transgender people need to disclose their history and their genitalia and non transgender people do not? When you first meet someone and they are clothed, you never know exactly what that person looks like. And when you first meet someone, you never know that person’s full history. Why do only some people have to describe themselves in detail—and others do not? Why are some nondisclosures seen as actions and others utterly invisible? Actions. Gwen Araujo was being herself, openly and honestly. No, she did not wear a sign on her forehead that said “I am transgender, this is what my genitalia look like.” But her killers didn’t wear a sign on their foreheads saying, “We might look like nice high school boys, but really, we are transphobic and are planning to kill you.” That would have been a helpful disclosure.

Good Parenting: Exhibit 1 (overheard at work today)
6-year old: Mommy, why is that man dressed like a lady?
Mother: That is a lady. She was just born with the wrong body.
6-year old: How did that happen?
Mother: Nobody really knows. But she's working to fix it, and that's what's important.
6-year old: Okay! *runs up to obviously self-conscious woman*
6-year old: Hey! Miss!
LADY: ...yes?
6-year old: You look really pretty in your skirt!
LADY: Thank you!
*Kid skips back to her mom, and literally everyone in the vicinity smiles*

you know what would be great

if we didn’t shame women for working in the sex industry

if we didn’t shame women for posing nude

if we didn’t shame women for having sex

if we didn’t shame women for getting plastic surgery

if we didn’t shame women for deciding not to shave

if we didn’t shame women for speaking up about what bothers them

if we didn’t shame women for getting abortions

if we didn’t shame women for

you know

having control over their own lives

Our culture teaches us about shame—it dictates what is acceptable and what is not. We weren’t born craving perfect bodies. We weren’t born afraid to tell our stories. We weren’t born with a fear of getting too old to feel valuable. We weren’t born with a Pottery Barn catalog in one hand and heartbreaking debt in the other. Shame comes from outside of us—from the messages and expectations of our culture. What comes from the inside of us is a very human need to belong, to relate.

While we were walking past Bloor and Grace, where one of the assaults reportedly occurred, two extremely drunk boys, estimated to be in their teens, staggered towards us and slurred their directions. We obliged them, and watched as they stumbled on their way, towards the subway.

In that moment, I realized they were enjoying a freedom I had never had and could never have. Blind drunk and exposed in the middle of the night, they wandered gleefully, happily and safely, conversing with strangers and inviting attention. The very things the written words that week had told me I wasn’t allowed to do.

The idea of it — their liberty vs. my need to be gratefully, soberly escorted by virtue of my sex — enraged me. In fact, we should all be enraged, every moment of every day, in a way that words can never express.