I have been following the Bruce Jenner transforming himself to Caitlyn Jenner. I have watched it with great curiosity. Gender related issues have plagued us for as along as I have been born and even before.
I was first exposed to it, during my stint in journalism as a teenager soon after high school. But it was related to issues between men and women. Then during college I realized that there was not to it. Gay and lesbian issues were spoken about at the time. I had a lesbian lecturer who did developmental psychology. I do not remember thinking anything usual about any of it. I guess I had an open mind even at the time. Men being with women or women being with women did not put me off. I simply saw it as a relationship. Perhaps my lack of experience in intimate relationships would have led me to see things in a more neutral way.
Exposure to transgender happened during the time when Dancing with the stars featured Chers daughter who had transformed herself into a man. The entire story was fascinating. Again I was not at all put off by it and I do not remember having strong objections to it. I felt that we need to be able to live the way we wanted without having to give in to the pressures of society. It's a belief I have held very close to my heart from a very early age. So for me gay/lesbian/transgender or whatever, it was someone expressing their right to live the way they want. As long as their way of life did not cause harm to anyone else, why should I judge them? Right?!
I felt the same when Bruce Jenner transformed himself into Caitlyn Jenner.
I have watched the last two episodes of "I am Caitlyn". While I still support anyone's decision to live as they see fit for themselves, I feel that sometimes we get lost in the appearance of things rather than the way things truly are.
It's great that there is much awareness being created about transgender issues and the personal struggles. I think we need to do that. But at the same time I can't help but feel that it was only yesterday that we had the same struggles about gay/lesbians, the gender issues between men and women, the struggles of blacks vs white.
The more I look at these issues, be it women, men, black, white, Asian, gay, lesbian or transgender or any other there are some very common underlying themes that spring up. I think this is where we need to focus rather than trying to divide ourselves up as unique groups having unique needs. I think the more we do this as a society, the more we will isolate one another. The more we will feel we are different to others, when in fact we are not.
At the end of the day, no matter what labels we want to put on ourselves we are all living human beings. All of us have a need to be seen and be heard. We have need to be respected, loved and accepted for who we are. We want to feel that we matter and that our life can make a difference in the world. These needs and emotions are common to us all. In the same way our positive and negative emotions are common to all of us as well. Pain is felt by everyone, even if their skin color is black. Happiness brings joy to all. Anger does not change its hue just because your skin is white or black or brown. Love feels the same whether you are a man, a woman, gay, lesbian or transgender.....
For me it's hard to believe that we humans possessing such a wealth of knowledge and capacities to see beyond billions of light years, cannot see what lies right inside them. We are so capable of building telescopes to see the farthest galaxies but we build walls so that we cannot see the person next to us. We build biases and prejudices so high and thick that we cannot see human emotions in the person right next to us. Must we human reduce humanity to nothingness?
It's a shame that we cannot turn the light and cameras on what unites us rather than what makes us difference. Perhaps that will not sell enough advertisements? I don't know....but it's a tragedy that we cannot focus on what makes us similar to the extent that we can empathize with others, we can see someone else's point of view, forgive and let things be rather than fight over labels that we have put on ourselves.
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