One Crisis at a Time

January was just another year. A year closer to the election. A year farther from the end of graduation and all the promise that entailed. A year closer to midlife.

In February I turned forty. All that I could think about were the wheels of time escaping with my life as I struggled to make sense of where I had come from, what I'd accomplished, and where, if anywhere, I was going.

I was tending the mens' dressing room of an elite wine-country resort, waiting to be paged over the radio, when I glanced surreptitiously at my mobile phone, an unauthorized item on my person, and saw the interfamily exchange: "I hope Kiz is okay." My cat, Kizmet. Scrolling back into mounting fear I discovered an unseen series of anxious appeals: "Kizmet has collapsed." "I'm worried." "Please call."

I drifted past my coworker, dazed as though cranially bludgeoned, verbally stumbled through something about a family emergency to the management and found my way to the employee shuttle stop: a carport canopy lined with retired office chairs. I stood choking on my urgency like a race horse at the bit until at last the shuttle arrived. The driver scowled and announced himself on break as I declared my emergency. He radioed a curt request to headquarters before stranding me on a sea of tarmac with no key to my carriage home.

It was forty minutes before I arrived at my own car in the college parking lot where I was required to park, with still an hour's winding mountain road barricading me from my companion of more than a decade. An eternity removed from the warm body that had daily melted against mine, motoring gently. The tiny toes that clutched my shirt or tapped my face to bring it closer, the plaintive mewling and sandpaper kisses would be swept forever out of reach while I prayed tensely over the steering wheel.

Our community play was set to premiere in March. For three months I finished my full-time shift and drove more than an hour to spend a second shift in rehearsal before traveling the long commute home in the night. For no compensation but the love of the craft, we sacrificed weekends, family gatherings, and even missed income to memorize Shakespearean prose and practice the performing arts. It was my return to the stage after a two-decade hiatus.

Three days before opening weekend, we were cancelled. The diverse cast of college youth and veteran performers were learning about the Corona virus; some for the first time. As we sat in the auditorium where the show would not go on, there were protests of time wasted, and more than a few tears shed. We had passed our days collaborating to create something that brought meaning to our lives and joy to audiences; audiences that would never receive the gift of our efforts. Hesitantly, we exchanged hugs; knowing that the unique family we had formed in the womb of that theater would not again converge.

Covid took our art away, and then our income. By April I was neither elite nor essential. I dusted off the drawing board, rekindled my writing. I bought and washed groceries and wrestled with unemployment. I watched the death toll rise, wondering about the lives lost. Would I have encountered them, had they lived? What were their plans? Might we have exchanged a kind word in the checkout line? Would we have been friends? The face and the fate of the world changed dramatically, too quickly to comprehend.

Amidst this tide of death, our disgrace duplicated. In parallel to one of the greatest global pandemics in a century, we suddenly found ourselves thrust back to the sixties. Voices of the past spoke to present ills and unmet reparations. My part in the march for progress doubled back on itself against the revelation that my mother's work remained undone. Horrors of history revealed themselves broadly unknown and, worse, untaught. George, Ahmaud, Breonna. No mindless microbe had stolen those lives. No lawless miscreant but the law, itself. And we said their names, but it did not bring them back. And they were not alone, and they were not the last. Against the instincts of my nature, I donned my mask, prepared my poster board, claimed my corner and raised my fist. It was only May.

On June first, the disgraced authorities targeted members of media and citizens gathered in lawful protest with tear gas and less-lethal ammunition. The blood of those seeking peace was spilled so that the president could declare himself the arbiter of law-and-order, with bible in hand, before a church.

As tensions escalated into July, the media reported Portland and Seattle were disintegrating into tyranny. Conservative media portrayed a war perpetrated by anarchists and insurgents. Liberal media described federal agents attacking everyone and their mother with weaponry disavowed in international conflict, unidentified agents grabbing protesters from unmarked vans to terrorize citizens into submission. The chaos reigned nightly within the space of a city block as my brother, a Portland native, slept sound and the greater municipal area carried on, unimposed.

It is August now, as I sit gazing from the window of my California home. The green ponderosa pine tower sharply above the dry earth, a trail of quail scuttling nervously over the woodpile as a chopper drones in the distance. A deceptively blue sky belies the fact that we are surrounded by wildfires, waiting to be evacuated. As I pack my bag, I am thinking about something my brother once said to me from the heart of another tempest: "Let's take this one crisis at a time."

Rowling and Cleese and the Curse of Not Knowing

 Disclaimer: The scope of this essay is broad and does not attempt to untangle all claims forwarded by Rowling or Cleese about transgender identity or experience.

Recently, beloved comic John Cleese bravely posed the question that a lot of people are probably wondering but afraid to ask. He admitted that he doesn't understand the controversy surrounding J.K. Rowling's tweets, and he wondered why certain questions or views automatically earn one the label, "transphobic".

John Cleese in drag

While we might wish that people, especially high-profile ones like Rowling and Cleese, would do their own homework, let's grant that people lead busy lives and don't necessarily have time to become quasi-experts on every issue that comes under their radar. And conversation is actually a good place to test and explore ideas. The renowned philosopher Socrates was famous for addressing all of his philosophical inquiries through dialog, and to this day we conduct similar inquests through verbal debate at the highest levels of government. Even a peer-reviewed journal is actually just a part of a larger conversation gradually exchanged between experts.

The importance of conversation is that it offers us a foil, or counterpoint, to our way of thinking so that we can observe gaps in judgement that we may have overlooked, or critical steps in the equation that we lack experience in. Properly realized, a conversation is an excellent way to explore and test the merits of our ideas and benefit from perspectives we are not privy to which may provide an essential piece of the puzzle.

Unfortunately, no matter where you fall on the ideological spectrum, each faction's most enthusiastic members tend to take offense and shame those who come to them from a place of ignorance, seeking to learn. If you are part of the "in" group, you are just expected to know. And anything less is frequently shunted to the "out" group - with no in-between.

So let's try to briefly unpack this as charitably as we can.

A Fine Kettle of Fish

Over the years, J.K. Rowling has expressed a number of statements in support of certain feminists who, broadly speaking, reject the movement within the medical and cultural communities to extend the identity of "woman" or "female" to transgender women (people assigned male at birth but who identify as female, often - but not always - undertaking steps to align their external appearance with their internal orientation). In recent years, views within the medical community have shifted toward affirming transgender individual's internal sense of self rather than attempting to revise it, and as transgender people have continued to gain visibility in the LGBTQ movement, cultural attitudes have started to shift in that direction as well. But some women, like J.K., take umbrage at this development.

Did someone call?

Rowling and others like her feel that women have been historically maligned and ignored, and anyone who has benefited in any degree from the privileged male experience has no right to a stake in that legacy. Similarly, they adhere to the view that to earn the designation of "woman" one must have all the requisite parts, or in other words, the full experience of womanhood. One must have the experience of growing up perceived as female in a male-driven society, surviving the trials and tribulations of female puberty, and basically navigating life with the unique set of challenges that women traditionally face, such as menstruation, pregnancy, and fighting to be taken seriously, among others. These, they contend, are a quintessential part of what it means to be a woman, and thus no one assigned male at birth may claim them.

Of course one reason the litmus test is problematic is that the "full" experience of womanhood is neither uniform nor universal. Some women can't menstruate or get pregnant, some experience painful cramps or births while others have little or no pain, secondary sex characteristics like breast development vary as widely as experiences of discrimination, and even the "full-proof" all-access-pass of having the right sex chromosomes has been known to muddy the waters - which, itself, is only one variable in the as-yet unmentioned labyrinth of intersexed conditions, where biological sex is ambiguous.

Rowling's views on this issue she claims to at least partially have derived from a traumatic experience in which a former husband abused her. Since Rowling's victimization and consequent struggles are inextricably intertwined, to her thinking, with her sex, it seems to have both crystallized her identification with her gender experience as well as made her more defensive of those who have endured the large and small injustices associated with that role. Which, as has been said, she and others like her do not extend to persons who in any degree have lived or been socialized as male.

I think we can understand where Rowling and other trans-exclusionary feminists are coming from. So why the uproar?

A Tarnished Knight

Well for one thing, Rowling's "Harry Potter" is one of the most read series in the world, behind only a pair of religious and philosophical books that have a few centuries' lead. Generations have grown up with her beloved books and have assimilated many of its values, among which principles of empathy, equality, nobility, righteousness, and a commitment to believe in those worthy of trust - no matter appearances - are prominently featured. The vitriol has therefore left some heads spinning as people try to square their image of Rowling as a champion of justice with the bitter and noninclusive stance she has taken on trans issues.

Adding to the confusion, Rowling still claims to be an advocate for transgender individuals, encouraging them to live their lives as they see fit and denouncing intentions to deny trans people their rights. She professes to love them as she mocks them, offers to march with them while marginalizing them. She seems to be saying, in essence, it's okay to be "other" but it doesn't make you like me.

Is she wrong?

Sticky Wicket

John Cleese correctly points out that many women in sports take issue with transgender women being admitted to the sphere of female sports, arguing that they retain a physiological advantage not unlike an athlete who uses performance-enhancing steroids. Although many transwomen undergo hormonal and surgical transition which dramatically feminizes the body - diminishing muscle mass and increasing body fat, for example - a large percentage underwent male puberty prior to transitioning, resulting in certain physiological differences, like stature, which are non-reversible. Cleese asks if female athletes who reject transwomens' right to compete against cisgendered women deserve to be labeled "transphobic". Broadly put, he questions whether any challenge to the idea that transwomen deserve full inclusion in the womens' sphere deserves to be dismissed outright as bigotry.

Alanna Smith, Chelsea Mitchell, and Selina Soule oppose trans integration

Without diving too deeply into that debate, let's concede the point that a challenge is not always tantamount to phobia and bigotry. Female and transfemale athletes have fair reasons for their concerns and the issue is worthy of discussion. We can extend the same charity to Rowling and trans-exclusionary feminists. So then, are opponents to Rowling's view the ones being unkind?

The Breakdown

A major thrust of the contention seems to flow from the fact that Rowling isn't attempting, like Cleese, to engage a discussion. She has confidently asserted a number of claims while professing to be roundly educated on the subject. Evidence suggests that she follows the work of a number of trans-exclusionary feminists, but not that she is well-read on transgender issues, contrary to what she opines. This is the disjunction that has put her at odds not only with members of the Potter cast, but much of her extended audience.

The primary crux of her argument apparently hinges on the contention that sex is an unassailable fact which, she alleges, transgender individuals and their advocates attempt to deny. One reason people are perplexed is that, despite purporting to be educated, she refuses to acknowledge the distinction that medical and scientific communities now make between sex and gender. She seems to willfully overlook a detail which underscores a major component of her argument, inexplicably ignoring the fact that no authority or informed advocate has said that sex is fictitious or malleable. Rather, they define sex as one's physiological state and gender, in simplest terms, as one's mental disposition - in order to explain how it is possible for these seemingly identical things to conflict. Granted, they now support transgender individuals' desire to conform the body to the mind, rather than the reverse, since this has been shown to have better mental-health outcomes. But they recognize that, at least for the present, this is not a magic wand that can fundamentally upend one's physiology.

Of course, this is probably why J.K. and co. do not care about splitting hairs over definitions. The end result is the same: that transwomen are encroaching on women-only territory.

Many women, including feminists, don't take issue with this and, in many cases, even welcome transwomen into the fold. These women are more liberal with who qualifies as a woman, recognizing that the matter is pretty murky even operating within the framework of biological sex. For these people, it comes down to a philosophy of, "no harm, no foul". They do not feel infringed upon or threatened by transgender inclusion, and therefore see attitudes like Rowling's as the greater danger to society since it delegitimizes a highly threatened class of people.

The tragedy here is that a subset of a historically maligned demographic is serving to discredit and inflame abuse against an arguably even more maligned subset. These women want their stories and experience recognized and protected, and in so doing seek to deny recognition and protections for an equally beleaguered minority.

Transgender people are not oblivious to the stigma attached to them or immune to the effects of finding themselves at the bottom of the social hierarchy. They attempt suicide at a significantly higher rate than other minorities and are one of the most vulnerable demographics to sexual assault, all while being many times more likely to be discriminated against in employment and housing, disowned, dehumanized and murdered. When a group is widely viewed as expendable in society, it makes them an ideal target - and this is what well-meaning progressives are pushing back against. They want trans identities to be afforded respect and validation so that the disproportionate percentage of abuses against the roughly 1% percent of the population who identify as trans will be reduced. And they see people like Rowling as ideally situated to champion that cause given her reach and influence - not to mention her overwhelming reputation as an advocate for the underdog.

Transwomen Jenny Boylan, Laverne Cox, & Lynn Conway

Let's admit that the situation is messy. Whether or not you believe transwomen belong in the women's restroom, they belong even less in the men's. Gender segregated bathrooms and organizations are their own can of worms, with plenty of arguments for and against their existence. Where you fall on this argument ultimately comes down to your own calculation of the pluses and minuses for the people involved. If you believe that cis-women hold exclusive rights to the title and should be protected from gender inclusive language - like the pamphlet that triggered Rowling's most recent indignation - or other erosions of women-specific spaces, that doesn't automatically make you a transphobe any more than advocating for trans rights makes you a hipster. In all likelihood you will, like most people, fall somewhere in the middle of the gender-controversy spectrum.

But to find out, we have to be able to talk about it.

Where No One has Gone Before: A Meditation on the Stunted Human Race

 

Mission Integration Engineer Lauren Lyons (right) and NASA crew members commentate

While riots raged in Minnesota and across the nation over the wrongful death of George Floyd and Michigan police fired on civilians in their own homes and arrested members of the media on live tv for reporting from the scene, SpaceX successfully launched a manned commercial expedition into space. The juxtaposition was stark.

30 May 2020: Separation of Space Shuttle | Streets of Minneapolis

I grew up watching Star Trek: The Next Generation; I'm obsessed with tackling novel ideas and unexplored territories. As a child of Star Trek, "race", for me, was an issue I was completely ignorant of until the 7th grade. It was one of the most unsettling moments of my life when revelations of a horrific past drove an invisible wedge between me and my classmates of color. It was an education that I sometimes think I've been worse-off for knowing. To me, constantly being reminded that some people are keeping these toxic divisions alive is like watching someone argue that the Earth is the center of the universe. I just want to say, "We've been through this, guys. The facts are in, and it's not. Let's stop spinning our wheels and get on with the real work."

When I was growing up, I thought that work would be the creation of replicators, teleporters, and the achievement of warp speed. Now I think it's climate change, systemic corruption, consolidation of wealth, class inequality… But never for a second did I dream that we should be here 300 millennia since the birth of the human race, 2+ millennia from Jesus and Buddha, 1.5 centuries on from Lincoln and half a century since MLK… still having this same conversation. That is embarrassing.

Nichelle Nichols as Communications Officer Nyota Uhura (Star Trek, 1966-1991)

"Race" is an outdated idea that has long-since been debunked. It was invented by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in 1779. Your ancestors' proximity to the sun explains how much melanin your body produces; it's nothing but a permanent tan for people who come from generations who needed it. Trace anyone back far enough, and we all had it: all of the earliest human fossils come from the region of the African continent. The farther we exist from the equator and the deeper indoors, the more translucent we become - our cells effectively opening the blinds as they strain for the slightest sip of that sweet vitamin D.

(And if you're coming from a Christian orthodox background in America, well: the scriptures were all discovered in the Middle-East. Which is also the home of Bethlehem. So Jesus had a perma-tan, too.)

There's more genetic disparity between two fruit flies than between two human beings. We have different cultures, inherited traits, unique heritage, upbringing, all that - sure. But we're fundamentally the same thing. And frankly, I wouldn't treat a rat the way some people treat each other.

Guinan, "The Measure of a Man" (13 February 1989) by Melinda M. Snodgrass

"Us" vs "them" mentality is born of struggle and suffering. People don't have enough, they get tribal, they blame and suspect the other guy - finding superficial reasons to "otherize", dehumanize and vilify. It's an act of desperation and of helplessness born from the fury of a faceless enemy: a power structure with no single source, no target point. The feelings are real but the conclusion is wrong.

I have a lot of problems, but at least I don't have to worry about being negatively profiled, over-incarcerated, abused, and murdered by the so-called "justice" system. Or being falsely accused for asking an identically-surnamed parkgoer to observe the leash law. Or being arrested for reporting the news.

Look at how much worse the world would be if not for black pioneers. No blood banks, pacemakers, gas masks, potato chips, automatic cars... no Star Trek-style elevator doors! And who knows where the Space Shuttle program would be. Imagine where we COULD be, were opportunities equal.

People are like cats; they come in all colors. If you are still entertaining racist thoughts - it's 2020. Time to wake the fuck up. The alarm has been ringing for centuries, and we're disgustingly late for the future.

You know, there are some words I've known since I was a schoolboy. "With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." Those words were uttered by Judge Aaron Satie as wisdom and warning. The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged.

- Jean-Luc Picard, "The Drumhead" (29 April 1991) by Jeri Taylor

Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek: the Next Generation (1987-1994)

Engage.