Sunday Morning: Not a Pretty Day
Through the year, it seems like Sunday morning has been a time for stepping back, ruminating here on the TTF blog. I put WPFW on the radio, fill a cup, check the paper. Usually I talk about how it is outside, and usually it is outrageously nice. It has made me realize what a beautiful place we live in, every week I go out to the sidewalk for the Sunday paper, and I come in and write on the blog, and I have to say, "Today it is ridiculously gorgeous outside."
This morning I won't be saying that.
I've seen uglier mornings. I've looked out and seen the world choking under a thick blanket of ice; there have been humid, hot days when nobody would want to go out, when you open the door and break out in a sweat, immediately. Surprising how few those days are, but there have been some. Today is just a day you're glad to be inside. Even the dog knows better, he's going to sleep a couple more hours before his bladder demands that he get up and ask me to take him for a walk. It's about forty degrees outside, wet, the sky is gray. It's not cold enough for snow, it's warm enough for rain but not a nice rain, a chilly rain.
We've been busy at my house. You might remember when we flooded, a pipe broke upstairs and flooded the whole house. Well, this week they're going to fix the wood floors, sand and varnish the whole top two stories where all the wood warped. What that means is that we have to get everything off the floor. Everything. It means we have to empty the bedrooms and the living room, take all the furniture and all the stuff in those rooms and move it somewhere else. So downstairs is just rooms jam-full of junk, upstairs is nothing but dust bunnies. The beds are still up, and we left a couple of things, dressers, computers, the TV, to move last. We'll live in a hotel for a week, and then move back in and put everything away again. I expect that my wife will have some thoughts about re-arranging the furniture; the moving-back process will not be trivial.
It seems a little quieter in Montgomery County these days. The Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum have lost in the schools, they wanted to promote their bigotry in the classroom and it isn't going to happen. Now they've changed their name and they're trying to get support for a referendum on the gender-identity nondiscrimination issue, and to tell you the truth, I wouldn't presume to guess how that will go. It may be that they can get the newspapers to talk about perverted men in the ladies room, and people will freak out and sign the petition. I have come to the point where nothing surprises me.
Well, some things surprise me. I am pleasantly surprised to see how people here are, as far as quietly getting the picture. Like, there are a few people in the CRC, maybe three of them, who do everything. And there are a few of us, probably a half dozen, who stay on this issue every day. They have another dozen, maybe not that many, who will show up for meetings, carry a sign, bring a petition to church, whatever, and we have a couple dozen people who will go in front of the school board, write a letter to the editor, speak up at a meeting at their school, take pictures at a protest.
When it's like that, you don't know how everybody else feels. The great majority of MoCo folk have not spoken up on this issue, and that's mainly because they don't care, I imagine they figure it'll all work out in the end. That's the way I always felt, you trust in people, you know things can get a little crazy but people will eventually come through for you and do the decent thing.
We have some neighbors who signed the CRC's petition to keep discrimination legal. We aren't friends, let's say, but I never realized how different we were until I saw their name on the petition. Here's the kind of neighbors they are. They have two dogs that used to bark, they would just sit out in the yard and bark because they wanted to go in, and the people ignored them. Once, years ago, the dogs were barking at night, say 10:30, and my kids needed to go to sleep and they couldn't because of the barking dogs, and I went there and asked them if they could bring the dogs in or quiet them up somehow. And here's what they said: "It's legal for the dogs to bark until eleven o'clock."
I have talked about something like this before. I once got a notice from the city because my grass had grown too tall. I forget, we'd been on a trip or something, whatever, it was getting kind of scraggly. Of course I cut it, and it was a little embarrassing to have to be told to. As I was mowing, I was thinking, I don't cut my grass because there's a law that says how tall it can be. I cut my grass because I want my yard to look nice. I don't want to be the family on our block with the raggedy yard. I like to be proud of my house. Yes, one time I needed to be prompted; the point was, that isn't why you're a good citizen, fear of punishment isn't what makes us get along and take on our responsibilities. Punishment enforces a standard, but most of us don't think about it -- like, did you ever not kill somebody because you were afraid of the death penalty?
The same thing, you don't bring in the dog because the law says it can't bark after eleven o'clock, you bring it in because it bothers the neighbors. That seems to me like common sense, common courtesy, as my mom used to say.
But some people don't feel that way. Some people think it is their right to get away with every rude thing they can do, as long as there isn't a law against it. We have seen Congressmen and political insiders admit to doing all kinds of terrible things, and their defense is, I didn't break the law. Whatever, dude, you did the wrong thing, there doesn't need to be a law for every little screwed-up thing you can do. Why would anybody accept the excuse, I didn't break the law? Who cares? You lied to people, you made secret deals that made the world a worse place, who cares if you broke the law or not?
These neighbors signed the CR-Whatever's petition to keep discrimination against transgender people legal. Like it's going to be a big inconvenience to them if somebody doesn't fit neatly into a stereotypical gender role.
The CRC put up this petition with some statement about perverted men going into the ladies room, and these people signed it. I imagine they believed that the law would somehow make it legal for ... y'know, what they say ... for guys to go into the ladies room and expose themselves to the ladies. And since it would be legal, naturally, guys would do that. According to the CRC, all a guy has to do is tell the cops he feels like a woman inside, and he can wave his penis at the ladies in the ladies room all he wants. Like, their new web site has a quote at the top, where a woman is saying, From what I'm reading, the person with gender identity confusion is being protected by what she or he FEELS he or she is. So, if I'm in a bathroom all by myself late at night, and a man walks in, I am supposed to be okay with this?
Apparently my neighbors read something like that, and to them it feels like that could really happen. You can almost picture it, can't you, a pretty young woman, late at night, in a toilet stall somewhere -- it's sort of dark, and quiet, I think there is a blinking sign across the street that says "Bates Motel" with a couple of letters burned out -- and a guy comes in. He's got a five o'clock shadow and a tooth missing, he's drunk, he is chuckling under his breath, like "Haw haw haw." His eyes dart around the ladies room furtively, looking to see who's there. He sees a pair of shapely young ankles under the door, in fashionable shoes. He unzips his pants, pulls his festering penis out, waves it around muttering "Haw haw haw" under his breath, preparing for when the innocent victim steps out of the stall. She is paralyzed with fear... All he has to do is claim to feel like a woman inside, and it's all okay. Sign right here.
The good news is, there aren't very many people who live here who are stupid enough to go along with this sort of thing. The CRC has a bunch of links on their new web site from Family Blah Blah groups, talking about how you can use your church to do political things. I'm sure they are going to churches, telling people that perverted men will started exposing themselves in ladies rooms unless good Christians sign the petition. And, since it will be church and people expect to be told the truth at church and people try to do good things right after a sermon, they will find someone to sign it. Churchgoers will gasp at the prospect of perverted men in the ladies room, and of course they're against that, and they'll sign the nice lady's petition.
Most people won't. Most people are decent and thoughtful, and before they sign something they will want to read a little bit about it. Because it might sound a little weird to them that the county would pass a law that said it was okay for perverted guys to expose their festering penises to pretty and innocent young women in fashionable shoes in the ladies room, and they might want to check into exactly how this terrible mistake was made.
I am so glad I thought of the word "festering." It makes it bettter, don't you think?
The thing is, the nuts are saying that this is what the bill is about, and if you went to look it up on the Internet it is possible that all you'd find is their crazy interpretation. The rightwing sites pick this stuff up and repeat it, and I'll bet Google would take you to a bunch of sites that talk about perverted men in the ladies room, without mentioning that it is not nice to discriminate against someone who is already having a difficult time with their life, because they were dealt a hand that is relatively hard to play. That means somebody has to point out the obvious. Somebody has to remind people what the law is actually about.
Sometimes it's embarrassing to have to talk about the obvious, and to argue with people who just want to change the subject. We look at ourselves sometimes, and wonder how did this happen? We'd like to just listen to some good music, get the floors fixed, take care of things from day to day. But somebody has to do this. Somebody has to make sense when there are people out there signing petitions to stop the sky from falling.
WPFW is playing a beautiful jazz piano piece now, and my cup is nearly empty. A minute ago there was thunder, which is strange for December, and hard rain, but now the rain is back to a drizzle. I think I'll fill up my cup and see what's in the news, while everybody's still sleeping.
This morning I won't be saying that.
I've seen uglier mornings. I've looked out and seen the world choking under a thick blanket of ice; there have been humid, hot days when nobody would want to go out, when you open the door and break out in a sweat, immediately. Surprising how few those days are, but there have been some. Today is just a day you're glad to be inside. Even the dog knows better, he's going to sleep a couple more hours before his bladder demands that he get up and ask me to take him for a walk. It's about forty degrees outside, wet, the sky is gray. It's not cold enough for snow, it's warm enough for rain but not a nice rain, a chilly rain.
We've been busy at my house. You might remember when we flooded, a pipe broke upstairs and flooded the whole house. Well, this week they're going to fix the wood floors, sand and varnish the whole top two stories where all the wood warped. What that means is that we have to get everything off the floor. Everything. It means we have to empty the bedrooms and the living room, take all the furniture and all the stuff in those rooms and move it somewhere else. So downstairs is just rooms jam-full of junk, upstairs is nothing but dust bunnies. The beds are still up, and we left a couple of things, dressers, computers, the TV, to move last. We'll live in a hotel for a week, and then move back in and put everything away again. I expect that my wife will have some thoughts about re-arranging the furniture; the moving-back process will not be trivial.
It seems a little quieter in Montgomery County these days. The Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum have lost in the schools, they wanted to promote their bigotry in the classroom and it isn't going to happen. Now they've changed their name and they're trying to get support for a referendum on the gender-identity nondiscrimination issue, and to tell you the truth, I wouldn't presume to guess how that will go. It may be that they can get the newspapers to talk about perverted men in the ladies room, and people will freak out and sign the petition. I have come to the point where nothing surprises me.
Well, some things surprise me. I am pleasantly surprised to see how people here are, as far as quietly getting the picture. Like, there are a few people in the CRC, maybe three of them, who do everything. And there are a few of us, probably a half dozen, who stay on this issue every day. They have another dozen, maybe not that many, who will show up for meetings, carry a sign, bring a petition to church, whatever, and we have a couple dozen people who will go in front of the school board, write a letter to the editor, speak up at a meeting at their school, take pictures at a protest.
When it's like that, you don't know how everybody else feels. The great majority of MoCo folk have not spoken up on this issue, and that's mainly because they don't care, I imagine they figure it'll all work out in the end. That's the way I always felt, you trust in people, you know things can get a little crazy but people will eventually come through for you and do the decent thing.
We have some neighbors who signed the CRC's petition to keep discrimination legal. We aren't friends, let's say, but I never realized how different we were until I saw their name on the petition. Here's the kind of neighbors they are. They have two dogs that used to bark, they would just sit out in the yard and bark because they wanted to go in, and the people ignored them. Once, years ago, the dogs were barking at night, say 10:30, and my kids needed to go to sleep and they couldn't because of the barking dogs, and I went there and asked them if they could bring the dogs in or quiet them up somehow. And here's what they said: "It's legal for the dogs to bark until eleven o'clock."
I have talked about something like this before. I once got a notice from the city because my grass had grown too tall. I forget, we'd been on a trip or something, whatever, it was getting kind of scraggly. Of course I cut it, and it was a little embarrassing to have to be told to. As I was mowing, I was thinking, I don't cut my grass because there's a law that says how tall it can be. I cut my grass because I want my yard to look nice. I don't want to be the family on our block with the raggedy yard. I like to be proud of my house. Yes, one time I needed to be prompted; the point was, that isn't why you're a good citizen, fear of punishment isn't what makes us get along and take on our responsibilities. Punishment enforces a standard, but most of us don't think about it -- like, did you ever not kill somebody because you were afraid of the death penalty?
The same thing, you don't bring in the dog because the law says it can't bark after eleven o'clock, you bring it in because it bothers the neighbors. That seems to me like common sense, common courtesy, as my mom used to say.
But some people don't feel that way. Some people think it is their right to get away with every rude thing they can do, as long as there isn't a law against it. We have seen Congressmen and political insiders admit to doing all kinds of terrible things, and their defense is, I didn't break the law. Whatever, dude, you did the wrong thing, there doesn't need to be a law for every little screwed-up thing you can do. Why would anybody accept the excuse, I didn't break the law? Who cares? You lied to people, you made secret deals that made the world a worse place, who cares if you broke the law or not?
These neighbors signed the CR-Whatever's petition to keep discrimination against transgender people legal. Like it's going to be a big inconvenience to them if somebody doesn't fit neatly into a stereotypical gender role.
The CRC put up this petition with some statement about perverted men going into the ladies room, and these people signed it. I imagine they believed that the law would somehow make it legal for ... y'know, what they say ... for guys to go into the ladies room and expose themselves to the ladies. And since it would be legal, naturally, guys would do that. According to the CRC, all a guy has to do is tell the cops he feels like a woman inside, and he can wave his penis at the ladies in the ladies room all he wants. Like, their new web site has a quote at the top, where a woman is saying, From what I'm reading, the person with gender identity confusion is being protected by what she or he FEELS he or she is. So, if I'm in a bathroom all by myself late at night, and a man walks in, I am supposed to be okay with this?
Apparently my neighbors read something like that, and to them it feels like that could really happen. You can almost picture it, can't you, a pretty young woman, late at night, in a toilet stall somewhere -- it's sort of dark, and quiet, I think there is a blinking sign across the street that says "Bates Motel" with a couple of letters burned out -- and a guy comes in. He's got a five o'clock shadow and a tooth missing, he's drunk, he is chuckling under his breath, like "Haw haw haw." His eyes dart around the ladies room furtively, looking to see who's there. He sees a pair of shapely young ankles under the door, in fashionable shoes. He unzips his pants, pulls his festering penis out, waves it around muttering "Haw haw haw" under his breath, preparing for when the innocent victim steps out of the stall. She is paralyzed with fear... All he has to do is claim to feel like a woman inside, and it's all okay. Sign right here.
The good news is, there aren't very many people who live here who are stupid enough to go along with this sort of thing. The CRC has a bunch of links on their new web site from Family Blah Blah groups, talking about how you can use your church to do political things. I'm sure they are going to churches, telling people that perverted men will started exposing themselves in ladies rooms unless good Christians sign the petition. And, since it will be church and people expect to be told the truth at church and people try to do good things right after a sermon, they will find someone to sign it. Churchgoers will gasp at the prospect of perverted men in the ladies room, and of course they're against that, and they'll sign the nice lady's petition.
Most people won't. Most people are decent and thoughtful, and before they sign something they will want to read a little bit about it. Because it might sound a little weird to them that the county would pass a law that said it was okay for perverted guys to expose their festering penises to pretty and innocent young women in fashionable shoes in the ladies room, and they might want to check into exactly how this terrible mistake was made.
I am so glad I thought of the word "festering." It makes it bettter, don't you think?
The thing is, the nuts are saying that this is what the bill is about, and if you went to look it up on the Internet it is possible that all you'd find is their crazy interpretation. The rightwing sites pick this stuff up and repeat it, and I'll bet Google would take you to a bunch of sites that talk about perverted men in the ladies room, without mentioning that it is not nice to discriminate against someone who is already having a difficult time with their life, because they were dealt a hand that is relatively hard to play. That means somebody has to point out the obvious. Somebody has to remind people what the law is actually about.
Sometimes it's embarrassing to have to talk about the obvious, and to argue with people who just want to change the subject. We look at ourselves sometimes, and wonder how did this happen? We'd like to just listen to some good music, get the floors fixed, take care of things from day to day. But somebody has to do this. Somebody has to make sense when there are people out there signing petitions to stop the sky from falling.
WPFW is playing a beautiful jazz piano piece now, and my cup is nearly empty. A minute ago there was thunder, which is strange for December, and hard rain, but now the rain is back to a drizzle. I think I'll fill up my cup and see what's in the news, while everybody's still sleeping.
posted by JimK at 10:43 AM
13 Comments:
Nice post, Jim.
As a teacher in MCPS I am glad to see what happens on this blog.
Do you know if there is a petition going around to keep discrimination illegal? I know about 2,000 teachers who teach in MCPS and would be willing to sign it without hesitation... since we have taught young adults who happen to be transgender, gay, lesbian, bisexual and their allies and we see the grave necessity of this law to protect all minorities of Montgomery County.
Have a great Sunday.
Mr. Teacher Man
Teach, most people agree with the Council's vote, and the bill has been signed by the County Executive and will become law. So there isn't really a need for a petition. It's always hard to be for something, even when the majority supports it -- maybe I mean especially when the majority supports it, because everybody just assumes the right thing will be done. Most people can't imagine that there are people like the CRC out there, and don't perceive any emergency. Unfortunately, it is necessary sometimes for good people to take action.
JimK
.... and that is why, I suppose, this is the Vigilance blog.
I live just a couple of miles north of Jim. For those of you not in town, I want to note that as I write, several hours after Jim's post, the sun is coming out and is streaming through my window. Maybe some mornings, it's best to sleep in.
I agree, the majority of MC does support non-discriminatory action.
It's sunny now, but the wind will soon be here. The fireplace is looking good right now and the couch next to it is calling my name.
Have a restful one.
MTM
You bunch of idiots keep talking in propagandese. If you ask anybody if they're against "discrimination", they'll all say yes. Why? Because they assume you mean a type of "discrimination" that is improper.
If you ask them, on the other hand, do you think they should have to hire and rent their property to guys who dress up like girls to express their true feelings or if they should have to let guys who dress like girls use their ladies' room, they'll probably say, no, the government shouldn't be forcing people to deal with these types of guys. Leave individual relations between people to the people. Indeed, this is exactly what Jim seems so scared of- that the voters of MC, 60% of whom say the MC Council is unresponsive to its citizens, will finally decide they need to take back their government from the teachers' unions.
You see, every decision to hire or rent or allow someone to use your property is a type of discrimination. In the strictest sense, discrimination is necessary. If the government is going to proscribe your every criteria for making these judgments, why not just let a government agency do all the hiring and leasing?
What heinous groups like TTF are up to, however, is government endorsement of a new, radical view of gender. They use definition shifting and ambiguity to try to warp our societal standards. TTF appeals to least nuanced segment of our society.
True, I appreciate that you are discussing the actual issue and not the perverted-men-in-ladies-room idiocy that the CRC has tried to make this into. It would be fine to have a dialog about gender identity and how citizens should treat variations in it. Do we owe someone respect, just because they are a member of our society, even when they are different in a way we don't understand? It's a good question. In this case, the voters of MoCo elected officials, knowing how they would feel about a case like this (they filled out our questionnaire, for instance, from our candidate forum), and the officials did what they were expected to do. I happen to agree with their decision, but my main concern is that the discussion is honest and thorough, and focuses on the actual issue. And even though you'd like to make yourself the victim here, the issue is discrimination against transgender people.
Thank you for your comments.
JimK
true that said...
"TTF appeals to least nuanced segment of our society."
Given that much, I take it that your position is the opposite of TTF’s, and that your idea of the “nuanced” position for the ideal would be:
Penis = 100% heterosexual male expression, 100% of the time
Vagina = 100% heterosexual female expression, 100% of the time
Definitions of Nuanced:
1. A subtle or slight degree of difference, as in meaning, feeling, or tone; a gradation.
2. Expression or appreciation of subtle shades of meaning, feeling, or tone
And:
1 : a subtle distinction or variation
2 : a subtle quality
3 : sensibility to, awareness of, or ability to express delicate shadings (as of meaning, feeling, or value)
I can’t think of a better way to describe TTF’s observations.
true that said...
"They use definition shifting and ambiguity to try to warp our societal standards."
You just used “definition shifting” in the effort to accuse TTF of doing so. That’s projection at best and dishonesty at worst. Are these the societal standards of which you speak?
/snort
He sees a pair of shapely young ankles under the door, in fashionable shoes.
Fashionable, you don't say.
Good lord, if he noticed that fact while drunk... she has NOTHING to fear.
He's gay.
"True" That said "What heinous groups like TTF are up to, however, is government endorsement of a new, radical view of gender.".
No, what groups like TTF are up to is to ensure that people who are hurting no one aren't discriminated against. That's the essence of goodness and the government is rightly involved in enforcing that moral standard.
This is not a "radical, new view of gender." Not unless you are using the Bible for comparison, which wouldn't surprise me.
Maybe Orin will join in and enlighten us since he seems to have been reading "The Riddle of Gender."
Andrea- not anon
Grantdale- good one!
True- I think we all know who the bunch of idiots are here- you and your multiple personalities. And your village called- they miss you.
"True, I appreciate that you are discussing the actual issue and not the perverted-men-in-ladies-room idiocy that the CRC has tried to make this into."
It is part of the actual issue. You can't blame opponents of the bill from using its most egregious implications in arguing against it. You do the same in your positions.
If the Council didn't mean the bill to apply to forcing bathroom owners to let men dressing like women use their ladies rooms , they could add language to the bill expressly stating so.
Truthfully, the bill is not a masterpiece of legislation. It lacks the precision and exemptions these type of bills have in other places. That's a reason why statistics from other places don't really apply.
"It would be fine to have a dialog about gender identity and how citizens should treat variations in it."
That's not what this is about. It's about how the government should intervene in relations between individuals.
"Do we owe someone respect, just because they are a member of our society, even when they are different in a way we don't understand?"
Depends how they are different. Furthermore, disagreeing with your view is not necessarily a lack of understanding. It is not established that you are not the one lacking understanding.
"It's a good question. In this case, the voters of MoCo elected officials, knowing how they would feel about a case like this (they filled out our questionnaire, for instance, from our candidate forum), and the officials did what they were expected to do."
People who fill out your questionnaires are not a very good sample. 60% of county residents feel the Council doesn't represent them according to a recent study.
"I happen to agree with their decision, but my main concern is that the discussion is honest and thorough, and focuses on the actual issue."
Rhetoric. Throughout this discussion, you haven't shown any more objectivity than the average CRCer.
"And even though you'd like to make yourself the victim here, the issue is discrimination against transgender people."
Well, yeah, that's the issue. That and the appropriateness of government intervention in people's personal relationships with others.
And, heck, I don't feel like a victim. When did I make myself out to be one?
And, heck, I don't feel like a victim. When did I make myself out to be one?
You think you're are a victim of the MCEA -- you think they control your county government.
December 16, 2007 4:30 PM
You think you the expansion of MC's antidiscrimination law means you are being asked to play along with "gender bender adventures."
December 10, 2007 3:07 PM
You think you live in a society victimized by sex education.
December 08, 2007 8:03 PM
You think your rights have been taken away if a preoperative trans woman uses a ladies room to pee.
November 15, 2007 6:50 PM
What law gives you the right to know anything about the genitals of people in other stalls?
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