No Country for

I have lived in enough countries to know that the experience of actually living there is usually light years away from what appears in the international media. And I certainly hope that this is the case in California because, as an outsider, I am astounded by the constant stream of news about company leaders donating money to take additional rights of humans away.

According to GSN, the chairman of a candy company has donated money to an initiative aiming to block a new law in California named AB 1266, which would guarantee to transgender students access to school facilities that match their gender identity. The initiative, a knee-jerk reaction to the new law, is apparently headed by a strategist who helped to pass Proposition 8 in the same state in 2008, which banned same-sex marriage until the US Supreme Court overturned the ban earlier this year. The logo sported by the current initiative displays a female and a male figure carefully and unrevokably separated by a straight [pun intended] line, all placed in an apple – the subtle Biblical reference of which, unfortunately, fails to escape attention. The main point made on their website, in the “What are the problems with AB 1266?” section, is that transgender people may be heterosexual (or homosexual, depending on your point of reference, if we still insist on dichotomies that simply make no sense once sex and gender roles are separated), and that students will “game the law.”

Yes, at this time and age, with Internet access in virtually every home, café, restaurant, station and your pocket, heterosexual young adults in California will risk bullying and rejection from their peers and families by asserting a non-traditional gender identity solely to gain access to the locker room of the opposite sex.

The problem is that transgender (and lesbian and bisexual and gay) people are like gravity. They won't cease to exist because you don't like them. I'm sure if Newton lived in the Golden State today, his findings would be put to the popular vote. “Hey, people,” he would say, stating the somewhat obvious, “I've discovered that there is gravity which makes things fall towards Earth, and here's nice little equation that quantifies this effect.”

“No, there isn't,” some would immediately say, start an initiative aptly named “Coalition for the Freedom of Flying,” and begin to gather signatures to repeal the law of gravity before it comes into effect on 1 January the next year. The case with LGBT people is that someone has said, “Hey, people, there are actually transgender students out there, who deserve better service and protection.” Is the reaction to this really “No, there aren't”? I dread to even consider which part of the above statement one would disagree with. LGBT people and young adults exist, regardless of whether we finally discover them or do everything in our power to look the other way.

The apple in the logo of the initiative tells, I think, more about it than it was intended to. It evokes the idea that it is a sin to know the world, and so a virtue to close our eyes and minds to anything that challenges our world-view, even if it is a cry for help from another human being.