This week reminded how terrifying people can be. It reminded my how close and ugly the monsters are.
An Oklahoma middle school shut down after explicit and violent threats on social media.
But the threats didn’t come from a potential shooter or a terrorist bomber; not some unknown and unhinged lone wolf hiding in the shadows; not a deranged person with untreated psychosis they came from parents of the students—supposed adults.
And their unthinkable venom was directed at a seventh grade transgender girl who attens class with their children.
A seventh grader.
A 12-year old.
A child.
In a Facebook group, using language like “half-baked maggot” and “this thing,” and repeatedly disregarding her preferred pronoun—these middle school moms and dads conspired like some salivating, toothless Old west posse chasing down a serial murderer.
But that viciousness didn’t satisfy their need to be terrible.
They went further into the recesses of their black hearts, one suggesting “a good sharp knife,” and another “beating his ass.”
This is what it looks like when humanity exits the building.
It’s difficult to imagine the kind of internal sickness necessary for adults to spew such filth toward any young person; people having children of their own, knowing how turbulent those years are on their best days, knowing how disorienting every day can when everything breaks right.
I never fear transgender people—because I know them. I’ve listened to them and sat with and lived alongside them, and I love them.
I know they have capacity for compassion that few people possess. They’ve experienced how profoundly horrible human beings can be, and they understand what it feels like to be dehumanized for simply breathing.
As a result, they are some of the kindest, most open-hearted, most empathetic human beings I’ve known; deep feelers, good listeners, gentle healers. They have eyes able to scan the crowd and see the bullied and the frightened and the outsiders—and they instinctively move toward them.
I don’t fear transgender people—I fear violent people.
I fear supposed adults, so driven to irrational fear by intellectual ignorance or religious fervor, that they could be threatened by any 12-year old—enough to threaten them.
I fear people who would work themselves into a violent lather at a young person for using the bathroom; in the middle of days she likely already feels alone and ostracized and vulnerable.
I fear people arrogant enough to believe they have a right to police someone’s body or monitor their bladders, or have any say on the way they live and move and dress and define themselves.
I fear middle-aged human beings who have the time and the inclination and the immeasurable gall to manufacture such enmity toward any human being, let alone a child, and a child so already marginalized by the world they are trying to navigate.
These people are a threat to the larger community.
They are the danger I spend my days hoping my children never experience.
They are the clear and present menace that schools should work to shield young people from.
They are the monsters no seventh grader should ever have to endure.
I wish I could sit across from this young woman right now.
I’d tell her that she is amazing and beautiful and original.
I’d tell her that she can be and do anything she dreams of.
I’d tell her that I’m sorry for the cruelty she experiences for simply being.
I’d tell her not to listen to the ignorant monsters or believe the lies they say about her.
I’d tell her not to waste her fears or her tears on small people who will never know how strong and courageous and decent she is.
I’d tell her that I am in her corner and cheering her on.
I’d tell her that I celebrate her life.
I’d tell her that this world is better because she is in it.
I hope she knows that.
