I went to go see the Anne Frank exhibit at the Center for Jewish History last night. I was impacted far more than I expected to be. I know, you read that and perhaps reacted with some modicum of horror. How could I not expect to be shook by an exhibit addressing the story of Anne Frank? Well, mostly because I know the story, well. I read ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ for the first time when I was around her age in the book. The story was deeply impactful for so many reasons. My Jewish identity, my teenage angst, and my trust in the world around me at the time.
All I knew was security. My safe home, my safe school, my safe neighbors. Although I had my share of situations with bullies and unkindness, I generally had a childhood that was filled with peace. And I knew then, just as I know now, that I was lucky in that way. I was lucky, am lucky, because so many people, not just in history, but at the very same time I was coming of age, have been faced with a completely different situation.
Lately, I have had a different feeling. I have felt an overwhelming sense of burden and unease. I have felt sadness and anxiety and fear. So. Much. Fear.
I am scared because I’m Jewish. I’m scared because I’m a woman. I’m scared because I am a human who loves humans of all shapes and sizes and colors and orientations, and I have never been someone different. I’m scared because of the rhetoric and propaganda and outright hatred. I’m scared because it feels like rational people have taken leave of their faculties. I’m scared because there is no one to reassure me that things are going to be okay.
One of the parts of the exhibit that really chilled me to my core was a photo of many, many young women, smiling and holding Nazi flags. The reason I was ill over this image was not the reason you might think. It was because I immediately flashed to an image earlier in the day where several women of all ages (including many girls) stood around President Trump smiling and cheering as he signed an Executive Order banning transgender athletes from women’s sports.
I want to be clear that I find this entire situation revolting for so many reasons. I will even acknowledge, for the sake of reasonableness, that there needs to be thoughtful conversation around this topic. There is, unquestionably, an inequity that can exist if someone is anatomically a particular gender. But why not have that thoughtful conversation? Our world has some of the most brilliant minds in athletics and science and medicine. Why can’t we find a reasonable solution?
But it’s beyond that for me, really. The absolute glee expressed by the hordes of humans surrounding President Trump in that photograph and all of the humans demonstrating support for this EO online seem to revolve around the notion that this is a move to “protect” young women from predators.
Predators? Transgender people are predators?
First of all, the percentage of collegiate and professional athletes who publicly identify as transgender is minimal, otherwise known as statistically insignificant. So, we are celebrating something that has wild implications socially, but very little application in reality.
Second of all, to that point, the messaging is grotesque and fear-and-hate based, rather than soundly based in reality.
A young woman is statistically more likely to be abused by a family member, a friend of the family, a coach, a WHITE stranger, or a member of a religious affiliation than someone who is transgender. The notion that because someone has been born the wrong gender that they are expressing such for the sole purpose of harming others is not just misguided, but inaccurate and disgusting.
Participating in these exercises gives people a serotonin boost because they convince themselves that they are healing society’s ills. With the control exerted over something that they find abhorrent or scary, they believe that they are getting closer to safety.
People are scared, and rightfully so. Goods are expensive, housing is expensive, fuel is expensive. The weather is unpredictable, and our representatives are out to protect themselves and only themselves (and their power). Jobs are scarce or threatened in certain industry and people are feeling squeezed, generally. And now, they’ve been given people to hate. They’ve been given a place to channel their rage and unrest.
It’s the transgender people in our society. It’s the immigrants. It’s the women who are single and have cats (or don’t, but certainly have their own minds and opinions). It’s the Jewish people, but only those who didn’t vote for the current administration. It’s the people who believe that the Palestinians shouldn’t all be treated as terrorists, but rather, the entire situation should be carefully considered given its intense sensitivity and nuance.
It’s everyone that people aren’t and everything they don’t understand and everything and everyone that can be controlled and lied about and squished under a thumb.
That’s the quintessential definition of propaganda.
That’s why hundreds of curly headed blonde girls with blue eyes stood in the streets of Amsterdam and Luxembourg and Germany and France and grinned from ear to ear, celebrating the rise and sustenance of a group of people who were determined to effectuate the genocide of groups of people that they deemed deserving. Jewish people. Gypsies. Homosexuals. And the list goes on.
People think that it’s dramatic and inflammatory to draw these conclusions, to look at things in this way. I would argue that it’s ignorant and dangerous to ignore what’s right in front of our faces.
You don’t have to “believe” in transgenderism (whatever that actually means). You don’t have to support the notion that a human can be born as the wrong gender. The same way that you don’t have to “agree” with homosexuality or abortion or mixed-race marriage. But if you are subscribing to the notion that because you don’t believe in or agree with these humans, they are lower forms of life or criminals or worthy of loathing and ill treatment, and if you celebrate their harm, you are no better than those I saw in those photos at that exhibit.
So perhaps, ask yourself where you want this all to go. Perhaps, ask yourself how far you will travel down this path with these people before you realize that it’s too far and too late and now, you have found yourself on their list. What then?
X
L.
P.S. I am hopeful that good will prevail. Just want to say that, because it’s true.
thepathtoworthy.com 