Amanda Simpson is a very strong, intelligent, and highly qualified woman who no doubt anticipated a great deal of negative response to her appointment to the U.S. Department of Commerce.
She’s been in the public eye for a while, albeit on a smaller scale, and she’s been out as trans, so she was probably well aware of the intentional slurs and misuse of pronouns that would occur in right-wing articles about her appointment; the condescending and offensive headlines that would be used; and even the late-night jokes that would take place at her expense.
It’s likely that she steeled herself against this kind of garbage a long time ago. Plus she knows her qualifications, and she knows that she was the best person for the job to which she was appointed. She knows there’s not some “trans quota” out there, as some on the right are saying. If only there were! A lot more qualified trans people would be employed right now instead of desperately searching for work, only to be rejected because of their trans status.
Simpson is tough — she wouldn’t have gotten to where she is now if she wasn’t. But what about the rest of us?
As we celebrate this major historic appointment, we have to sort through and be subjected to all the hateful garbage that’s out there as well. Any time a trans person does something — anything — that’s noteworthy or newsworthy, we each have to deal personally with the negativity that’s out there, made even more visible by the Internet, where anyone can say anything and nastiness abounds.
This unrelenting emotional battery is definitely not good for the psyche, and it can affect us more deeply and seriously than we might even realize. The constant digs at who we are and the ongoing reminders that some people still hate us so fiercely can leave us exhausted and discouraged.
It’s times like this that we have to look to our allies and know that they have our backs — or are at least trying. HRC and GLAAD, no matter how you feel about them, are responding to CBS and the David Letterman debacle. Even gay bloggers like Joe.My.God. and Andy Towle – yes, gay men, who some in our community want nothing to do with — are expressing outrage and educating their gay readers about why this is not okay.
It’s times like this that we have to look to each other and find strength in our friendships and our own community, and to stop our internal wars long enough to offer support and stand together.
It’s times like this that we have to look to people like Amanda Simpson and our other pioneers who have charted and are still charting the course for us to succeed and to eventually realize equality.
And it’s times like this that we have to look inward and realize how much each of us has personally done in his or her own life and how strong we really are for doing so.
Sure, we can take it. Each misused pronoun, each hateful headline, each nasty blog comment, each sarcastic “joke” will take a toll. But we look at where we’ve been and how far we’ve come, and we keep moving — forward.
(Photo: Amanda Simpson, press photo)
Laura, of course it would be a better world if everybody was seen just for what they are/can do.
Obama was voted president *today* without referring to his blackness explicitly. But that is after decades of struggle- when people were always calling themselves negroe or black politicians. *After* they have gone through that struggle, Obama can today take what they did for granted. I wish it wasn’t so, but it is.