In an earlier blog I recounted having been part of a panel of senior and young members of the GLBT Community on a local weekly streaming internet GLBT talk show comparing the then to the now, and explaining the generational reads on various topics. The hope was that both groups would educate each other and with them the audience. After explaining how it used to be and what it took to get the rights now enjoyed by the elders and which had always been enjoyed by the much younger, as well as the need to be vigilant so as not to have those rights taken away through overt or cleverly covert methods, one of the young people, with the others nodding in agreement, thanked us for the work done by the older generations. When it was then politely suggested by that young person that it was time to pass on the baton, we elders agreed, but also expressed the fear many of us have that there didn’t seem to be many to whom we could pass it. No one wants to see their hard work undone by apathy.
In 2016, having arrived somewhat late to the party, the Massachusetts legislature passed a bill protecting Transgender people from discrimination in public accommodations. Almost immediately and predictably the religious right began the process of getting a question onto the 2018 midterm election ballot to have the people remove these protections through a state wide vote. If the people of the state vote to rescind their rights, it will be the first time in the history of the state that instead of acknowledging the rights of people, the state will have voted to take people’s rights away.
To accomplish this, the religious right is relying on its usual end-of-society-as-we-know-it scare tactic that it had employed in its fear driven campaign against same-sex marriage. They are characterizing the equality of transgender people as a threat to the safety of children even as they admit that they cannot cite any instances of Transgender people being such a threat to children before the 2016 law was enacted nor in the two years it has been in effect. But they insist the threat to children is there.
Their tactic needs to be exposed for what it is and the voters educated about the realities just as was needed regarding same-sex marriages that not only did not bring about societal Armageddon, but is now just a normal and unremarkable part of life in the state.
I had received an email from a state-wide GLBT organization asking for volunteers to help at a table to be set up at a suburban town’s common as part of a local festival to answer questions people had about the Transgender rights ballot question. I saw this as an opportunity to do something helpful and a chance to meet people of like mind from around the state, so on a beautiful sunny day that was more like summer than the fall day it was, I took a long, leisurely, sightseeing drive, making sure I would be there in time for the three hour shift I had signed up for. Instead of a good size group of people, when I arrived I was greeted by the local person who had set up the table and had already been at the table alone for two hours and who, living just a few blocks from the common, asked me to man the table while he went off to take care of some business. So there I sat, a senior cis-gender Gay male with an understanding of the civil and political rights aspect of the ballot question, but only an academic non-experiential understanding of what it was to be Transgender, answering questions authoritatively without authority.
As important as this was for the state and more importantly for Transgender people in the long run, from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., the only people apparently concerned enough to take the time to be there for others were two cisgender Gay males.
The baton I attempted to pass fell on the warm grass.
The skin is then redraped, and the quantity of excess skin to be taken is determined by the operating surgeon’s best tadalafil opinion and experience. In a word, chronic prostatitis can indeed affect the fertility of a few patients, but for the overwhelming majority viagra soft 100mg of patients, it’s null. Low testosterone levels contribute to low sperm viagra generic usa motility, and whether prostatitis will cause male infertility is Erectile Dysfunction. An urologist is a medical spe tadalafil samplest who treats and studies all of the abnormalities related to the urinary system and its components of the human body is known as Urology. For months I had been receiving multiple emails from a state wide equality group asking me to support the Transgender ballot question and for donations to show my support, but nothing was being organized locally. Considering how important the South Coast region of Massachusetts had been to the state when Fall River was a manufacturing power house and New Bedford had also shared that position and is now the largest fishing port in the country, it is odd that this area is treated like the state’s bastard child, but it is.
With less than two months left before the midterm elections the state-wide organization finally and belatedly called a meeting to fire up the locals to get as involved as the rest of the state they had been working with was. The meeting was run by three young women who were cisgender females able to reference Transgender friends, and those attending consisted of two parents of Transgender offspring, but not their offspring, one young Transgender person, and the rest middle aged and senior citizens. There was an obvious lack of youth and members of the Transgender community most affected by the upcoming vote, and the number in attendance was small.
It seemed what was to be done was to be done by the older people, so the baton did not get passed.
In response to this meeting, a local activist organized a phone bank to increase support for voting yes on Question 3. She notified all political and social justice groups, especially the South Coast’s GLBT networking organization, as well as individuals through social media of the time and date, and decided to hold it at a local Gay bar so people could be relaxed with their cell phone in one hand and their drink in the other. All numbers were going to be dialed through a computer connection so no one’s personal phone number would be visible, something that would be important to those who wanted to be supportive while remaining anonymous.
Having done my fair share of phone banking in the past it is not something I really want to do, but since I was at the bar having a beer or to with the after work crowd any way, I let the organizer know I would join in on an as needed basis. She rearranged the tables in such a way as to show she anticipated a goodly number of people, but by the time the activity was to begin, there was only a parent who had a Gay child, a young man, and the organizer. When I sauntered over to join them, the disappointment with the miniscule number of people was obvious. In spite of waiting for more people to show before getting down to business, the number only increased by me. There are some Transgender people in the area whose future will be affected one way or the other by the vote, but none were there to influence that vote, except the young man.
Most ironic is that the youth who had asked us to pass the baton on that live streaming show were Transgender, none had shown up to make phone calls to help get support for a ballot question that would have a profound effect on their lives. They seemed to have left that up to others. They were not there to take up the baton that when passed fell to the bar’s floor.
I fully intend to vote to have the Transgender Community retain its long sought after rights, but my most recent experiences do not leave me with much hope that those who will have much more of their lives to live with the results than I do will not sit this one out and leave their futures in the hands of us old geezers.
If young people are depressed and discouraged with the world others have foisted on them, they need to do what is necessary and possible to recreate that world to their advantage.