Thursday was a good day at the museum. I finished my revisions and corrections on my section of the Catalpa log, and enjoyed the walk home as the temperature was in the high 60s, low 70s with a nice breeze off the harbor.

Rather than just going home and enjoying the weather through an open window, I took a ride in my car, taking some pictures along the way of some historical buildings in my area, and stopping at the bar I patronize for a beer with friends.

Since you cannot smoke in a bar in Massachusetts, when I entered the establishment most people were outside smoking, so I took a seat that looked like no one was using it, a seat near a woman who seems to harbor a lot of negative attitudes toward a number of people and ethnicities, and did so apparently just after a news report on the bar television set about the state senate’s passing the rest of the Transgender non-discrimination public accommodations bill that should have been passed along with the rest of the original bill a few years ago.

The moment I sat down, she announced that she thought Transgender equality is a thing to be avoided, and that a man should not be allowed to enter a ladies’ restroom.

She spoke to me, or perhaps at me, as if my agreement was a given.

I disabuse her of that assumption by informing her that the bill was not about allowing men to use ladies’ rooms, but, rather, about allowing women to use them.

From someone from an oppressed minority which has only just been getting its own equality through a process that involved battling misconceptions and misinformation, this annoyed me. I wondered if she, like a non-union member, lifted no finger to affect change, but, besides finding fault if she did not agree with approach of  those doing the work, was only too willing to accept the fruits of their labor.

She countered that she did not support allowing men wearing dresses to be in the restroom with her, and I explained that that was not what the law was about as it was actually about allowing women, regardless what they were wearing to enter just as she did.

When I informed her that she probably has been sharing restooms with Transgender women for years, she, again, went back to the men in dresses thing saying that in her 60 plus years she has never seen a man in a dress in a restroom.

She was a little taken aback when I agreed with her on that, but immediately got testy when I repeated that the bill was not about that, but about allowing women to use the restroom without inspection or legal consequences.

That is the reason that, at the least fifty p.c of patented medicine have their generic equivalents. viagra for sale australia orden 50mg viagra view these guys now Pain that feels like a toothache. Okay, the question’s been posed: What can you do in the meantime without tadalafil no rx any drugs or devices. While not approved to be used by men? Can women take viagra tablet price? The answer is yes they can. She also refused to accept the statistics about the Transgender population holding to the foolishness that there were just too few to even consider.

Apparently she believes that there is a magic number that a population of U.S. citizens must meet before they get their Creator endowed equal rights.

She repeated her assertion that a man, who decides to put on a dress, should not just stroll into a ladies’ restroom, and got even testier when I explained to her that it was not even a question of a man becoming a woman, but a woman, aligning her physical traits with the woman she had always been. It was not a man becoming a woman, but a woman becoming a total one.

She could not define Transgender when I asked her, other than irrelevantly describing Drag Queens and Transvestites, and when informed she was totally off base, announced I just refused to learn before going outside for a cigarette herself.

If a person cannot define that upon which they have an opinion, there is no possibility of a real discussion. Rather, it will just be a question of one person constantly repeating their misconceptions after repeating, “yeah, but” at the beginning of each repetition.

We all know those people who will grasp onto the easiest explanation to the most complicated things while refusing to even consider learning.

Had she not walked outside, my next question to her was going to be that, since she referenced her children and grandchildren, at what point did she as a heterosexual woman decide she would become a Lesbian.

Or had she always been, but needed to come to her own self-realization and self-acceptance.

Assuming nothing will be acceptable to her when it comes to new knowledge, I had previously seen her hold tight to an opinion while staunchly refusing to hear any facts, let me attempt to clarify for those who are willing to learn:

When it comes to Transgender people, a woman does not become a man, nor does a man, a woman. In both cases the person is merely taking those steps that align their physical self to their gender identity.

They are not becoming something else, but, rather, they are becoming who they really have been all along.