When enforcing gender norms turns violent | PBS NewsHour.

Constance…re-posting this for your consideration.  I also encourage you to peruse the comment section.  This is rarely a good idea to do with online articles…but this time it is illustrative of the very subject of the article.

Be sure you put on your suit of armour though, and spray yourself with hate/ignorance/harassment repellant, as it is there in quantities of mass-pollution.

One of the hugest eye-openers to me was that of how the privilege I had been socialized into by virtue of being born in a biological male body and forced into that role by all powers from my parents to the church…that very privilege blinded me to the ways that I myself oppressed non-privileged human beings, even in my very attempts to help them!

My desires to help people, to show them the wonders of Divine Love, to assist them into higher ways of being…nearly always this was me policing the behaviour of others without actually entering into their world, bearing their burdens and identifying with them in their station…in other words, I was more a Pharisee than I was a Follower…

In prayers for the opening of the eyes of our hearts,

Charissa Grace

PS:  I do think that there is a way for a trans-person to live with grace and mercy, and assist the clumsy, the ignorant, the rude and the invasive…it takes courage first of all, then self-control, benign indifference to wounds that are minor, refusal to take offense over wrongs small or great, and a genuine welcoming heart for those who genuinely want to approach and reach out, but lack even the beginning tools to know how to put this desire into action.

In these last months, I have found that when I notice others who are uncomfortable or bound up around me, but sense that they wish to interact, if I simply tell them that I am newly transitioning, and I share in their awkwardness myself when I look in the mirror, it brings them a relief and freedom, and births genuine dialogue…they will give me permission to educate them, and actually leave glad, empowered to be kind, and an ally.

Hey…this is the very grace that we can, each and every one of us, extend to one another in all things, all ways and all times…it’s simple, really…but not easy.