I have had experience in my life with forgiveness and acceptance. I have grown to strongly believe our society is neither forgiving or accepting. However, I have grown to even more strongly believe the people in our society are quite forgiving and very accepting. Individual people, human beings. When people are grouped together in a company, in a government, in an organized religion, in a defined demographic group, group-think takes over. The loudest most forceful personalities tend to force and often lead on issues. This has resulted in unaccepting religious organizations (an oxymoron in my opinion) or preposterous discriminatory laws.
I won’t dive into forgiveness here, but will address the topic of acceptance as it directly relates to the subject of this blog. Over the months of July through September, 2018, I volunteered for The Cleveland Museum of Art’s Kusama (google “Yayoi Kusama”, “Infinity Mirrors”) exhibit, which I had talked about frequently, did so 16 times. Each time I know for a fact, I was in front of 400 people every two hour shift and certainly walked past another 50 before and after throughout the art museum. Doing the math on that, at just this one place, for just this three month span, 7,200 people encountered me. Of this amount, do you know how many created any issue for me? Not one, none, nada, zilch!
I spoke with a significant majority of our patrons, every single one of them treated me with respect. Many engaged me in conversation, many complemented me on my dress (“my dress” still gives me chills, now ten years in). Quite a few came back to tell me about something or to thank me or tell me good bye. I am certain a handful may have had issue with “my kind”, but none expressed that. Sure, I was in an art museum, in a public forum, at an enjoyable exhibit, but think about it. How many times have you (and I am sure you would notice) encountered a woman like myself in such a public forum? Ever? And if so, maybe once? Certainly not very often. I am a human anomaly.
My point, people are accepting. People are forgiving. Seek interactions with people as you get your sea legs when going out. The people that make up this world are wonderful! I am far from naïve, hate and evil will always exist, always has, always will. Pretty sure there was an apple at the Garden of Eden that caused some issues way back when.🍎
People get shot in church, at the mall, at the grocery store, at school, at concerts, you get the point. Yes, trans hate exists, but the general world is much more dangerous than being trans. Live your life. Be smart, etc. (read the post here, my mantra). A fact of life we all have to deal with. But it gets back to my first rule of the road: be smart. That, by the way, applies to anywhere you go, regardless of your attire. Senseless and random acts of evil are just that, senseless and random. They happen, but if you remain smart, you too can enjoy the world that I so deeply enjoy. The world that brings me such joy. The world I too doubted until I put on the way-too-young-for-me dress and walked that mall near Detroit in 2015 (the first known existence of the being you all know now as “Kandi”).
This is the cliché of all clichés, but it is so true, it is your life, you only get one of them. Find the joy in people and you will be paid back well beyond anything you can imagine. I often have to remind myself of this. I am by nature suspicious of everyone and anyone, certainly in this day and age. I give no one my money anymore. But I do give significant time. Because I can give my time directly to another person. I can control that time and make sure it is used to my liking, to making a difference. Eye to eye, person to person, people are indeed very good.
One Response
Kandi,
As members of another online forum ( still banned !! ) I commented on the many similarites and some big differences between the UK and the US , at times the debate became heated but facts are facts . The UK is on the whole safer for the transgender community than the US but that doesn’t mean we suffer from the ” heard instinct ” , as individuals we accept and forgive far more than as a group , I guess it’s a natural way of humans staying safe .
Ok lets consider an example , as an individaul we may think the person we’re talking to is a little weird , if we then chew over that person with another and they comment that they consider that person is weird we are faced with two choices . Do we agree with the other person or disagree ? Chances are we will agree , so if we continue the conversation with others the outcome could possibly be a whole group finds the original person weird , the ongoing scenario could be we isolate that person , now let’s be honest most of us are guilty of this .
I feel there’s a fundamental question with your comment about the reaction of many people seeing you and that is if you’re read how do you wish to be treated ? A CIS woman or a well dressed crossdresser . Sometime ago I had to seriously consider these options and came to the conclusion that if you wish to be considered a CIS woman you don’t necessarily want to be noticed and certainly not look for comments . If you accept yourself as a well dressed crossdresser then you take the comments hopefully all good .
Obviously I’m talking from a personal perspective because I had to seriouly look at myself when I decided to go full time , I can’t overstate the soul searching I went through , it could have gone seriously wrong but thankfully it didn’t .