Me vs You, Us vs Them

And why I’m better than You

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

My friend David had a term for it: he called it “The increasing Balkanization of society.”

It’s a practice that used to happen on a continental basis, but now it’s happening on national, state, city, and even community levels.

Consider:

The Golden Rule — a version of which is found in every major religion and in many philosophies — says “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.”

But when I look around, it seems to have devolved into

“Do unto others as you would have others do unto you — but only if their skin color, nationally, religion, race, sexual identity, or political views are the same as your own.”

Balkanization, my friends. Or to put it another way, “Divide and conquer.”

Or, if you have a paranoid mindset, “The All-encompassing Plot by the Illuminati to Take over the World.”

Which is just another way to avoid personal responsibility.

Religion. Politics. Nationalism. They’re just different words for the same idea: God or a President or Creeping Materialism are to blame, certainly not me.

Afterwards all, I’m just a white American transgender atheist, so I’m certainly not responsible — nope, because by any of those characteristics I’m obviously better than you.

It’s YOUR fault, not mine.

There’s an old joke that says “Jews don’t recognize Christ as the Messiah, Protestants don’t recognize the Pope as God’s regent on earth, and Southern Baptists don’t recognize one another in Hooters.”

On a more personal level, some gays and lesbians don’t recognize transgender folks like me as legitimate members of the LGBT community. This is not only ironic but also hypocritical when you look at the history of our community. It was transgender Black women who led the Stonewall Riots, not middle-class white men — no matter what Hollywood says.

I am here. I am alive. I am Transgender. And I refuse to be silenced.

Deal with it.