A Chinese boy sits in a warm classroom in Puerto Rico. He learned Cantonese from his parents, and they don’t speak Spanish at home. His first experience speaking the native tongue is Kindergarten, where he needs to catch up. This boy is now in third grade; he learned to print and write in cursive. His teacher calls upon him to read and he reads as competently as anyone else in his class. This boy is me around 1976.
As our teacher calls upon different students to read, there are two students (a boy and a girl) who consistently struggle; they’re siblings if memory serves. They seem perfectly competent at everything else but struggle to read. Naturally, each student will struggle and excel at different subjects, but this felt different. The way that they read almost seemed as if they transposed letters.
I’m sure that the word ‘stupid’ crossed my mind as did the minds of my classmates and teachers to describe them. It is too easy to judge others by that with which you don’t understand.
We call it dyslexia
It wasn’t until years later after I had moved to Florida that I came upon the term ‘dyslexia’ and then it made sense. I never asked those kids to describe the nature of what they saw, but those were clearly the symptoms. I therefore simply filed it away, thinking that these people were destined to a lifetime of effective illiteracy.
Fast forward a few more years, and I’m a senior in high school. I chat casually with my friend Neil. He is smart, kind, and articulate; I respect him. During that conversation he mentions that he has dyslexia and blows my mind. While he doesn’t go into intricate details, he explains that there are ways to manage it and make adjustments. I mentally thank him for illustrating how misinformed I had been.
As I remember my two classmates in Puerto Rico, I can only hope that they finally put a name to that condition and sought help. This condition not only impeded their ability to learn but subsequently crushed their self-esteem. They are not freaks; I can only mentally apologize. Neil demonstrated just how empowering and healing information can be.
Who knew this could be corrected?
I’ll rewind to seventh grade. I shuffle myself from class to class carrying my books. I always sit in the front of the classroom because I can’t otherwise read the chalkboard. Truthfully, even then I struggled. I discovered this trick where you can pinch one knuckle into a tiny aperture and looking through it was clearer; I used that occasionally. A teacher eventually suggests that I should have my eyes examined.
My family is poor; we’re on the free lunch program. We do not have health (or vision) insurance. The cost of an eye exam and glasses is easily as much as weeks of groceries. Subsequently, I got that eye exam and eventually glasses. In the end, my twelve-year-old mind can’t begin to comprehend just how much I missed in years of untreated myopia.
Until that moment, in my mind, glasses were accessories that people wore like sunglasses or earrings. I never imagined that this could be corrected. I only envisioned a lifetime of sitting at arm’s length from whatever I needed to see.
What else exists?
I only mentioned two conditions above: here’s a third. I suffer from sleep apnea; most people think of it as just snoring. It is a very serious health condition, comparable to diabetes. I require a CPAP machine to sleep and naturally, I need to maintain it appropriately.
Note: A friend pointed out how sleep apnea and diabetes are not comparable. While I meant to illustrate severe health implications of sleep apnea as an untreated condition, I can see how it can be read in a way that I did not intend. Sleep apnea is very easy to manage; there’s no surgery, medication, or social stigma associated with it. None of those are true about diabetes; she was absolutely right to call me on it. Thank you.
Learning how to manage these conditions and make adjustments are not without their own set of burdens, but these burdens are far better than the conditions that they address. We can only imagine what other circumstances exist of which we are not aware. Also keep in mind, it’s not simply discovering that which makes you different, but also the emotional and mental distress simply not knowing what it is.
So, with that let’s also educate everyone in what it is like to be homosexual, non-binary, or transgendered. Let’s remove the stigma, be supportive, and provide resources.
“Whoa, no… that’s different”
Why? It fits all the criteria that we defined above. A group of people live through similar experiences, many which they do not understand. Once they put a name to what it is, they gain resources to lead a more fulfilling life and be their authentic self. So, let’s get them all the support they need; problem solved.
I mean, you don’t have a problem with parents, teachers, and children learning about dyslexia, myopia, and sleep apnea, etc., right? Why should homosexuality, non-binary gender, and transgender be any different?
“You are confusing (…or indoctrinating …or encouraging) them”
Let’s reflect back on the topics we have discussed.
Confusing: They are already living through these experiences; the source of confusion and frustration is not knowing why they’re different. Isn’t knowing ultimately better than not knowing? Much like it was with dyslexia.
Indoctrinating: Naturally, because they collectively indoctrinated people into the army of the dyslexics or the nearsighted. Do you really believe there’s an active recruitment effort here?
Encouraging: We want them to be comfortable in their skin and normalize their experiences. Others have gone through similar experiences and ultimately, we’d like to give them tools to best manage what they’re going through.
“It’s unnatural”
There’s a difference between ‘unnatural’ and ‘unfamiliar to you’. Statistically, 10% of people are left-handed. This may be unfamiliar to you, but it’s far from unnatural. People have a right to be their most authentic self… what is natural to them. It’s not as if they’re stipulating that you should start to write with your left hand. They can do their thing and you can do yours.
We don’t see that well, so the adjustment to that is that we make these clear pieces of plastic to hold immediately before our eyes… but how will they stay in place? We’ll make these other devices that will hold this translucent plastic by hanging from our ears and nose… Or we instead put smaller pieces of plastic directly onto our eyes… Or alternatively we slice through our corneas with a laser.
We have a wound and need to keep it clean and free of any dead tissue. So, we put maggots on it, which are flies in the larval stage.
Are the bacteria in your intestines off? By all means, first let’s extract someone else’s feces and then inject it into your intestines.
I could go on, but really… We passed ‘unnatural’ a long time ago.
“That’s not how you were born; it’s not what God intended”
This counterargument may be legit if it was applied consistently without hypocrisy. Are we really treating all conditions with which you were born as keepers? So, if your child is born with a cleft palate, you wouldn’t try to change it? Therefore, any congenital medical condition we should leave alone… Or maybe you are limiting these to life-threatening conditions, which means that getting Lasik eye-surgery is out.
How do you really know that God didn’t intend for you to live your life only being able to see within ten feet in front of you? Isn’t ‘correcting’ this effectively playing God? In other words, aren’t glasses or contact lenses forbidden in this case?
Who gets to decide which changes are permissible and which aren’t? You? For everyone else?
“You function perfectly fine as X; there’s no need to change it”
First, pick up a pen or pencil with your non-dominant hand. Then imagine that this is how you’ll have to write for the rest of your life.
Assuming that your non-dominant hand is not impaired, there’s no logistical reason why you can’t write with it. Therefore, you should go ahead and make that change. Using one hand instead of the other is a choice, right? We are instructing you to choose differently. Congratulations, you’re now opposite handed.
You’ll be fine; you’ll get used to it… eventually.
Sounds absurd and arbitrary, doesn’t it? Yet, many don’t hesitate to make these stipulations about sexual orientation or gender identity.
Why must I do what is unnatural to me?
Ultimately, the simple answer is you don’t. Specifically, no one has a right to lay out a roadmap of how you need to conduct your life. This life is yours to live. The more nuanced answer is that certain elements of life will accept this (employment, school admissions, etc.); however, other facets of life will impede it (adoption rights for gay couples, health care for trans teens, etc.).
We are crossing the threshold into an age of empathy, compassion, and inclusivity and there’s room for you as your most authentic self in whatever form that happens to be. I welcome you into this new world as an ally and fellow citizen.
I have made mistakes already and, without a doubt, will make more mistakes. Please be patient as I navigate this and understand that I’m still learning, but I aspire to have your best interest at heart. I don’t consider it your job to teach me, but I do consider it my job to learn.