Different worlds

There are times, reading something or speaking to someone, that it becomes apparent we are all living in different worlds. Oftentimes it’s generational: a comment that seems appropriate to someone 50 years my senior can contain a kind of inherent racism that makes me cringe.

Sometimes it’s cultural: an otherwise secular conversation might be burgeoned by mention of one god or another, a topic I avoid because I know there’s so many out there in people’s lives.

Recently, a famous Olympian-turned-tabloid star announced to the world she is a woman. From where I stand, this seemed like a nonstory, the type of thing the tabloid covers she and her extended family grace would take advantage of for the sake of sales.

But the world seemed to explode with the news. Earlier this week, a preview of the Vanity Fair cover for July came out, along with her new name—a name she’s probably identified with for years. It was photographed by Annie Leibovitz and with an article written by Pulitzer prize-winning writer Buzz Bissinger.

Like the great celebration over Michael Sam, the only openly gay American football player, a transgender athlete is something to celebrate. Sports have long suffered the stigma of being too macho and homophobic for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people to be open.

But we are living in an age when gay marriage trumps abortion rights as a human rights issue. Ireland can be celebrated for being progressive while a man mourns for the loss of his wife, who died from a complicated pregnancy afer doctors refused to abort their unviable child.

If LGBT rights are today’s cause célèbre, it follows we should celebrate when someone famous comes out as transgender.

But for me, transgender rights are an obvious gap in our human rights. Especially in Canada, where gay marriage has been legal for over a decade. I am cisgender—that means my birth gender and identity match—but I have met and learned from many people whose gender identities vary from the norm.

I have heard tragic stories of those who had taken their own life, unable to accept the skin they were born into, lost in a world of gender stereotypes, crushed by the pressure to be the person they knew they weren’t.

I’ve met fiercely proud women who fought harder to be women than any cisgender feminist, but are rejected by traditional feminists as undercover men—as predators.

And today we see quibbles over bathroom labels. Bill C-279, a private member’s bill introduced to add trans rights to the Canadian charter, has been dubbed the ‘bathroom bill’ by Conservatives, they claim its a way to give men access to women’s washrooms. To me, that’s baffling. And knowing what I know, it’s heartbreaking.

But to those who live in a different world, it’s logical. After all, we don’t know what’s happening inside people’s heads. When someone who has never met a trans woman sees one who doesn’t quite ‘pass,’ perhaps all they see is a man in a dress.

mihal@mihalzada.com