In the consideration of transgender bathrooms and locker rooms, the following illustration may help some of us to view the situation differently than our president. I had a friend (she has recently passed away) who was plagued in her younger years with bouts of severe mental and emotional disorder.
Once in an illusion that an imaginary lover was calling her to come to him, she joined the traffic on the streets of New York City, believing confidently that she was in a white convertible Jaguar with a wooden steering wheel and dashboard. Seemingly, she manipulated the wheel and "drove" ecstatically in the middle lane. Horns were honking; vehicles were terribly frenzied, but the flight to her lover was not to be halted. Continuing at top speed for 10 blocks, she finally landed face down on the pavement, tackled by policemen who admitted her to an institution. The whole time she had been running on foot.
Now this woman was convinced in that episode that she was in a Jaguar. Wasn't it discrimination to ban her from running the streets alongside the automobiles? Where were her rights? Why not create a middle lane for the safety and respect of all who imagine themselves to be in cars even though they are observably on foot? Of course, it's ludicrous, yet where will the line be drawn? The difference between objective reality and dysfunctional deception can be staggering. Sincerely considering oneself to be of the opposite sex does not alter the God-given unchangeable surety that a baby born with a boy's body is a boy, and a baby born with a girl's body is a girl. Psychological departure from those facts calls for compassion, counseling, and healing, not the restructuring of society to accommodate what will never prove to be true.
Janet Carlton
Emily
