Week Nine

I realized when I sat down to write this blog that I completely spaced out blogging last week because class had been cancelled, even though Kim was kind enough to send us a reminder email! So, that is frustrating and I will do that blog after I finish this one.

This blog will be fairly short, we spent most of our time talking with our guest speaker, Ed. I walked into class and saw him on screen and saw him smile and laugh with Kim; I thought he would be a great speaker. Sure enough, within minutes of beginning I already felt as though we were friends. I think I could have asked him question after question but I definitely wanted others to get a chance.

I don't really know if I can say that meeting Ed was a totally unique experience. I can definitely say that I have never (knowingly) met a trans-gender man or woman before in my lifetime, Ed is the first. However, he said that his goal of speaking with us was to show us that trans-gender people are just... people. Like I said earlier, that's really what I felt. Ed was awesome and friendly and incredibly courageous for being as open and honest (and genuinely happy) as he is.

Ed definitely gave me, not necessarily a new perspective, but a better perspective, I think, on issues of trans-gender debate. Living in a state with a little population where we don't really have the chance to mingle with diversity at all, I think it limits our ability to form accurate opinions. For example, when I was younger I held the opinion that homosexuality was wrong, no exceptions. Later on a friend "outed" himself to me and my opinion no longer had any value. He was still my friend, his orientation didn't change that to me. The point I'm trying to make here is that until we experience a situation, we don't truly know how we would react to it.

Meeting Ed made me reflect on what we hear in the media. To be honest, we never really hear about people like Ed! Just a person going through life with his or her own problems and dealing with them in the best ways possible. Instead we hear about the extremes and I think it really skews our perspectives toward this diverse culture. So on the one hand we have flesh and blood human beings just like me, but with an experience I anticipate never having. What right do I have to pass judgments on their decisions in their situations? None, really.

Anyway, to wrap this up, I'm very grateful to Ed for taking the time to visit with us and give us some exposure to new experiences and some first-hand knowledge.