When I was Director of the Wyoming Department
of Family Services, we developed a mantra. “Nothing about them without them.” It
meant that when policymakers develop plans or programs targeting certain
individuals, those people have a right to be at the table.
“Nothing about them without them” is a rule
legislators should adopt before proposing laws detrimental to other people’s
lives. Take State Representative Roy Edwards (R-Gillette) for example.
Edwards wants a law dictating which bathroom
you may use. He’s a big government sort of guy. Edwards is concerned that
without a government big enough to tell you where to relieve yourself, “a man
could enter the women’s bathroom and spy on people.” It’s an unnecessary
cultural war. He hasn’t heard of it being a problem in Wyoming but worries it
might become one for somebody, someday.
The lawmaker told the Gillette Chamber of
Commerce he needed to stop people from “getting their thrills off of being
allowed to go into the opposite sexes’ bathroom.” Campbell County
bathroom-goers may be different, but around these parts, people hardly make eye
contact in public bathrooms.
What else is wrong with that picture? It’s
not just what it says about Rep. Edwards but also what it says about his audience.
Why was he confident he could safely express bigotry in front of the business
community?
Mr. Edwards is trying to fix problems he doesn’t
know exist about the behavior of people he doesn’t believe exist, i.e. transgender
people. He figures transgender people are just like him, except they made a
choice to be transgender in order to spy on one another in bathrooms.
As this bill moves through the legislative
process, perhaps Rep. Edwards will disclose the sources of his expertise on
transgender people. It’s clear he doesn’t know one or that he doesn’t know he
knows one. Instead, he relies on prejudicial, though politically popular,
assumptions to reach the conclusion that we need to be protected from them.
The truth is transgender people need to be protected
from politicians like Roy Edwards.
To paraphrase the Apostle Paul, “Brothers and
sisters, politicians need not be uninformed.” How different Brother Edwards might
think if he took time to know a transgender person. He should make an effort to
meet these children of God and their families. He’d learn something about their
struggles and how what he considers a “choice” was actually made, not by them
but for them, by the one who created us all.
Then he’d learn what the American Psychiatric
Association learned. The medical diagnosis is called “gender dysphoria.” It’s
not a mental illness. It’s a conflict between the gender on one’s birth
certificate and the gender with which they identify.
Unfortunately, Mr. Edward’s prejudices
amplify the personal pain, deep depression, anxiety, and rejection experienced
by transgender people. These wounds are worsened by familial and societal
responses, including hurtful laws supported by people like Edwards. Many
consider, some commit, suicide.
If legislators made an effort to know those
they target before tossing bills into the hopper, they might find themselves
more compassionate. Compassion means having concern for the suffering of
others, not compounding the suffering. Having concern for their suffering
inevitably leads one to believe they have not “made a choice.”
Humans aren’t wired to make choices causing
them to be rejected by family and friends and to be cast adrift in a world
where few people they encounter understand what they are experiencing. You
don’t choose to be someone whose life is the subject of political debates and to
be ridiculed by those who think you’re trying to “get your thrills” when you’re
simply trying to go to the bathroom. Voters may have chosen you to be their
representative but God didn’t choose you to be their judge. Responsible law
makers don’t target people they don’t know, never met, and don’t understand.
Here’s a memo to Representative Edwards and
other legislators: “Nothing about them without them” will make you a better
legislator and a better human being.
