Lavern Cox and Elliot Page shed light on the Trans world

Lisa Respers wrote an article for CNN regarding, the recent announcement that was made by "Juno" star Elliot Page. The actor told the world that "they" are transgender. In English class we are taught that "they" is plural for more than one person and that he and she identify male and female. The world is changing as well as terms that most of us have come to know. Elliot Page also identifies as non-binary which was not in the old school dictionaries that older generations grew up with. "Non-binary" describes an individual whose gender identity is neither male nor female.

This too is different from the days when physical anatomy determined if a baby was a boy or girl. Definitions and the way people identify themselves is changing so rapidly that older adults need a crash course to understand. Respers article goes on to say that the use of the pronouns they/them are now referring to an individual as a way of respecting their personal identity. Only recently I watched a television commercial where an actor used the phrase, " those who are assigned female at birth."

Most older adults grew up in a world where your sex was not assigned but was determined by what was between your legs when you were born. In school boys and girls were separated and there were no other alternatives. In my opinion, many of those who are questioning the new terms are not against the LBGTQ community, but feel as if they are learning a new language and that the world is changing too fast. There are those however who are hateful to anyone who does not fit certain labels and that is wrong.

Lisa Respers reveals in her article that actress Lavern Cox experienced a transphobic attack when she was with a friend. During an Instagram live Cox reported that this has happened to her before. She addressed the issue with the following statement: "I've been trans my whole life. I've been harassed and bullied my whole life. None of this is new, but it's still just kind of like, 'Who cares?' and then 'Why do you need to be aggressive?'"

No one should have to accept bigotry and spend their whole life defending who they are. Sadly, at least 37 transgender and gender nonconforming people were killed in 2020, according to a November report released by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation. The dictionary defines gender nonconforming as: denoting or relating to a person whose behavior or appearance does not conform to prevailing cultural and social expectations about what is appropriate to their gender.

I can remember as a child in the 1960s that boys who were quiet were called sissies. Girls who liked to climb trees and be rough were called tomboys. I wonder how many of them were simply different than the norm but did not know how to express it? How many people who I knew grew up confirming to norms that they knew did not fit them? How many hid their true identities out of fear of ridicule and bullying? The trans, gender nonconforming, and nonbinary communities have always been among us and we just did not realize it or looked the other way.

Laverne Cox, Elliot Page, and others are giving them a voice at the expense of their own safety. I think of the words of Rodney King after the Los Angeles riots. "Why can't we all get along.?" No one deserves to be bullied, mistreated, or killed because they are different. This includes race, sexual orientation, gender, and every area where discrimination exists. The Elliot Pages and Lavern Cox's of the world have as much right to be themselves as anyone else.

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