Diana’s Little Corner in the Nutmeg State: Dear Amy

Monday, August 25, 2014

Dear Amy

A couple of days ago there was a letter from an aunt about her trans-niece and Amy puts her in her place…

DEAR AMY: I'm a wife and mom of five sons under the age of eight.
My nephew is in his 20s. He has always been easily influenced and has gone through the punk stage, the Goth stage, the androgynous stage, the thinking-he-was-gay stage and now he is going through the cross-dressing stage.

When we get together with my sister and her family for weddings, graduations, funerals, school events, etc., "Steve" is now "Stephanie," with wigs, full (overdone) makeup, six-inch high heel shoes, micro-mini dresses, fur coats in the winter, and crop tops and short shorts in the summer.

He is a man. My boys know he is a man. They never let him forget it.

The last sentence tells it all, the aunt sets the tone for her family, and the kids learned their behavior from her. If the aunt is disrespectful and so will her kids.

Amy replies…

DEAR AUNT: I'm going to suggest a way for you to frame this so you will stop being so angry with someone who no doubt has no desire to hurt you or your kids.
[…]
The lesson for your kids is that they should treat everyone kindly and with respect. At this juncture, it would be easiest for you to explain to the kids, "Stephanie used to call herself 'Steve,' but now she feels like she is a woman, and so we're going to call her Stephanie. She's still the same person on the inside and still loves you like always."
[…]
Please work harder to patiently accept this person as he/she is. Nothing that is happening here is about you.

I believe in family values, it is the way we teach our children, if we respect other people’s differences our children learn respect. If we mock and are disrespectful of other our children will learn our behavior. We don’t know if her niece is going through a “phase” but what we do know is that she is going through process of learning about herself and is discarding those identities that do not fit her. Only time will tell if she is transgender and to what degree that she is trans.

No comments:

Quotes

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

A right delayed is a right denied.Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.

Martin Luther King Jr.

No one is born hating another person… People must learn to hate and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
Nelson Mandela

We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist
James Baldwin

There is a fine line between free speech and hate speech. Free speech encourages debate whereas hate speech incites violence.
Newton Lee

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.
Albert Einstein

"The point is that there are always obstacles, whether they seem insurmountable or merely bothersome. The question is not how difficult the path, but whether in your heart, you wish to undertake the journey."
Zandru's Forge

Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.
Mahatma Gandhi

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

You've Got To Be Carefully Taught
You've got to be taught
To hate
And fear
You've got to be taught
From year
To year
Its got to
Be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to
Be carefully
Taught
You've got to be taught
To be
Afraid
Of people
Who's eyes are oddly made
And people who's skin is a different shade

South Pacific
Songwriters: Oscar Hammerstein II / Richard Rogers

Monday, August 25, 2014

Dear Amy

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