San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Transgender acceptance comes too late for this mom
Regarding “My son is transgender. Please stop trying to kill him” (Open Forum, SFChronicle.com, March 2): In 1948, when I was 4 years old, doting elders would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I would say “a boy.” By age 5, I’d learned not to say that.
Still, I remained a tomboy, rejecting dolls in favor of outdoor life — riding bikes, skating, climbing trees, running free and getting forced into dresses for school. I hated dresses but endured because that was the way.
As I grew older, I worked hard at being a girl, fitting in as a teen must, and at 19, I married, again trying to fit in. With age a phrase came to mind — gender blurred. I was two people in one body, male-side dominant but female to the world, and it worked.
In 1995, my oldest son told me at his 30th birthday lunch that he was transgendered. Of course, I was fully accepting because I knew firsthand what it felt like. I am so happy that when her time came to address her true gender, society had recognized what goes on in so many of us.
I sometimes wonder what
my life would have been like if such recognition had been around in the late 1940s and early 1950s, but I am content with my dual gender, having made peace long ago. Still, a tomboy, though an older one.
Black cops face bias
Even though everyone applauds the swift action of the Memphis Police Department in the firing and charging of the officers involved in the death of Tyre Nichols, I fear it only demonstrates how deeply racist our nation remains.
Nothing excuses what these Black officers are accused of doing, but let’s examine how they are being dealt with compared with white officers accused of similar crimes.
To begin with, typically, white officers would not be summarily fired, but put on “administrative leave.” And instead of charging the officers with murder within three weeks of the incident, the district attorney would still be investigating, perhaps for several months, and there would be no blanket release of police body camera footage to the media — the department would stonewall the release of the footage, eventually releasing a heavily redacted version for the family to view.
And, remarkably, little has been heard from the police union, which usually vocally defends white officers accused of almost anything.
In the rush to prosecute these officers, it should be noted that the white officers accused in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain in Aurora, Colo., are only now going to trial. And this required an indictment from a state grand jury after the district attorney declined to prosecute.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump says Memphis has provided a “blueprint” for how to proceed in cases of extreme police violence against citizens of color. My concern is that blueprint will be reserved only for black officers.