Saturday, November 21, 2009

Rememberance Day

Today is Transgender Remembrance Day. I didn’t have a clue that there even was such a thing until my friend told me about it. She’s transgender and a good friend. She’s so much more though than this title/stigma that people put with that. She’s a real person. She cares about people, she’s a good listener, she loves to create websites.

Yet despite being an amazing person, she was afraid to tell me that she’s transgender. She was afraid of my reaction. And I don’t blame her. I didn’t handle it well at first. I didn’t know what to do or think. I had a zillion questions and I wasn’t sure if she was ok with me asking. I remember having to deal with some of the ugliness inside of me before I could really just be a real friend to her. Why? Because I let a lot of the junk of this world get in the way of realizing that it doesn’t matter, she’s my friend and that’s what’s important.

As we talked about this day, I didn’t quite get it. What were we supposed to be remembering? She informed me that 105 transgender people have died from hate crimes this year. I was blown away.

I refuse to take a stand on whether it’s right or wrong. I don’t think that’s the point. Jesus called me to love people. Behind every controversial issue there are real people. It doesn’t matter if we agree with what they believe or what they are doing. The word calls me to love them.

When we first talked, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to write about this. It’s such a controversial topic and did I really want to have to deal with people possibly disliking my opinion? After writing the other day about hearing something and acting on it, I realized that I had to write something. If for no other reason than to bring attention to what is really happening, if I were stay quiet, how am I doing anything to stop these hate crimes?