Diversity

Saturday's class started with the "diversity panel." I would venture to say that "angry people panel" may have been a more appropriate name. The panel was composed of a muslim woman, a self-proclaimed "queer man of color" (I think that means bisexual Mexican, but I'm not 100% positive), a black non-denominational preacher, and a gay man.

They began with a round of introductions. Each panel member took a turn introducing themselves, and then telling us about how judged and persecuted they are. The gay man was the last to introduce himself and during his "this is how rough my life is" phase of his introduction he started blabbing on about how he grew up in a community in Oregon where there were a lot of Mormons, so there was just a lot of conformity, and it seemed like everywhere he goes there's always a lot of Mormons, which has made his life really difficult. I could hardly believe my ears when he closed his introduction by reprimanding the class for judging other people, and creating stereotypes, and then boxing everyone we meet into those boxes. I half expected someone in the class to speak up and say something...but no.

So the panel discussion continued, and they all shared stories about the times they told someone off, and made them feel stupid. For example the gay man lectured some guy's girlfriend about ignorance and insensitivity towards others, because he heard the boyfriend telling her that he didn't like the shirt she had him try on because it made him look gay. The whole time the gay man was talking about this I was thinking "well, maybe the shirt did make the boyfriend look gay." It was interesting to listen to these people talk about how their angry confrontations with others were changing the world. I was sorely tempted a few times to raise my hand and say something about how insincere their little rants about acceptance and respect all sounded to me after watching them all just sit there and quietly listen to the gay man bash on my religion in the first 2 minutes of the discussion. I knew I couldn't do it without sounding just as angry as they did though, and I'm positive that would have accomplished nothing, so I kept my mouth shut. The other Mormon told me afterwards that she had the same thoughts, and reached the same conclusion.

After lunch, we heard from the middle-aged lesbian talk to us all about how she's sure that some of us are lesbians, but we just haven't embraced it yet. Then the instructor asked if anyone had any comments about the class thus far today. She specifically called on me to share my thoughts, and she probably regrets that now, because I was very honest. I told her that the anger on the panel bothered me, and kicking it all off with Mormon bashing really just tainted everything they had to say after that...and there was silence. At which point the instructor rapidly turned our attention to the transgender who had just arrived for her/his presentation.

After defining all types of sexual orientation (I had no idea there are 5) the she/he launched into some very graphic descriptions of what's entailed in a "realignment surgery." It wasn't quite as bad as watching it on TV, but still things I could have gone my entire life without hearing. Then the she/he decided to tell her/his life story about being married for 25 years, having 3 daughters, and then divorcing her/his husband, to become lesbian, before deciding that she/he was really a man trapped in a woman's body, and needing to start hormone therapy to begin the FTM (female to male) transformation. The she/he did look very much like a he, apparently the chest surgery had already been performed. The hormone therapy had turned this former woman into a very unattractive looking she/he. It informed us that the all the surgeries required for a complete transformation have not been done just yet. It whined quite a bit about the close-minded insurance companies that refuse to pay for these procedures. I can't say I felt very sympathetic on that front, although really I did feel kind of bad for it. I don't agree with what she has done to her body, but I can recognize that this is a woman that has suffered some form of severe emotional distress in her lifetime, and in that sense she had all my sympathies.

Class wrapped up with a testimonial from a woman who had been raped and assaulted in her own home by a burglar.

I thought today was going to be about child abuse, but I guess that's tomorrow. Tonight's class will focus on immigration, military response to sexual assault and domestic violence, and disabilities. It's going to be a light evening.