Well, well, well. If Maine wasn’t on the map last week, I can dare say after the public call out at the White House- we are now. If you missed the show, what happened was this:

Trump is now the president. Some people are pretty psyched and others are not so much. As an American citizen, I’m supposed to care about these things, so I keep up to date on the happenings. My grandfather’s lesson was always, “Who I vote for is between me and the voting booth,” and I’ve taken that lesson everywhere with me in life. But at this point, this isn’t about who I voted for; it’s about who I am.

The first reason I don’t often talk about politics is that I don’t understand it. I don’t understand the purpose of a ruling class of people who make decisions about how money is going to be used to help a community of people who need support. I have two eyes in my head, I know what the people around me need for support and while I don’t have much money left after I pay Uncle Sam, I often use it to make my community better. I have a socialist heart, I guess, lock me up. But I don’t understand the purpose of politics besides ego, fame, and being “important”. I understand there are a variety of business needs that a system is responsible for, sure, but honestly, I think it’s overcomplicated. Our political system is what creates the laws that creates the red tape that stops me from doing my job how I would see fit, because I am a public educator and a citizen of our country.

The second reason I don’t choose to discuss and argue about politics is because I am so busy working on myself that I don’t have a whole lot of time to focus on the ins and outs of the American Political system. I’m so busy building my community and working with children that the whole circus is just entertainment at that point. And it’s not really good entertainment, considering what I’ve seen in the past 15+ years of adulthood.

So, I’m going to talk about this situation the best way I know how- as a human observing (not judging) other human’s behavior.

In my 15+ years as an educator, I have taught 3 students who identified as transgender (that I know of). I have family that has transitioned. I have friends who’ve transitioned. And I honestly don’t care what gender they’re choosing, I just care that they are happy and well. I care that they have a choice to live according to the free will given to them by God. I care that they have a choice to dress how they feel best, wear their hair how they feel best, wear makeup how they feel best- just like I get to do every single day. Because that is the free will given to us by our Creator: the choice to choose.

The reality is that transgender humans are simply human. And, since I do not identify as a transgender human, you may wonder why it matters. You may wonder why I’m here talkin’ about something I don’t understand (politics) on something I don’t have lived experience (transgender).

Well, it matters to me because my social media feed is ON FIRE about it because our president came out to say there are two sexes: Male/ Female. Which is a binary choice. Binary seems like the easiest form of thinking because it’s black/ white; it’s this/ that; it’s male/ female. It’s EASY. You’re for us or against us, right?

But sex and gender are two different things. They are two different words with different meanings and contexts. They always have been. So a lot of people are using language incorrectly and that’s confusing to people who use the correct language. I’m going to break it down for you here.

Sex: either of the two main categories (male and female) into which humans and most other living things are divided on the basis of their reproductive functions.

Gender: a subclass within a grammatical class (such as noun, pronoun, adjective, or verb) of a language that is partly arbitrary but also partly based on distinguishable characteristics (such as shape, social rank, manner of existence, or sex) and that determines agreement with and selection of other words or grammatical forms.

Simply put- sex is what you’re assigned at birth based on your external organs and gender is where you fall on social norms and expectations based on what society deems you to be based on characteristics. One is scientific (sex) and the other is anthropologic (gender). There’s a long history of gender and humanity, tracing back to life BF (before Facebook) and the fact that we think that we are the best humans who ever lived and know it all just further proves that we are all simply human beings.

And we are human beings who created social media. Social media has given us all a platform to share our personal opinions. What a great thing! We are allowed to have them, even if they are incorrect. I used to think a lot of things that I was incorrect about- that’s why I keep learning so I understand things better. So when I share my beliefs, I hope they are not harmful or misleading.

But, one of the biggest reasons I’m irked over this issue is the sentiment shared on social media from a group of religious people who deem their beliefs superior to others. They deem their status as the only right way to get to heaven. They believe that finding a few verses from the Bible is justification enough for hatred, shaming, and exclusion. They are using the Christian God’s word out of context (literally sharing one verse without the context) and claiming moral superiority. They are using words to make others feel inferior- which is part of the reason I choose to not call myself a Christian. It’s turned into an exclusive club that others get to decide if you’re good enough or not.

See, last time I checked, God wasn’t about that life. Last time I had a conversation with my Creator, They (God does not have a gender or a sex to me because God is NOT human but takes the form of human kind) led me to believe that the whole purpose of this life on earth is to love. And you can’t be love if you’re busy putting people into neat little categories, deciding who deserves it.

I’m going to take the lead here and discuss the fact that yes, in the state of Maine, we have a transgender athlete who won a state title. There are a whole mess of people who don’t think it’s fair, including the high school girls who didn’t place.

I’m a woman, female, she/ her. I have teenage girls. And I would be amiss to say that if a transgender athlete placed above them in athletics I’d probably be a bit upset. I’d probably think it was an “unfair advantage”- but my children are around other children who have unfair advantages all the time. So- I would likely have that conversation with my kids. I would talk to them about the advantages they have and then I would ask them if it was fair that they had what they have that their friends do not.

I would not shame the child in question, though. I would not talk badly about the the child. I would not encourage bullying toward the child. I would encourage my children to show compassion but also to hold the adults accountable in the process.

And I SURE AS SHIT would not start posting Bible verses stating that the child is an abomination. The child was created by God. The child’s brain is still in development. The child is susceptible to drugs, alcohol, suicidal ideations- and watching how adults speak about a child is just too much for me to take. Especially if you claim to be a Christian- when Jesus was always found with the children. Jesus would not stop loving a child because they’re trying to figure out who they are in this world.

Jesus would also not stand at a podium and use shame and coercion to get what he wants. He would not live that way. Because he had a choice as to who he wanted to be as a human, just like you and me. We get to choose who we are, that’s our free will. No one can make anyone do anything they don’t want to do. We may get consequences for our choices but it is us who makes the choice. Trump isn’t Jesus, we all know that to be true.

I watched the most powerful man in our country point a finger at our Governor because of a choice that he’s made and wants to employ and I watched our Governor stand in her own choice. There are people who side with Trump and there are people who side with Mills.

But there are also people who don’t side at all (me) and just observe. I watched a man who has always used bull dozing style tactics to get what he wants and I watched a woman stand in her truth. Whether we agree with them isn’t the point here.

The point is what WE choose to do. How WE choose to live. If we abhor Trump, just don’t live like him. If we abhor Mills, just don’t live like her.

But if we abhor all transgender people, we need to ask ourselves why. We need to evaluate if we are being inhumane in the process. If we take the bait and use it be unkind, unloving, and exclusive humans; well. That’s on us.

Trump owns his choices, Mills owns hers. But who’s owning yours?