A person may not have cured all the ills and may not have eliminated the threat completely but they had lessened them so it is safer for the next generation, and when that generation begins to be themselves it should build on what had been gained before. However, rather than build on what was done, they view it as not being enough judging past progress by modern standards forgetting the modern standards came about because of that past progress.
You do not destroy the rungs of a ladder because, once passed, they are no longer needed, or the ladder loses its stability and a dropped tool, a need to go back and restore a loss, might get retrieved but you cannot reach the first available whole rung to get back up to where you can continue from where you were.
The present is not like the past mainly because people back then saw what was wrong and did what they could to make the necessary changes for the greater good within the constraints against which they fought. For some it was like planting trees. They knew when the time came people would benefit from the planting even if they themselves were long gone and would never benefit from their own work.
In Boy Scouts we were told to leave the campsite better than you found it.
Back in the mid-nineties, Gay rights were uneven. Some places like Boston and Los Angeles might have been on the brink of total equality or shoring up what of it had been established so far.
In the “heartland, the fly-over states, not so much and it was oppression that was present in various degrees
I was teaching Special Education and since one of my classes was science, on the appointed days, my sixth graders would join the other sixth graders to attend the mandatory D.A.R.E. class where I learned the names and effects of drugs I did not know about and my students learned which ones were the safest when the neighborhood dealer would [pretend that a lack of Pot limited his wares and offered alternatives on which they would become addicted to and effectively weaned off a drug that was actually a natural plant and should not be treated like what is made in labs.
There were two officers from OKCPD who ran the class. One was short and besides liking the job enjoyed hanging out with the teachers if he ran into them and had a good attitude toward the Gay Community as he admitted his night time after bar closing shift at Denny’s, the Gays were better behaved and were more fun, and never broke into fights inside or in the parking lot.
The other officer was friendly in his own way, was a decorated officer who because of past training and military experience was often training his fellow officers, locally and elsewhere, in various policing techniques and was known as a good cop in the way we would want good cops to be.
While the former was single and prone to rely heavily on his “little man syndrome” to charm the ladies, the other was married with kids so his scheduled shifts were not like the other officer’s and was a more predictable schedule and patrol area making his personality important to his policing.
I moved on to the high school and at a Community meeting during the time I was advocating for Gay student inclusion in school district policy, a woman approached me, told me she had been following my story in the media, and she was happy we had worked together. It was obvious to her that I had no idea who she was so, she made the introduction and introduced me to herself.
During those D.A.R.E. years, this officer, while continuing his duties had come to the deep realization that he was not being his true self and much of what he had engaged in, the military, the martial arts, athletics, had all been his unconscious way of trying to be what was expected of her by the world and by osmosis himself, until it got to the point she had to accept herself for who she was, and be her.
This meant exposing herself and her intentions to her boss and fellow police officers and a very macho police department in a city in a state that prides itself on God, Country, and manliness for men.
She had gone through the whole transitioning process, which she had actually begun when I had known her, during which she had to deal with the reactions of the other officers who were often slow or late to answer a call for backup, if at all which would have been instant in the days prior.
She had to endure being judged as unstable by the uninformed police department leadership, getting assigned to a much safer desk job in an office away from the public and other officers, an action she fought and won in court all while her story, with which I made no connection, was in the media as a policeman had become a police woman in Oklahoma, and she carried a gun.
She was the involuntary face of the Transgender Community in the reddest state in the union whose major power was the Southern Baptist Convention and all its evangelical off-shoots, any politicians who cozied up enough to be seen as an ally, and a newspaper that had become known as the most conservative newspaper in the country whose readership was fed a point of view on current events dependent on how treatment influenced income.
She may have been the local version of what Christine Jorgensen had been in the 50’s and Rene Richards later, but she was a cop, one of the manliest of professions and had become, well, not a man.
Once, when I was doing one of my downtown one man sit outs supporting Drag Queens and Trans people, an older gentleman came up to me explaining he used to go fishing, watch sports, go to car shows and stuff like that with his nephew who is now his niece. He didn’t understand it all yet, but they still did the same stuff together, so he figured for now he only really had to deal with getting used to how the kid dressed now.
The police in Oklahoma City were not even that far and clung to and acted on attitudes that other places had or were way ahead in the process of growing out of.
There were the supportive kids and a wife, who had their own lives and should not have to uproot themselves to get away from all this making her burden even greater by adding that while her life might be better she may have destroyed those of her family.
She proudly and publicly marched in Gay Pride eParades, attended community events, spoke in churches, having herself fought to maintain her standing in her church which needed to learn a lot.
She could not run away, not just for her, but for her family, and those unseen many who were watching and did not need to see another one like themselves driven off perpetuating the myth that there was something wrong with being your true self.
Her private life and her public life had blurry borders in the media, pulpits, gossip, and police officers’ locker rooms.
She persevered, won back here “fellow” officers, and by example took some of the scary out of Tranbsgender as people who knew her then saw she was actually the same person now.
Her experience led her to help others and eventually she moved away from the police force over to Social Work and Counseling, and training others in these fields especially in regard to gender variance at the college level.
She never hid. She wrote books, became a regional poet who addressed her situation at times to help others, was a presence in Pride Parades and events.
She was a Transgender Cop who had blazed a trail for those to follow.
She is history.
It is part of the history of the last thirty years.
However, and, yes, there is one for obvious reasons, the police do not have a good reputation at the moment, excepting the Capitol Police in D.C. There has been all the business with Black Lives Matter, some cops confusing duty with politics, shootings of unarmed Black men and women under not so questionable but too often clear circumstances.
My friend had joined the military in the days of Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell. Guys of that era did that.
As a teacher who hates the idea that I teach a student to be able to have a great life and build a rapport in the process good enough to really get bothered when they go off and get killed in an old man’s war, old men who lived the years these kids won’t. As a Gay Activist I had to remember that to join the military is a right and some want to do it, and, so, it was a goal to open the military to any patriotic American who wanted to enlist.
My classmates went off to Vietnam, and not necessarily as volunteers. We had the draft. I make no distinction between those who enlisted and those drafted when I deal with veterans either on the same faculty or as members of any group to which I belong. They served and regardless of my feelings toward war, they are to me who they are when I meet them.
People were angry at the police during the heady days of BLM, and every police officer was the same. Killers of innocent people.
Over 50 years ago the police played their role at the Stonewall rebellion, as they had in previous raids in New York City and elsewhere and it was not a good one and after that there were still overly policed Gay events as progress was made and the old guard with their prejudices gave way to a more enlightened force, not perfect, but not as bad as it was.
Harassment in the bars ended in the late 70’s early 80s’ when an activist challenged the charge of lewdness that resulted from his putting his hand on another Gay man’s shoulder while sitting at the bar and going no further
After serial harassment at a newly built club in the Gayborhood, a lawsuit victory required hat the police department train the staff on dealing with Gay people and ridding themselves of misconceptions and prejudice that affect their interaction with this Community. This ended the harassment that would take place in the parking lots of the bars at closing when charges of public drunkenness would guarantee arrest and fine income.
A few final raids when a city councilor running for reelection while dating a high level police officer were so blatantly political, they were the last of the raids that all took the same form, emptying the bar to inconvenience everyone before letting patrons back in and a fine for the owners, and all that ended.
That was over 25 years ago. A person would have to be over 46 years old to have been in a bar legally to have experienced a Gay bar raid in that city.
Sgt Seymour Pine, who, because of his role as Deputy Inspector in the Morals Division of the NYPD was charged with leading the police the night of Stonewall, apologized at a public forum for his role in the raid and the prejudice upon which it had all been based. He, like his officers, was a victim of the prejudice of the times to which they were enslaved.
(FRor those interested, had this raid gone routinely, there was another scheduled for the following Friday, and would result in the closing of the Stonewall Inn. It would have become th Gay George Bailey. There would have been no follow up action as there would have been no action to be followed).
Now there is erasure.
There is anger now among the young, and rightfully so because of certain bad actors in law enforcement in recent years that they have seen. It is understandable.
However, many who resent being painted with broad brushes especially when it comes to identity should apply the same requirement that people see them as individuals and not part of a monolith to themselves.
Because of Stonewall, 50 years ago with progress as a result; bar raids that no longer happen; Police brutality at “Queer” gatherings when there really haven’t been any; and because of the bigoted actions of some bad actors, young people do not want the police anywhere near their events as if there are no “Queer” police officers, that the old days are not theirs but those of history, and a police connection makes a person part of the problem as my friend now seems to be as traditional invites for this Trans Person who had taken on a city and a state by extension, changing the minds of people, and not being the thing people feared because they had been misinformed but was, rather, an example of truth, is no longer welcomed as she had once been a police officer and now with some anti-military spirit seeping in, also because she had been in the military.
How any of that played into her journey and had the possibility of helping those with a similar trouble is disregarded and kept away from the even younger by those who, it seems, base everything on the now and are willing to give up a better future.
While complaining about rejection, they reject those who made the world this safe this far, way beyond what it had been in the past assuming the work would continue according to the times.
I just do not understand how one piece of a jigsaw puzzle is enough to judge the whole puzzle by.
And to reject what a person could offer because it is not a clean fit into a perfectly comfortable history is to deny the information needed for the future.
This is an example of a real historical figure and of the erasing of history.
Why do they do this?
.
.
.
.
