LGBTQ Empathy Sink
By: James Finn
Tags: This Happened To Me, Equality, Empathy, Human Rights, LGBTQ

August 14, 2018

May I tell you about this morning?

It’s typical, really. I live a quiet life in the country; writing, walking, running, and gardening. Some would call it ideal in its peacefulness. I wake early every day and step out to the front porch with a steaming mug of coffee in my hand.

He’ll be paying no consequences, though, because — you know — lads will be lads and faggots are just faggots.

I breathe in fresh new air as my dog greets me, pushing his nose into my stomach, begging for an ear rub. His excitement in seeing me anew is touching.

Ear rub, please? Sam is not complicated.

After I take care of Sam, I pull up WhatsApp on my phone and say good morning to Fred Shirley, a young friend of mine who lives in southern England. We chat casually about mundane, daily things.

He sends me a link to a news story —

If you’re not British you probably haven’t been following this case. Ben Stokes is an international sports star, revered for his skills and worshiped by cricket-loving youngsters everywhere.

He’s clean cut, educated, and highly respected. He represents Cricket so well. But what’s the “affray” he was just acquitted of? The BBC doesn’t get into it, though to be fair, they’ve reported details in the past.

Stokes got into a fight outside a club, mocked and insulted some gay men for their dress and mannerisms, then knocked somebody unconscious with his fists.

He’ll be paying no consequences, though, because — you know — lads will be lads and faggots are just faggots. Look for him in an important match any day now, projecting the image of Cricket and of England.

Pileated Woodpecker courtesy of The Audubon Society

I hear a distinctive call and I glance up. There, on the big maple just feet from the porch, I see two pileated woodpeckers.

They’re enormous, primordial beasts, rarely seen, but I’ve worked hard on feeding stations for them, and I spot a pair most days.

I feel peaceful and privileged to indulge in the sight. One of them hangs from a suet feeding cage, pecking away upside down. The other hops to the ground and attacks some feed I’ve positioned around the base of the tree.

Twice, they approach each other and peck at each other’s beaks, in a display that might be about pair bonding. I look it up on Google again, but I can’t find any reference to it. I just enjoy the beauty.

Fred has a sore throat and inflamed tonsils. Nasty bacterial infection. I tell him to drink some tea and eat chocolate as I pull up Twitter to do some story promotion.

I check my feed and click on a link to a news piece.

The Catholic Church is at it again. They’re firing a teacher at one of their schools for the crime of being legally married to another woman.

The Archbishop of Indianapolis has mandated that she either resign or divorce her wife.

My body tenses up as my soul fills with rage and anguish. I want to throw my phone at the wall. I want to scream. I despair to know that one of the most powerful religious and cultural organizations in the world is busy spreading hatred toward harmless people like me.

I despair to have it hit home again that the Catholic Church is pushing baseless ignorance in the furtherance of their campaign of marginalization and Othering of purely innocent people.

My own tomatoes. Pardon the poor photography.

I take a deep breath and step off the porch so I can pad barefoot beside the garage to check my tomatoes. I pick seven of them this morning. I’ve been careful not to water them too much since they started to fruit. They’re exceptionally sweet with powerfully concentrated flavor. I’m going to have one for breakfast with some cottage cheese and maybe a slice of toast.

But first, I have to post some links to my stories on Facebook, so I sit back down and pull out my phone. When I finish, I spend a second checking my feed.

I click on a link to news story.

Yay! I get to read about the how the LDS church is going to push more policies to exclude and ostracize LGBTQ people.

I get to remember all the Mormon people who’ve written to me to tell me how their lives were destroyed as they faced family and community rejection for being LGBTQ. I remember the young man who was fired from his job and couldn’t find another one because all the local employers were faithful Mormons and would only hire Church members.

Sorry, we’re Mormons. No faggots allowed.

I wanna throw my phone again. I honestly feel like throwing up. I think about more coffee, but I don’t have the stomach for it.

I promise my front lawn doesn’t look like this. We have two acres of property. I ain’t keeping it all crabgrass free

Instead, I walk out behind the tomatoes to an untended patch of ground where I’ve spotted something interesting. There, in a patch of bare earth and crab grass. A lily. Bloomed from nowhere. For no reason I know about. I take a deep breath as I bend over the flowers. Deliciously, mildly, exotically fragrant.

I don’t think I’ve ever smelled anything so interesting. I grab a five-gallon bucket, fill it up, and give the lily a drink.

As I pour, my phone buzzes. I glance down. Somebody on Facebook is commenting on a story I published on Medium yesterday. I click the heart button and reply briefly.

Then I click the link to my own story.

I review it quickly, looking for minor typos, just because I’m horrible at proofreading my own work. I usually do better on the second day.

I shudder and tremble as I read, once again confronted with the sheer horror of a situation unfolding in Oklahoma where leaders of a small community have been organizing a campaign of bullying and violence against a 12-year-old transgender girl.

They’re calling her a “maggot,” “a thing,” and an “it.”

They’re citing Bible passages and egging one another on in a closed Facebook group as they plot to have their children “kick his ass,” until she’s too afraid to go back to school.

That was all before breakfast.

I wonder what the day will bring me later. I wonder how I’ll stay positive.

Because all that, my friends, isn’t even the tip of the iceberg. I haven’t even started any actual story research. All that’s just incidental, accidental, random bullshit.

That’s how it can feel to be LGBTQ.

I wonder sometimes how “normal” people start their days.

I wonder what it would feel like not to be a despised pariah.

I can imagine, but I’ll never know.