Archive for the ‘Public figures’ Category
Bruce Jenner, Gender Identity, and You
Last night, Bruce Jenner sat down with Diane Sawyer and discussed his lifelong struggles with gender identity and self-acceptance. He said this will be the last time he speaks as Bruce (with the subtext that this also will possibly be the last time he accepts the male pronoun), and said that inside, he’s always felt like “She” (that’s the only name he has for his female self).
Or in other words, Bruce Jenner is a transgendered individual. Inside, where it matters, Jenner is female. And apparently has known it for a long time, despite being married three times and siring six children.
What Jenner discussed most was his difficulty in accepting himself. Early on, he knew he wasn’t the same as other boys. Instead, he identified more with the girls. But he pushed that aside, became a well-known athlete, and did his best to celebrate his masculinity instead.
Because that’s who he was on the outside.
But who he was on the inside was far different. And he had to really struggle to figure himself out.
Being who you are is a powerful thing, you see. But first, you have to accept yourself for who you are before you can embrace it. Being in the public eye, as Bruce Jenner has been for decades, is likely to make that struggle for self-acceptance much more difficult. And so he intimated to Diane Sawyer.
All of this is relevant, topical, and may actually help to bring about a dialogue about sexual identity, gender issues, and how people come in all gender varieties as well as various shapes, sizes, colors and creeds.
However, what I’m already seeing online is a bit worrisome. It seems that some commentators are focused on the more salacious aspects of Bruce Jenner’s lifelong struggle — his three marriages and his six children. They again are only seeing the outward aspect of Jenner, or what he’s shown to date as his outward aspect, anyway…and are discounting the person who talked to Diane Sawyer entirely.
And that completely misses the point.
Whatever name Bruce Jenner decides to use from here on out, whatever gender he identifies with, the person inside — the soul, if you will — is exactly the same.
That’s what Jenner was trying to tell Diane Sawyer.
Now, how can you learn from Bruce Jenner’s struggles?
Somehow, some way, you need to learn to accept yourself. Warts and all, you are a unique individual, and you bring something to the table that no one else has. Your experiences matter, you matter, and you need to remember that.
We all have our differences inside, you see. We all struggle to become our authentic selves, though most don’t have to do it in the public eye like Jenner.
So if you feel like no one understands you, and no one ever will, you are not alone. Because most of us — if not every single last one of us — has thought that at least once in our lives.
Remember, the most important thing is that you understand yourself.
“But Barb,” you protest. “People aren’t even giving me a chance! They think I am something I’m not, because I look different than I am…remember Leelah Alcorn?”
Yes, I remember Leelah.
My point is that you have to accept yourself, whoever and whatever you are, and be confident in that self. It takes time to do this. (It took me until I was well into my thirties to accept all aspects of myself, for example.) But you should do your best to persevere, because if you give yourself time, you will find at least a few people who like and understand you for who you are.
Because you also will like and understand them for who they are.
Remember, we’ve all faced many of the same struggles in trying to form some idea of who we are. Though having a gender identity that does not match your outward physical self certainly complicates things, it isn’t the only reason that you can be confused.
(If it were, psychiatrists would have far less work to do. But I digress.)
So if you have someone in your life who has something different about him or her — whether it’s religion, politics, race, creed, gender identity or anything else — what I want you to do is simple:
Embrace that person’s diversity.
Don’t shun it.
Anything less is, quite frankly, uncivilized.
Easter Meditations on Christian Laettner
Happy Easter, one and all!
A few years back, I wrote a blog called “Meditations on Easter.” In that blog I discussed the nature of forgiveness, redemption, and hope through the story of Jesus Christ. It is still my own, personal gold standard as to why people of all faiths should try to recognize why Easter remains such an important holy day, 2000 and some odd years later.
And this got me thinking.
Recently, I watched an ESPN 30 for 30 documentary called I Hate Christian Laettner. It’s about former college and pro basketball star Christian Laettner, who sank a game-winning shot in 1992 for his Duke Blue Devils in the NCAA championship game…but because he’d also stepped on an opposing player’s hand (Aminu Timberlake) earlier in that tournament and was unrepentant about it, his game-winning shot was highly controversial.
People still remember the shot, years later. But it’s not because Laettner was brilliant. It’s because many people, myself included, felt Laettner should’ve been suspended for stepping on Timberlake’s hand. And when he wasn’t, most fans were indignant — even furious — as it seemed like Laettner was getting special treatment due to his star status as one of college basketball’s best players.
And that has fueled a whole lot of hatred toward a guy who, at the time, was only 22 years old.
Yes, he was an arrogant cuss. Yes, he was a difficult and prickly personality.
But maybe he had a reason for being that way. He was a tall guy who was often mischaracterized in the press as something he wasn’t. He was called wealthy and overprivileged, simply because of the fact he was white and going to Duke. And it wasn’t true — his parents worked hard and were members of the middle class, something I never heard one word about until I watched the 30 for 30 documentary about Laettner.
This particular documentary really made me challenge my assumptions.
Simply put: We humans still have a lot of growing up to do in some ways, don’t we? We judge people based off the appearance, the outward aspect, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg.
In this case, much of the outward aspect of Laettner was flat wrong. He was a middle class guy who would never in a million years have been able to afford a high quality education at Duke unless he had a compelling gift for playing basketball. He needed that scholarship so he could go, grow, learn, and improve himself, both as a player and as a human being.
Now, did he do some stuff that was juvenile? Sure.
But at 22, I have to admit that I did all sorts of things that were juvenile, too. I was just fortunate enough not to be in the public eye, so my immature behavior was not trumpeted from the bully pulpit as Laettner’s lapses were.
After watching that 30 for 30 documentary, I was left shaking my head at how even someone like me — someone who’s very well aware of how the narrative can be framed as a writer and editor — can’t realize that Laettner’s story was far more complex than had been reported in the media.
Personally, I think Laettner showed a lot of class dealing with some of the stuff that was yelled at him during the NCAA Tourney back in 1991 and 1992. (“Ho-mo-sexual” and the like was yelled at him, and yes, that was considered a slur. How far we’ve come…that behavior today would not be tolerated. But I digress.) And I think, upon reflection, that he did try to rise above a lot of the nonsense directed his way.
But the most important thing I learned from the documentary is this: You have to know yourself. And you have to learn to forgive yourself.
Laettner knows he’s a much different person on the inside than was reported. He doesn’t give any weight, he said in the documentary, to people who don’t know him, because that wastes his time. (This is my best paraphrase, mind, as I watched this movie at least a week and a half ago and I don’t have a transcript in front of me.) The people who matter to him are those who do know him. His wife. His family. His coaches. His friends.
Everything else — everyone else — can go hang. Because they are irrelevant.
As Laettner knows, appearance is not the reality. And we human beings have to learn this, whether we’re sports fans or not.
And as it’s Easter Sunday, that got me thinking. If we’re supposed to forgive people who did us wrong, as the example of Jesus surely shows us we should do, why is it that many sports fans still cannot forgive Laettner?
Maybe it’s a flaw in ourselves that keeps us on the hate-train. And maybe it’s something we should try to rectify, before it’s too late.
Support LGBT Rights: Why the Fight over Indiana’s RFRA Is Important to non-Indianans
Since Indiana Governor Mike Pence (R) signed into law the Indiana Religious Freedom and Restoration Act (RFRA for short), there has been a firestorm of controversy. Those on the right don’t seem to understand why people are so upset, while those on the left can’t understand why those on the right are so clueless (yes, I’m being polite in my characterization).
So I thought I’d try to break it down for you all as to why I, personally, believe the fight over Indiana’s RFRA bill is so very, very important for everyone.
It’s simple, folks: LGBT rights matter. And the RFRA that the Indiana Legislature passed not only grants individuals and businesses the right to deny anyone anything under the law unless there is a specific reason in the governmental interest as to why the individuals or businesses shouldn’t do it. But gender discrimination apparently isn’t in the “governmental interest.”
What does that mean, exactly? In not-so-veiled language, it means the RFRA as passed by the state of Indiana didn’t give any protection whatsoever to same-sex couples or transgendered individuals. So if you happen to be gay, and you walk into a pizza parlor with your boyfriend in Indiana, you could be denied service with no repercussions (other than most of the rest of the neighborhood shunning you for your utter stupidity, of course).
The reason that business leaders in Indiana, including the Chamber of Commerce and the NCAA (headquartered in Indianapolis), were against the RFRA is because it will keep business away from Indiana. Most people believe that LGBT people are people like anyone else and should be allowed to love whomever they please without anyone giving them problems over it. And the businesses are aware of this.
Or to put it in even plainer terms than this: Refusing to serve anyone anything for any reason in Indiana (or anywhere else) is bad for business. Period.
It’s a sad day when it takes businesses and corporate leaders to tell politicians that something is a bad move for their state. But in this case, their ruthless pragmatism happens to match the growing sentiment that LGBT rights are of profound importance. Most people have at least one LGBT relative or friend. Some, like me, have more than one (I have several, including a transgendered cousin; in addition, my late brother-in-law was gay). And none of them — not one — should be denied service simply because of who they love.
Much less exalting such discrimination under the guise of “religious freedom.”
But I’d rather go back to ruthless pragmatism, here. I want you to consider this from a business perspective. If you are allowed, as a businessperson, to discriminate on the basis of gender, does that mean if I go into a business with my sister, you’re going to deny me service? Or if I go into a restaurant with a friend who’s a retired nun, you’re going to deny me service?
How can you tell what my gender is just because I walk into a restaurant with another woman?
By the way, if my brother goes into a restaurant with a friend who happens to be a Catholic priest (but isn’t wearing his clerical collar), are you’re going to deny him service, too?
Let’s get real. There’s no reason for any business to deny any of us — straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, or Martian — service. Not if that business wants to make a profit. And the businesses know this if they’re smart. Which is why most of them have come out firmly against the RFRA.
I’ve had some friends on the right tell me that much of the hoopla over the RFRA is overblown. There are legitimate religious liberty concerns. There needs to be a way for someone who’s Muslim and wearing a headscarf to not be denied service because of her religion. And there needs to be a way for a Sikh child to not be prevented from wearing his religious dagger (blunted) next to his body when he goes to the public school.
But Indiana’s version of the RFRA goes way too far. It doesn’t just protect people of faith from being able to safely and freely partake in their religion. Instead, it looks as if it’s meant to discriminate against certain classes of people, most especially the LGBT community, on the basis of gender identity alone. And whether it actually will allow discrimination under the law is now irrelevant, as the perception has grown so large that it will that it’s become well-nigh irrefutable.
Or in even plainer, starker language: The belief is that it will hurt LGBT people because it’s OK under the law to do so. Which has de facto created a second-class citizen approach for the LGBT community, or anyone believed to be a part of that community…and that is deeply destructive to the social covenant, at absolute best.
And that, my friends, is why this RFRA is so divisive. It hurts my LGBT friends and family members just by its existence.
And that’s why so many are protesting Indiana’s RFRA.
But it’s law in the state of Indiana, at least for now. Which is why so many people across the United States are vowing not to spend one dime in Indiana until this law is either fixed or repealed.
How any politician can’t understand that’s exactly what would happen before he signed a controversial bill like this into law, as Gov. Pence did last Friday, is beyond my comprehension.
* * * Edited to add:
As of this hour (5:30 a.m. CDT), according to the Indiana Star, a revised version of the RFRA has been drafted. The Star says:
The compromise legislation specifies that the new religious freedom law cannot be used as a legal defense to discriminate against patrons based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.
The proposal goes much further than a “preamble” that was proposed earlier in the week, and, if it stands, would be the first time any protections against discrimination have been extended to gays and lesbians in state law. But it doesn’t go as far as establishing gays and lesbians as a protected class of citizens statewide or repealing the law outright, both things that Republican leaders have said they could not support.
So it’s one tiny step forward. But it’s not likely, as the Star says elsewhere in its article, to make anyone happy on the left or the right, and more battles loom over LGBT rights in the not-so-distant future in the state of Indiana.
Stay tuned.
Reflections on the Passing of Actor Leonard Nimoy
Actor Leonard Nimoy, Spock of the original “Star Trek” TV series, died yesterday at the age of 83. Nimoy wasn’t solely an actor — he was a musician, a poet, a photographer, and a movie director, among many other things — but he was known mostly for bringing one role to life: Spock, the half-Vulcan, half-human first officer of the U.S.S. Enterprise.
Spock, the quintessential outsider.
Spock, a type of Everyman who could comment, dispassionately, about subjects otherwise often seen as off-limits in contemporary society (much less TV).
Many people are going to be discussing Nimoy’s legacy, and rightfully so. He was a brilliant actor, and in many ways he was at the center of what “Star Trek” was all about.
But my own reflections are far closer to home than that.
When I was young, I discovered “Star Trek” on television in syndication. I was a fan of DeForest Kelley’s Leonard “Bones” McCoy more than Leonard Nimoy’s Spock, mind you, but without Spock’s dispassion, McCoy’s emotional outbursts would’ve had no foil and much less resonance. Somehow, even in my early teens, I picked up on this, and wanted to know more about the actors behind “Star Trek.”
So I read Leonard Nimoy’s first biography, I AM NOT SPOCK. What I found out was that Nimoy was many things besides his most famous, iconic role. His journey as an artist and a sensitive soul was one of my biggest inspirations as a teenager.
It was because of Nimoy’s book, at least in part, that I realized you could be different and still be a good person. That you could be a sensitive artist who your parents did not understand — as his own parents definitely didn’t understand Nimoy’s passion for acting, or the arts in general — and still be able to forge a good life for yourself. And I learned that sometimes it takes time for your vision of yourself to be realized — as Nimoy struggled for years as an actor before he finally landed his role on “Star Trek.”
I did not know Mr. Nimoy, except for watching him on TV and once, very briefly, meeting him at a science fiction convention. But he seemed to me to be a man of worth, talent, and grace.
I mourn his passing.
Ernie Banks, “Mr. Cub,” dies at 83
Ernie Banks died last night at the age of 83.
Banks played his entire career for the Chicago Cubs. He was their first-ever African-American player, was an All-Star 14 times, won a Gold Glove as a shortstop in 1960, won two MVP awards in 1958 and 1959, and won the Lou Gehrig Memorial Award in 1967. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1977 on the first ballot. And he also won the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013.
Banks had a remarkable career (check out this article from Yahoo Sports’ “Big League Stew” blog if you don’t believe me). He was a trailblazer, both as a player and as a coach.
But it’s not because of any of those things that I felt so terrible when I heard the news that Ernie Banks had died.
Banks was a quality individual, you see. He was one of those people who made you smile, simply by being around him. And he was the best ambassador for his beloved Cubs they’d ever had — hence his nickname, “Mr. Cub” — much less Major League Baseball as a whole.
Banks never went to the playoffs with his Cubs, but he always believed he would go — and nearly did in 1969, the year of the Cubs’ epic collapse. Because of his positive attitude, people loved being around him. And he enjoyed talking to the media, mostly because he saw it as a privilege rather than an obstacle. (Check out these great quotes as listed by the Chicago Tribune.)
Ernie Banks, quite simply, was a hero. He didn’t see himself that way, of course, but heroes never do.
I mourn his passing deeply.
ESPN Anchor and Personality Stuart Scott Dies at 49
It’s been widely reported today that ESPN “SportsCenter” anchor and personality Stuart Scott has died at 49 after a seven-year battle with stomach cancer. And the news hit me hard, even though I knew as a long-time viewer of ESPN that Scott wasn’t doing particularly well.
For those who don’t follow sports as I do, Scott was a new kind of anchor when he first took to ESPN in 1993. He came up with numerous catchphrases like “Booyah!” and “He’s as cool as the other side of the pillow.” And while he wasn’t the first well-known African-American sports anchor in the Western world, Scott often seemed like the coolest, getting athletes like the intensely private Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods to actually reveal a little of who they were without getting them upset in the process (a very neat trick indeed).
Basically, Scott was the type of guy other men wanted to be like. He had class, he was smart, he understood sports, he spoke and dressed well, and he related to everyone.
In other words, Scott was a very good person. It came across in how he spoke to people. He didn’t see Jordan and Woods as wealthy, privileged athletes so much but as people who’d had to struggle to get where they were — people who were still vulnerable, who still wanted others to know that their money didn’t define them — and that changed sports journalism.
I know that’s a very big statement to make, so let me unpack it a little.
First, the explosion of salaries at the major league level in the 1980s and beyond for major league baseball, the NFL and the NBA all tended to make the average viewer feel like he or she had no frame of reference for the players anymore, save on the field. This wasn’t as much of a problem for the players in the 1950s, 1960s, and even the 1970s because while the best made very good money, most of the rest still had to drive garbage trucks in the offseason. (Or whatever they did instead of driving garbage trucks.)
In other words, while Scott celebrated the amazing feats of athleticism that sports can and do provide, Scott also provided a deeper human element to help balance it out.
So while others may speak of Scott’s hipness, freshness, and ability to relate to the younger set — and while that is certainly all true — I think most are missing the point.
Scott was, first and foremost, a caring human being, as this story discussed within ESPN’s lengthy obituary for him illustrates in full measure:
“NBA Countdown” anchor Sage Steele remembers the day last year when her family moved from Connecticut to Arizona to be closer to her show in Los Angeles: “The moving trucks were at my house, and Stuart was there with his girlfriend Kristin to say goodbye to us, and my 10-year-old son Nicholas had to say goodbye to his best friend across the street, and he came back sobbing, sobbing, leaving his best friend in the world. … Stuart said, ‘I got it.’ And he took Nicholas aside and just sat down with him and described his moving away as a kid, losing his best friend as a 10-year-old boy and how he handled it. He spent 20 minutes sitting there with Nicholas, helping him feel better.
“Stuart spent three hours at our house that day, in pain and hardly able to stand, but he did it. And he sat there for my kid.”
Not everyone does that. Most particularly when he’s gravely ill, weak, and in pain.
Yes, Stuart Scott loved sports. Loved them with a passion. But he also loved life itself — and somehow that showed through during every sportscast he ever did.
May his loved ones be comforted by his memory.
Craig Wayne Boyd, Persistence…and You
Folks, it’s no secret that I am a fan of Southern country/rock singer Craig Wayne Boyd. His time on NBC’s The Voice was in some ways magical, especially considering his eleven-year odyssey in the music business. And that he made it all the way to the end, and then actually won The Voice, was just that much more special.
What I found in Craig Wayne Boyd’s story were a number of things. Persistence. Faith, not only in a higher power, but in himself and his talent. And the drive to succeed against all odds.
Consider, please, that Mr. Boyd has said in several televised interviews that he considered quitting music altogether not too long before he auditioned for The Voice. And he knocked around Nashville and the touring circuits for eleven long years, singing his heart out, with talent and drive and dedication — but all of that garnered him very little.
Or so it seemed at the time.
Because in retrospect, what Mr. Boyd was learning all that time was to have faith in himself and his talent. He was also learning to perform, and the limits of what he could do and what he could — and couldn’t — control.
This is something we all need to learn. Because like Craig Wayne Boyd, we cannot control what other people do. We can’t control who will take notice of us, who will show up at our gigs, who will buy our books and/or recordings, or who will care about what we’re doing.
All we can control is what we do and how we do it. That’s all.
And that’s why being persistent is so very, very important. You don’t know when the next audition you do will result in a major breakthrough (as was the case for Craig Wayne Boyd). You don’t know when someone will read what you’re writing and decide it’s wonderful and tell all his friends, because you don’t know when your big break will come.
The only thing you do know is this: Once you stop trying, you have absolutely no chance of doing whatever it is you want to do.
That’s why I’ve said over and over again that you cannot and should not give up. Because you don’t know what’s around the corner…for all you know, it might just be your big break.
Barb Caffrey's Blog 