These Drops of Mine

Today's Thoughts...

There are days when I leave work and want to throw myself out the nearest open window. Or, at the very least, hurl myself into a shallow pit. Fortunately, those days are few and far between. More often are the days like today, when something within me swells with pride and makes me want to tear up and cry: “Hercules! Hercules!” to egg my students on. (Okay, humor me; channeling Nutty Professor here, anyone?, anyone?)

The assignment was to pick a controversial topic and present your opinions and the facts about the issue to persuade your classmates for your cause. Now when I assigned this, I had some idea of what to expect: at least six presentations on global warming, three about the dangers of smoking/alcohol/insert teenage vice here,two on abortion, and probably at least one on an altogether unrelated topic like sports cars. I was not disappointed. Yet in sifting through the well-intentioned chaff, heaving several exhausted sighs as I did, a few gems sparkled with a luster that outdid all the rest. A winning plea to galvanize stay-at-home moms, an introspective critique on the inflated value of higher education as the sole route to success, a witty piece questioning the age-old attraction to “that guy,” the James Dean as it were (tall, dark, handsome, and wrong for you in every way). Even a clever creation denouncing the censure of adult films; the most sound pro-porn argument I think I’ve ever heard.

But with the theme of controversy there is always the one, that one, that stands out from the rest, that tugs at the dull senses, numbed after endless claps and score sheets. Exhausted, struggling to keep my lids open, and desperately wishing I had drank that Coke sitting at my desk, I waited as a student took the floor. Cloaked in the mane that cascaded around her shoulders, she stood up a little straighter (how she was balancing on her four inch platforms I don't think I'll ever understand) and my giggly room fell hushed. Noticing the visible tremor that rippled through the class, I could only think that the others were prepared for something I was not. Her friends sat attentively. Compact mirrors and tweezers slid back into their cases and mobiles into jeans and purses. I too sat up a bit straighter, waiting to hear what she would have to say.

“Good morning, um, afternoon teacher and my friends. Today, I would like to speak about a topic that is very close to me.” The preamble I had heard at least three dozen times already that day. “Today we have already heard about why we should not discriminate against people with disabilities in employment in our country. Well, I would like to speak about another form of discrimination, not only in employment, although that is what I want to focus on." She cleared her throat and took a deep breath. "If you were the owner of a company, would you hire a transgendered person to work for you?” I tried to force myself not to squirm. Sudden vigorous nods and vocal ‘yes!’ “Would you call them ma’m or madam if they asked you to?” Another ‘yes!’ “Would you hire a gay or a lesbian too? Show them the same respect as all other workers?” ‘Yes! Yes!’ at least another half dozen ‘yes!’

“Thank you. But the world is not as kind as this classroom.” Silence. “People do not treat us with respect. Whatever we are and whoever we are, we are a community, we are people and people should be treated with respect. Many transgendered people are not. For example, so many would like to be airline hostess. Of all the airlines in our country, did you know that only a very few even consider to hire people like me. And they require that they must have the sex operation and change their voices first. From this, only three transgendered women can work in the airlines here. Three? That’s nothing. We are millions in Thailand and millions in the world, maybe billions.” I could feel my chest constrict. “But we aren’t treated as if we matter. It’s like we don’t even exist. But we are not invisible. We live next to you, with you, around you. We are you because we are human just like everyone else. My blood is as red as yours and my tears are just as real. That's why I believe we should not be an invisible community any more. Thank you.” She was shaking, I was shaking, the raucous applause was deafening.

I can only think to the cosmos for the strange order of things in this life. It just so happens that in another of my classes, we are dissecting Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice.” In a country where, like the Jews of Shylock's time, the kra-theuys of Thailand and the world are shamed, insulted, demeaned, ignored, and more often viewed as garish Barbies on display than human beings in need of the same affections and respect afforded all others. She had once joked that she asked a dorm assistant if she rented a dorm would she be placed in the men's ward or the women's, and upon hearing the former, remarked, "Well at least he'll be one lucky guy!" Yet even in jest, her words gave me pause because it was and is wrong. Wrong. Just wrong. Standing in front of her classmates, her words rang true to me and brought me back to Shylock’s famed speech of much the same:

Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as
a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison
us, do we not die?

Aye, we die. We die every day to be overlooked by those who do not consider us worthy. Her classmates heard her, I heard her, but who else? There are times when I want to get them to stand up, shout, scream, cry out for the world to hear them— what they feel, what they think, what they believe that is locked up inside them until they get a moment, however fleeting as an in-class assignment, to stand up and say what burns inside them. Plastic grins can’t hide the scars forever. Sooner or later, people will no longer be willing to just be invisible.