A Guide to Women’s Rooms for #Trans-Phobs and other stuff

As a mother of a trans daughter, it amazes me that some people believe that men are going to use the trans-bathroom issue as an excuse to throw a skirt over their Johnsons to accost us.  I thought I would give the law makers of North Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maine, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia, South Dakota and Wisconsin, as well as the Arizona Department of Education a tutorial on how women’s and girl’s rooms actually work. 

Okay, so you know how women usually travel in packs especially to

to the restroom right?   You see the lines going out the doors because there is very little downtime in a ladies’ room.  Do you actually think we are going to stand by and watch a man accost a young girl or woman on our turf?  REALLY?!!!??  I mean have you ever seen a cat fight between two women – that is nothing compared what we would do a man that was posing as one of us and then trying to assault a little girl.  It would be bad, super, super bad.  Really.

I’ll let you in on a little secret – for you men – those tampon or napkin dispensers that are on the wall –simply for show.  We actually keep those supplies in our purses.  So while we are in the bathrooms not only do we plot total world domination but we get vital training.  Because those dispensers have weapons and switch blades in them so that if the event a man posing as a woman with a skirt over his Johnson tried to hurts us – we have the training to slice his Johnson in half.   

Now many of you legislatures might be thinking that “Wow – I have never heard of that.” There’s a good reason – it’s because we’ve never had to use it because it’s a 100% myth that a man dressed as a woman is going to attack us in a public bathroom. You’re trying to legislate against something that does not exist. 

Let me tell you what does exist – in encounters involving trans people in bathrooms, you know who does get attacked? Trans people. A survey of 93 transgender adults in DC found that 68% had been verbally attacked in a public restroom, while 9% had been physically assaulted. Over half of trans people developed health problems like urinary tract infections from avoiding using bathrooms in public.

Another survey found that 70% of trans respondents reported being denied access, verbally harassed, or physically assaulted in public restrooms.

And ironically, it’s anti-transgender legislation that will put men — transgender men — in women’s restrooms, and transgender women in men’s rooms.

Not only that – most women bring their young sons into the ladies room rather than having them go into a men’s room unattended.  Are you really going to tell an already stressed out mother that her five year old son can’t be in the women’s room because his gender does not fit those perimeters.  God help the cop or security guard that tells a mother that.  Seriously – snip, snip.

For you educators that are also fighting the federal government over the use of bathrooms by transgender students, a study by Georgia State University has connected anti-transgender policies with increased suicide rates among transgender students.

Now I realize that in 2008, many of the trans-phobs got freaked because Barack Obama was elected president by a majority of Americans and in 2012 he was re-elected by a pretty decisive margin.  There were not hanging chads like in 2000 when the election was between two white guys. But this is the year 2016 and trans-phobs - you can’t tell people where to go to the bathroom – you lost that right in 1964 with the Civil Rights Act. 

The Federal Government is telling states if you discriminate against transgender students in schools - you will lose Federal funding for your state education program under both Title 9 and the Equal Access Act.  So now some of these states like Texas want to make it a State’s right issue when it comes to transgender students and their access to using bathrooms and are suing the government.   REALLY!!  

Let me back it up another 100 years from the Civil Rights Act to the Civil War when the Federal Government had to let folks know that you could not use “States rights” argument to justify enslaving another group of people because it’s just wrong on every level – there’s no defense for it.   It took a Republican like Abraham Lincoln and four bloody years of fighting to bring the country back together after over 620,000 people died in a conflict that never should have happened.  He’s probably spinning in his grave that now that his party is supporting all this state’s rights crap.  

But there are people like the Target Lady who has 12 kids and wants

wants to use the bible to legislate.   Let’s back it up to 1776 where we had the Revolutionary War in which we fought England to separate church and state to insure that all men are created equal and entitled to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.   Another fun fact, our founding fathers wore wigs, ruffles and hose so maybe being trans is actually guaranteed by our constitution.

Look, my daughter is one of the sweetest kindest people I know.  When she uses the bathroom she uses for the same reason we all do to just pee and nothing more.   She’d be the first one to bring down anyone who wanted to hurt a child in a bathroom.

If you want to put your righteous indignation to something real that helps children - how about the fact that 13.5 million kids in our country do not have enough food to eat.  That’s one in five kids in the greatest country in the world who go to bed hungry.  For the law makers in Mississippi – it’s 29% or roughly one in three kids in your state – if I were you I’d be more focused on getting your constituents help for something that really exists like hunger rather than a fake problem made up by homo-phobs.  Now that summer is here – many of those kids won’t have access to subsidized breakfast and lunches that they do during the school year which makes their hunger more of a crisis.

Heck – 12 children bible totting anti-Target Lady – I’ll stand by your shoulder to shoulder if you take community hunger on as a cause and we ask people who are shopping  at Target to donate groceries to their local food banks and your first Starbucks is on me.

So to recap, you can’t segregate people by bathrooms as per the Civil Rights Act and Title 9.  Mothers are probably going to bring their young sons into the bathroom because they don’t want to expose them to a men’s room.  Let’s work to stop something real like food insufficiency in this country. 

And if a guy comes into our public bathrooms with a skirt over his Johnson and tries to assault us- we ladies can handle it and by handle it I mean cut his penis in half – so we got this REALLY!!

Strange Vibrations

I was in Walmart last week when the overriding feeling of being surrounded by zombies overtook me.  I walked over to my son Daniel and half-way joked that we were surrounded by "Walkers" (a term they use for the Undead on The Walking Dead).    He laughed nervously but I could tell he knew the energy in the space was off — way, way off.  The back of my head started to tighten up and I was having a hard time being able to focus.   We had gotten some gift certificates to Walmart for Christmas and decided to use them even though I rarely shop there because I get a weird head buzz (not in a good way) almost every time I go.  Some Walmarts are better than others, but the one near us is really hard for me to shop in.  I decided not to say anything more until both of the kids begged to go because they were feeling dizzy and uncomfortable.   We gathered up what we could buy that day and walked to the register - walking past people with blank expressions on their faces, glazed looks in their eyes and not really looking like they were enjoying their shopping excursion.  Our cashier looked miserable and our discomfort got worse, but we were so close to finally being out of there.    We fled the glaring fluorescent lights and managed to exit to our car as sunshine dissipated our angst.   Both of the kids asked me how I was doing and I responded "Fine, now that we're out of there - but next time we go on-line to shop at Walmart."   

We drove to the peaceful repose of Target where we grabbed a quick bite and some Starbucks and finished the list of items we thought we could buy at Walmart.   I've always liked the vibe at Target - the icies and popcorn to keep the kids happy while you shop.  There are smiling salespeople who look like they enjoy working there.  It feels like home - it should because I'm usually there at least once or twice a week.  It's comfortable.  It's the retail version of "Cheers" - they might not know my name - but the folks at the food court usually remember my order.  It's that sort of positive energy that I'm drawn to.   This is not a knock at the people who work or shop at Walmart per say, but just an observation of how I perceive the energy at Target as being positive versus the energy of Walmart being negative.  Target is a physically and emotionally more comfortable place for me to shop.   Now my kids have started to pick up on that same kind of Walmart energy with very little prompting from me except for an occasional snarky zombie comment.  

It can be tough to be sensitive in a rather insensitive world where you can leave anonymous insults on Twitter or YouTube or create fake Facebook accounts to trash a perceived enemy.  People are not always receptive to the needs of others which creates angst which causes more anger which causes more angst so it becomes a vicious cycle.  If you can pick up on those types emotions like me, it effects you on numerous levels.  If I walk into a room and the energy is off - I'll feel it no matter how much of a happy face someone tries to put on.  I know if a co-worker is having a bad time even before she opens up to me because I can just sense it.  Sometimes I can feel their physical discomfort - like a stomach cramp or a fight they just had with a spouse and how tight their chest feels.  I've learned over time how to seal off my aura so that other people's emotional turmoil doesn't imprint on me.   It's sort of like a psychic raincoat - I can still feel the rain, it just doesn't get me as wet.  

I guess that's why I've never been a fan of certain kinds of horror movies - like the ones that show serial killers or evil entities that destroy people.  Sure the vicarious thrill of seeing other people suffer at the hands of Jason, Jigsaw or The Grudge is scary fun when you know that you are safe in a movie theater but being in a place where that much fear is conjured up for sheer entertainment just makes me uncomfortable.   I'm more likely to see The Walking Dead or The Lost Boys which show how people manage to survive and depend on one another.  It's the triumph of the human spirit that really appeals to me in those shows or movies. 

So it's natural that I've always been drawn to comedy.   I've loved sit-coms since I was a little girl who would watch I Dream of Jennie or Bewitched, or I Love Lucy over and over again.   If I woke up with a bad dream, before I would go into my parent's bed, I would try to think of a funny sketch I saw on The Carol Burnett Show. I'd think of Nora Desmond, or the dentist sketch with Tim Conway and Harvey Korman which would make me laugh under the covers and would dry my tears.  It would reassure me that everything was alright - in fact I used to pretend that Carol was my second mommy.   Laughter always sent the bad things away.  

It's interesting that I learned that approach at an early age since there are tons of research that back up the fact that being positive and having a sense of humor helps you feel healthier, helps you combat disease and improves work productivity.  According to an article in the British publication The Independent by Roger Dobson in 2008, "Happiness and laughter have been shown to increase natural killer cell activity in blood and free radical-scavenging capacity in saliva, as well as lowering levels of the stress hormone cortisol. It is also thought that laughter causes the release of special neurotransmitter substances in the brain, endorphins, that help control pain. And there are more direct physical effects of laughter, including increased breathing, more oxygen use, and higher heart rate."  He goes on to report that according to the Oxford University Press medical journal, Rheumatology, an additional study showed that blood levels of key inflammatory compounds dropped considerably after patients with rheumatoid arthritis watched a humorous film.   

Laughter can change the whole feel of a room.  It can literally lighten the air and make just about anyone feel better.  Yet, there are those that know that people are more vulnerable to negative energy.  If they can keep them in a state of constant agitation they can exploit them easier.   According to a study by UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center  entitled “Using Biological Markers To Measure Stress In Listeners Of Commercial Talk Radio,” hate speech increases the amount of a stress-related hormone, salivary cortisol, which has the potential for negative health implications including the development of cancer and other inflammatory diseases. The research indicated that listeners of a radio segment with high prevalence of hate speech, experienced clinical anxiety and in turn had higher levels of the stress hormone, regardless of their race, ethnicity, ideological alignment with the speaker, or their level of previous knowledge on the topic.  You have to wonder if all the health problems that Rush Limbaugh has been experiencing over the years are products of the negative ideology that he has been spewing for decades - the man is a former prescription drug abuser, has a heart condition and yet lives in denial by still being overweight, smoking and drinking wine.   I honestly can't listen to more than five minutes of his show without feeling my own blood pressure increasing.  But even people who share the same ideology are going to feel upset by agreeing with all the terrible things he's saying.   It's a lose/lose situation for everyone but Rush who makes $64 million a year peddling his form of demagoguery.  

There is a darker spiritual side to constantly imbibing negative ideas and the energy that it produces - it can actually form a poltergeist.   Unlike what the movies would have you believe, poltergeists are actually created by negative energy, anger and stress brought on by living people.   It can manifest by causing all sorts of problems from making noises, to moving things to even attacking people.   I was going through a really tough time at work about two years ago along with my mother going into assisted living and my siblings at each other's throats.  The stress was taking it's toll.  I was constantly upset and angry - going to work was extraordinarily emotionally draining and hearing about the family squabbling didn't help.  It really could have consumed me if I let it.  Worse, those feelings could have created something I couldn't control because I was feeling so depressed and angry.  Luckily, I have a supportive husband and found a book called Healing with Angels by Dr. Doreen Virtue which helped put things in perspective.   I began to snap out of my funk and even when I was eventually let go from my job, I was emotionally strong enough to handle it.  On my last day in my cubicle, I stayed back while the rest of the staff went to a Christmas Tree lighting.  I used a few prayers in Healing with Angels to cleanse my work space of all the negative energy that might have accrued there because I didn't want it to affect the person who would eventually be at my desk.   As best as I could, I released it and tried to forgive those that needed to be forgiven more for my peace of mind then for theirs.  

Having the comedy troupe helped me forge through that difficult period because creating shows that made people laugh helped me and I knew it helped the audience.  When we used to do our comedy web-shows at a local coffee shop, folks would walk in not really knowing what we were doing.  Once they caught on, they would stay and enjoy, laughing with us and at us.  Sometimes they would come up and say that they were having a horrible day but being there with us completely turned it around.  I always love getting that feedback because while it's great to hear that we're funny and talented - hearing that we helped lighten their mood means way more.   We'd hear from isolated teens in the chatroom that our show was cool because they could make suggestions for scenes.  We would perform them without judgement because that's not what the show was about - we just accepted our audience for who they were not because we wanted them to think like us.  We were not there to push anything more than a very silly agenda - and being a part of the show helped people feel better.  

It's ironic that when the Taliban took over Afghanistan, one of the first things they banned was laughing in public - because if you can spread anger and misery, you can control people.  If you are happy and laughing you are more likely to think clearly and objectively which is something that ideologues don't want you to do.  If you are angry they can control you because misery loves company.   It makes you wonder how Bill O'Reilly's studio must feel most of the time or Rush Limbaugh's or Mike Malloy's radio booth.   They might not believe in poltergeists because - they are making money spreading their angst about anyone who does not think like them and that probably makes them happy.  But what about the people who believe in what they say hook, line and sinker.  What about those that believe the only credible sources of information are FOX News or talk radio?   The ones who believe that the president wants to take away all their freedoms and they are victims of a "liberal" or "conservative" agenda.  They are the folks I truly feel bad for because most of the time they must sit around with like minded folks feeling a false sense of oppression that is self imposed.   Their anger is high, so is their blood pressure and the myriad of health problems it causes.   I feel bad that those folks feel so bad.  

I'd like to propose an experiment to those that are hooked on their afternoons with Rush and Mike Malloy and their evenings with The O'Reilly Factor or Rachel Maddows - try just not tuning in for a week and see how you feel.   Is your sense of outrage less?  Is the vibe in the room different because you choose to watch The Big Bang Theory or The Middle rather than the usual talking heads?   Life can be full of laughter if you just take 15 to 30 minutes a day to find it.  Laughing for half an hour will improve your health and your psyche.  Maybe the fine folks at Walmart need to learn that and pipe comedy albums over the sound system instead of soft rock.  I might also suggest cutting back on the fluorescents and making it a fun place to work for your staff.  Maybe if those changes are made, I might consider going back sometime.   In the meantime, I'll find my happy place at Target. 

Thanksgiving – The Other White Meat

It's October 31^st around 9:00 p.m. and the candy fueled decaying corpse of Halloween wasn’t even cold when the commercials for Christmas started.  The bright lights, festivities and the message was that the best time to get with your family is that magic day in December. There was no message about that holiday that falls on the fourth Thursday in November - the holiday that is traditionally reserved for reflection to give thanks for all we have and the blessings bestowed on us.  Thanksgiving is now officially a speed bump on the way to the more financially bloated Christmas holiday. 

I have always loved Thanksgiving even if it does give me a dose of angst as I know that my days of getting everything done before December 25^th are starting to tick away.  It used to be the one day that you knew you had to slow down because the stores were all closed.  If you worked in retail, it gave you a day to rest before the onslaught of Black Friday  - a day when legions of shoppers try to take their local malls, Targets and Wal-Marts like soldiers storming Normandy in WWII.  Black Friday is not for the faint of heart – it takes steely nerves, a strategy and a take no prisoner’s attitude – on that day, you keep your head down and know that fear is good, fear will keep you alive.  It’s precisely why taking Thanksgiving to take stock of your life is so important – you never know when reaching for that drastically reduced big screen TV might be your last.  But seriously, it’s supposed to be a time to be with family – enjoying football and avoiding a political discussion with the uncle who thinks the last good president was Ronald Reagan.  You take the time to go around the table and talk about what you’re really grateful for, not leaving half way through dinner to get to Target hours before it opens at 5:00 p.m. Thanksgiving night to get the $1 DVD door busters.

I guess the bigger question in my mind is – “Have we lost the fine art of being thankful?”  It’s a steadily snarkier world out there where people like Simon Cowell are praised for their brutal honesty and running people down on Twitter and Facebook seems to be America’s favorite past time.  You create a family video on YouTube with the baby’s first steps only to have someone leave a comment that the baby sucks.  Really?  What is happening out there?  Is the need to be the most negative the one who wins?     

Reality shows are steadily showing us the heightened effects of the demise of the human condition that include meltdowns, accusations, selfishness and a total lack of cooperation because you need to stab the other person in the back to get ahead.  But the constant barrage of negativity can take its toll after a while and skew your perception of what you should be grateful for.  If you are not rich, famous and have camera crew documenting your every move in our society, then you have nothing.  If you are not keeping up with the Kardashians then you have little to talk with other people about who would rather discuss the empty twisted adventures of pseudo-celebrities rather then taking the time to be introspective about their own lives.  

There are tons of distractions to keep us from taking stock and realize that what we have is pretty good.  There are smart phones that keep us on track so that we can get the latest tweets and instant messages from Facebook. We can use Outlook to schedule ourselves into oblivion and not have a quiet moment to think because if you are not plugged in, then you are missing out. Those quiet moments are essential for us to connect with who we are, but silencing the mind and really discovering ourselves can be flat out scary.  How many people do you know who are constantly running from appointment to appointment (almost always late I might add) or rehearsal to rehearsal, regaling you with how many projects they are working on. They are always dashing off to the next thing - never really forming tight bonds because keeping things on the surface is much easier than a heavier emotional investment.  It’s easier to cancel at the last minute when you are not deeply bonded to something because you assure yourself that something else will always come along to distract you.   You post the schedule of your exhausting day on Facebook only to be one-upped by someone who is equally over scheduled, because the one who drops dead first while working on that important project wins.You spend so much time trying to assure yourself that things are going great because you’re going at the speed of hyper-space that you don’t have the time to see much of anything until you are so emotionally or physically exhausted, you are forced to stop and hopefully ask yourself why you are so busy.  Why can’t we be thankful for what we have rather than always looking for something more?

An article by Melinda Beck of the Wall Street Journal, reported that in a landmark study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2003, Dr. Robert Emmons and Dr. Michael McCullough showed that counting blessings can actually make people feel better.  A group of 100 undergrads were split into three groups.  Each group had to report on different things for 10 consecutive weeks: one group had to report five blessings each week, one group had to report five negative things each week and the last group just had to report five things that happened.   Needless to say, the group that counted their blessings were happier, exercised more and felt better about their lives than the other two groups.   As simple as it sounds, gratitude is actually a demanding, complex emotion that requires "self-reflection, the ability to admit that one is dependent upon the help of others, and the humility to realize one's own limitations," Dr. Emmons explained.  You’re simply not going to be able to do that if you are constantly rushing from one place to another without the time to reflect on what you really need.

One of my favorite all time movies is It’s a Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart.  It’s a great movie about the power of being grateful.  In the 1947 movie, George Bailey tries all his life to get out of Bedford Falls because he’s sure they he’ll be completely happy if he can just “shake off the dust of this town” and start anew somewhere else.   The entire movie addresses the yearning of this man to do big things in the world but every time it looks like he might get out, he’s thwarted by his father’s death, his brother’s marriage and his duty to the town he loves and hates.   He marries the love of his life  and has four kids in the home she’s always wanted to live in.   Things are going along pretty well until one Christmas Eve when his uncle misplaces $8,000 (which in today’s market would be closer to $100,000) and everything seems lost.  He’s given everything to this town and now he might go to jail for something he didn’t even do.  When he’s told by his nemesis Mr. Potter that he might be worth more dead than alive - George clutches his life insurance policy and tries to kill himself only to be saved by his guardian angel Clarence.  When he wonders what the world would be like if he was never born, Clarence grants his wish.  He ends up in an alternate reality and sees Bedford Falls empty of happiness and compassion.   All the people he ever cared about and helped fall into despair because he was not around to touch their lives.  He begs Clarence to send him back to his real world, even if it means he’ll go to jail because having the people he loves in his life is worth the risk.  In the end, his family and friends rally to his defense and he realizes that he didn’t need to leave his home, because the world he has created there is amazing and special.  It’s a movie that still resonates with people today – probably more so because it’s easy to feel overlooked and forgotten in our technological age.   

In the same Wall Street Journal article, Ms. Beck discusses “The George Bailey Effect” which asks the readers to subtract a positive person or event from their lives and think about how things would be different.  If you take that flight of imagination, it’s easy to see how your life would be different if you didn’t have that significant event or person, good or bad to help define who you are. For instance, I met my husband Max when I was 25, coming off a bad relationship with an actor and the last thing I wanted was to date another actor.   He was coming off a break-up with an actress so the both of us started off as friends who met doing a play called All Men are Whores (yes, that was the actual name of the play).  We’ve know each other for over 30 years and have been married for 27.  I will tell you that I would be a neurotic self centered person without Max in my life.  I would not have my two amazing girls.  I probably would have been married and divorced a few times to men who would not have treated me very well.   I’d probably either be very skinny or overweight from stress if I was in the entertainment business full time and having crying jags everyday. To put it simply, my life would have no balance - I would be a hot mess.  So when I look across the table and see his face, I’m thankful that he’s part of my life and thankful for the times that we’ve had together.  We have a long history and our life together has definitely seen the “for better or for worse”  sides. We’ve met those times with tenacity, love, laughter and plenty of “That’s What She Said” jokes. 

Eight year ago, my life was very different. I had just been laid off, one of our two cars had died and our sick kitty had also passed.  I could have given into the negative, but I started to volunteer for Hands on Atlanta.  I also helped sort thank-you letters to the soldiers serving overseas which helped put things in perspective because those serving in the dangerous parts of the world needed prayers and support way more than I did.  I was happy to do what I could to help them out.   During the low points in my six months of being unemployed, I made myself take walks at a local park and appreciate the beautiful trees and the sounds of the running brook. I was grateful that I was healthy and had a family that loved me even if I didn’t have a job.

This Thanksgiving, rather sitting around griping and commiserating about the election and threatening secession from the Union (really people – it didn’t really work out so well 160 years ago) or gloating because your guy won, why not talk about all the great things we have in this country – like the right to talk about seceding, the ways can help people affected by Hurricanes recover, the games you used to love to play as kids and how wonderful dinner was. I guarantee if you focus on the positive instead of the negative, everyone will leave the table feeling better and closer. 

Thanksgiving should be about more than just a huge meal to get you from Halloween to Christmas.  It should mean something.  It should mean a heartfelt thank you to those that you appreciate and do kind things for you.  Saying thanks for something specific can mean so much.  The other day, I went to Publix to pick up a few groceries and the cashier asked me if I wanted to donate a few boxes of food for their Food for Sharing program to help needy families in the area.  I said, “Sure, why not?” as she rang up an extra $4.50 to my bill, because that easily could have been my family a few years ago. She thanked me profusely since I was the first person who had taken her up on the offer.  Her supervisor walked up and started to help bag my order and was told that I had just donated to the program.  “That’s great – now we’re ahead of the other team – thank you so much and the family who will get the food thanks you too.”  They were both so happy over what would amount what I would spend on a grande salted caramel coffee from Starbucks – but this was a much better use of my money.  I left with a big smile on my face.  I had made those women’s day and they had made mine because they were sincerely thankful.

You could save yourself so much time and frustration if you just took the time to sit and ask yourself what you are grateful for and what you really need.  The lightening speed of your life can take a pause while you contemplate that.  What are you thankful for?  My guess is that it’s not the fifth project that you’ve just taken on in addition to your regular job.  I’m not going to take the holier than thou attitude because frankly I’m guilty of doing that to myself – I'm an insurance agent, I sell Mary Kay, I've finished a novel that I'm submitting to an agent, and if people ask me to help them do things for non-profits, I have a hard time saying no.  But I have gotten better – I try not to give so much away so that I’m too exhausted to be present for the people that I love and who really need me.   When I take the time to see all the great things I have in my life, I won’t be looking outside of that nucleus to feel complete.

So this year, start a new tradition - sit back and ask yourself what you have to be thankful for and let those near and dear to you know how much you love them.  The last few years have included some really tough times and the loss of my mother and sister-in-law but I got through it. I learned who really loved me, who my friends were and would stick by me no matter what. When you get right down to it, I have everything I need to be happy. Feeling grateful should always be the meat of Thanksgiving – it’s what’s for dinner.