Not Published – again. 11-24-19

Another week in Denton and I’m now convinced that driving on IH-35 is a senseless act just short of suicide: definitely in the think-twice-about-it category and right up there with hang-gliding over enemy air space. Getting on the highway reminds me of running in front of the bulls in Pamplona. Not that I’ve done that, but it still reminds me: one look in the rearview mirror and you see the stampede of sharp horns and fenders trying hard to stick you.

I’m also convinced that there are some subjects that as a country, or a people, or a city, whatever, we can’t talk about. This is twice now that I know of someone in Denton that gets fired by telling people not to say the “N” word, by actually saying the word as opposed to referring to it as I just did. One was a UNT attorney, the other a good administrator at Denton High. Also, I have tried twice to send in an article to the DRC with references to the LGBT community and those are the only two that never got published. Maybe they have a good reason, who knows, but my guess is that anything critical of the LGTB community is another subject not to be mentioned. And you might as well agree with all this nonsense since not agreeing with it is apparently no longer an option. I attached my essay not published, for those that are interested. As follows:

“A Tale of Two Cities.”

Two years ago in Denton I learned of a couple raising their one and only boy as a girl. The kid was four, and there he was, hair made into neat blonde curls, wearing a skirt, earrings and pink shoes, pushing a baby stroller, the works. At first, I didn’t know what to think, then on the way home I debated calling Child Protective Services. I admit I was appalled, but didn’t call because the child seemed happy. Actually, the entire situation looked normal, except for the gender thing. I was confused, to say the least, and ended up not doing anything, which is what I normally do when I don’t understand or a good idea is beyond my reach. That, and I’m not a meddler.

Then my cousin who is a pediatrician came to visit and I told her. She just shrugged and told me that “unfortunately, that is the new trend.”

“What trend?” I asked.

“That people think gender is optional trend. And even though it’s beyond the bounds of reason, in today’s non-judgmental environment, it’s not cool to object, so nobody says anything, like you. In the end, all it does is produce a confused child who will grow up to be a bewildered teenager and move up on the list of at-risk for suicide from the near bottom, which is where most of us belong, to the very top. Sort of a parent induced PTSD without the P. If he makes it to adulthood, he’ll be damned lucky, and a total basket case.”

“As a professional, you tell people that?” I asked.

“Sure,” she said, “and I have the hate mail to prove it.’

I just shook my head and remembered another situation. This was ten years earlier, in Valdivia, Chile, outside the place where I banked. Once a week a woman would set out her cardboard rug in front of the bank and sit there holding her baby. I asked Gloria my account manager about her and discovered that she rented the baby. A bank customer would give her a few pesos, then go in the bank holding the baby and not have to stand in line. The tellers would rush out to make the customer’s deposit, or whatever, before the baby realized it was not with the mom and started to wail. “Does it work?” I asked.

“Sure it works” she said. “But don’t get any great ideas. A year ago at another bank, a man rented a baby and when he went back out, the mom wasn’t there. Then what are you going to do?”

The next time I saw the woman outside the bank, I asked Gloria what happens when the baby grows up. “We don’t know,” she answered. “She’s been coming here about four years now and the baby is always an infant. People don’t rent kids. God only knows what her four year old is doing.” I felt sorry for both kids, but the more I thought about it, I actually felt sorrier for the boy turned girl kid in Denton, than the four year old in Valdivia. In other words, if I was abandoned and the choice was mine, I would rather stay abandoned, than be the unwilling guinea-pig of a lifelong parental experiment. The Denton kid had all the opportunities a country like ours has to offer and the parents couldn’t leave well enough alone: they had to try and turn him into a girl ‒ for motives that I can’t imagine. The other one, the mongrel, is probably a seasoned street urchin by now. I imagine him as a latin Oliver Twisto, living as good a life as his meager resources will allow, in need of everything, from dental care and a roof, to food, shoes and an education, but living true to the person he started out to be, boy or girl. At the very least he doesn’t have any unnecessary, perhaps even well-meaning, parent concocted obstacles to overcome: all his difficulties were honest ones and were there due to life’s