It’s Not the Cruelty That Gets You
I’m standing in my kitchen, washing dishes, with Jon Stewart on the TV to my left. He’s interviewing Chase Strangio from the ACLU and two sets of parents of trans kids.
I flash back two years to the 2021 Texas legislative session. My friend and I sat on a couch in a legislative office, nursing our worn-out feet, begging yet another legislative aide to convince his boss to vote against a bill that would designate us as child abusers if we choose to let our children access the gender-affirming medical care their doctors have recommended.
The aide made lots of eye contact while he smiled and nodded at us, purposely not looking at his watch. I could see another aid behind him, sleeves rolled up as he stared at his computer screen, smirking a bit as he eavesdropped.
Then, our aide smiled and leaned toward us as he said, “….we’ve introduced legislation that will make it harder for CPS to remove children from their parent’s home.”
What? I thought. I shook my head slightly to try to clear it. Like maybe I didn’t just hear him say that. Again, I thought. What?
My neurons seemed to have stopped in place, refusing to form words beyond this single syllable. My emotions similarly froze in place behind some deeply protective wall. Happy, sad, and angry were all impossible. I could only feel a blank weight weighing down my heart and lungs.
I noticed details: the florescent lights coming off the ceiling, the aide’s ice blue eyes, slick dark hair, the smirk on his upturned lip, his not-yet-filled-in chest under his crisp white shirt, the smooth jaw that looks not-yet-capable of growing a beard. His conservative youth was a stark contrast to my white bobbed hair and my friend’s pale blue undercut.
Perhaps he’s trying to comfort us? I finally thought. It’s an odd form of comfort, telling us that even if the legislature decides to call us child abusers, child protective services might just keep investigating us indefinitely rather than take our kids away. But I don’t think he was aiming for comfort. He looked too much like a power-hungry cat batting at a mouse it plans to kill.
But his cruelty didn’t make me cry. It stayed with the blankness I felt with each vote banning kids from playing on sports teams that match their assigned gender when Ken Paxton declared that gender-affirming care for minors was child abuse, when Greg Abbott instructed DFPS to investigate families of trans kids, or when my friends started moving out of the state. My emotions were too big for me to feel, leaving only a vast blankness. Blankness doesn’t lead to tears.
On my living room television, Stewart starts interviewing Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge about a law that blocks children from receiving gender-affirming medical care.
Rutlege says a few things I haven’t heard before in her justification for this law. She could be Charlie Brown’s teacher for all the sense her words made.
But Stewart leans toward her and gently, oh so gently, says, “Well, that’s a bunch of made-up data. What’s your source?” He remains infallibly kind as he disagrees with her. He ends the interview by saying he would move heaven and earth if his child was suffering and there was a treatment that would help. He told her he believed she would do the same thing, and he hoped her law would be overturned.
Something in Stewart’s gentle, respectful demeanor unlocked the emotions that hadn’t felt safe to feel. My tears mix with the warm dishwater. I have to empty the sink. I have to sit down.
It wasn’t the cruelty that made me cry. It was kindness.
