When Safety and Security are a Privilege, not a Basic Right

You know what’s f—ed up?  When you have to plan your whole life around where it’s safe for you to simply live and pursue normal activities, due to the danger of fanatical bigots (of any religious persuasion) wielding guns and hate.  When any routine activity is subject to insecurity, scrutiny, or even violence, in the name of someone’s intolerant, hateful belief system, we’ve gone off the deep end into sheer insanity.  There is nothing right or excusable about this behavior.

If you think anyone chooses to be gay or trans, you are delusional.  It’s like choosing to be born black in a racist world.  One would have to be insane to volunteer to be targeted and persecuted by stupid people just for the hell of it.  No more than a child born into poverty chooses that lifestyle.  It was assigned to them by birth through no fault of their own.  They just want to transition out of that stigma and into normalcy and security like anyone else.

Unless you grew up marginalized and denied basic rights that others take for granted, like having your vital documents reflect your actual identity, not that of some imposter or masquerader that others expect you to be, you can never really understand how scared and at risk this existence can be.  It’s like trying to understand the craving of a person brought up poor and abused to attain material security, when you grew up privileged, with everything you needed.  It’s easy to judge and criticize what makes little sense to you.  But for that person, it’s utterly real and vital to attain security, validity, and equality.

It seems we can never become complacent about anything in this crazed country.  Just when you think it’s safe to come out and go about your normal, daily business, it’s not.  We have a long way to go.  Some of us can’t just go live anywhere, or expect to find reasonable routine medical care, or let down our guard or vigilance in any situation.  Some people have to wait months or years to be approved for routine documents or business that others get done automatically.  Basic needs and rights are a privilege reserved for the “deserving”.  If you are one of the “undeserving”, they’ll pray for you as they blast you straight to hell.  It’s not yet safe to be a fellow human being.

justice scales

 

 

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