As a prelude to this story, let me make something clear… I am secure enough in my own masculinity to not suffer from homophobia and I am not a religious fanatic that believes that everyone who follows an alternative lifestyle (sexually) is some kind of abomination that needs to be eraticated from the planet. That said, I found this story on CNN to be particularly painful…
Now I really don’t care that Silverton’s mayor is a transsexual male. If the people of Silverton don’t care, it is none of my business. They elected him and it was clear when he was running for the position that he was a transsexual.
What I found… interesting.. about this story is not the the fact that the mayor follows an alternative lifestyle, but how he is representing his position as Mayor. This situation would be no different if the mayor was a 20 something knockout woman. If she wore a backless mini-dress to speak (as Mayor) to a group of students, I would be complaining too. His/Her choice of attire was not, by any means, responcible or representative. To make matters worse, it appears that the town of Silverdale has a dress code for thier elected officials and I certainly don’t think his/her attire even comes close to meeting that standard.
This story harkens back to something I learned in my younger, activist days. If you want people to take you seriously about your choices (be in an alternative lifestyle, a political movement, or a protest of some injustice you see in the world), dressing to shock people is not the way to go about it. People stop listening to you or taking you serious (focusing instead on your outragious clothing and actions) and you do more harm to your cause than good. If this person wants to be taken seriously, he should have given more thought about his attire when speaking to a group of youth from the Silverton Together organization.
Moorcat