Who am I?

That is really the question,  right? The question that we have all been driven to discover the answer to about ourselves. I have made it no secret that I am a Christian. To me, this means that I strive to follow my God and be an example of His love to those with whom I have contact. No matter how that contact is made.

Yesterday was a very rough day for me. I was called hateful by someone that I had considered a friend. It doesn’t matter how long you know someone, you never really know them. Do you ever really know anyone? The recent controversial bathroom topic came up. She posted an article that explained that people are using their children as an excuse to be hateful to the transgender community. I want to make it very clear before I continue that I have no issue with a transgender human being using the restroom of the gender with which they identify. I have a friend that is transgender. I love him dearly. To meet him on the street, you would never know he is transgender. He is a great person, and I have learned a lot from him in the time that I have known him.

The issue that I do have as the mother of a child who was molested by her own father, is that making the case that transgenders being able to use the bathroom of the gender with which they identify has opened a big can of worms. Before you jump to any conclusions, let me clarify. We have been using the restroom with transgender people for years. Guess what?! You didn’t realize it! Why? Because you didn’t know. Because you couldn’t tell. Here is my biggest problem: by broadcasting this and causing a controversy out of it, we have given molesters an opening. The way this is being understood, is that if someone identifies as the opposite gender, they can go into that restroom. Ok. I get that. So, what’s to keep a random guy from taking advantage of this and going into the women’s bathroom because he says that he identifies as a woman, when he has never done so before? The same goes for a woman going into the men’s bathroom. Nothing can be said to them, because it is discrimination. It isn’t right. It isn’t safe. I know that public restrooms aren’t safe to begin with, but I feel that this has made them even less safe. How do you tell a child, that has a problem with men anyway, because of what her father did to her, that she could walk into a bathroom and see a man standing there, and it is perfectly okay for him to do so?

I am not hateful. I don’t hate. I don’t judge. As I have stated before, it is not my place to judge. I am protective. My daughter and other people’s children have been through enough. They don’t need their fears confronting them in a public restroom.

This “friend” has decided that I am no longer needed in her life because I don’t agree with her. She made sure that she had the last word on her detrimental post. It is what it is. I am hurt, but I will recover as we all do. All that I can say of her is that I love her, and I will continue to pray for her. One thing that we all need to realize is that we can agree to disagree. Not everyone agrees, and we never will.