Family Can Be Cruel

It is very true, and especially so after spending the evening with my family.

All in all in was a very nice evening. Spending time with family for the Easter holiday is always nice. We went out to dinner then went back to my parents house to spend time together. As we all sat in the living room, someone turned the TV on and then it was decided that we would all play a game. What game is irrelevant, it is what was on the TV that this is all about.

Now we left the TV on, as background noise, but I was glad it was left on. The channel was on ABC and 20/20 had just started. Now normally I really don't care about what's on TV and have only seen 20/20 maybe a handful of times in my life, but tonight I wanted to see it. Tonight they were airing the interview with that trans woman from Canada who was banned from the beauty pageant. Because it related to me in some way, I just wanted to see it. I felt I had to.

So as the game went on, I payed attention to and got involved in it, but the majority of my attention was to the television. Now at some point, someone I forget who (because of what was said following), pointed out what was going on on TV. They said they remembered hearing about her and quickly most everyone else recognized the story as well. It was at this point I had hope. Hoping that something nice, compassionate, or open-minded would have come out of somebody's mouth. That hope was short lived.

Everybody in the room either made fun of her, said she was gross, or that she was wrong, or laughed at her, or said she deserves not to be able to compete, or said she's not a real woman, and so on and so on. I was completely ashamed of my family. I just sat there in silence as I felt my heart sink. I wanted to cry, I really did. Perhaps I should have said something in her defense, but I didn't. I felt very outnumbered with all the close-mindedness in the room. Like I said, I wanted to cry. I was hurt at their reactions.

People can be very cruel indeed.