F.E.A.R.– The Bane and Boogeyman of Human Life

From the moment we begin to crawl, walk and experience the world around us, we have loving parents or guardians who caution us, “No! That’s hot! That will hurt you! Don’t touch that! Don’t eat that! Don’t drink that!”

 

As we get a little bit older, the cautions continue: “Don’t talk to strangers! Don’t go there! Look both ways!”

 

Are you aware that, at birth, we’re instinctively afraid of only two things: the fear of falling and of loud noises. Literally every other fear we have has been taught to us, trained into us, or developed in us because we had bad experiences that educated us about a particular hazard.

 

And being cautious is a good thing, in general. We can name a hundred things that we should be afraid of in the world, and probably at least a handful that we should be cautious about right at home: loose rugs, toxic household chemicals, drinking too much alcohol (or in some cases, any at all), COVID-19 exposure, etc.

 

But what gets me is the array of things that keep people from doing what they feel certain they were born to do, or what they’ve longed to do. When I ask them why, I hear absolute nonsense, rationalizations for what’s stopping them, which is F.E.A.R. (False Evidence Appearing Real).

 

They wonder what the neighbors or their families will say or think if they step outside those peoples’ comfort zones and mindsets about who they are or ought to be.

 

What keeps people from speaking in public without feeling as if they’re about to stand before a firing squad?  F.E.A.R.

 

What keeps people from pursuing the career of their dreams with hammer and tong?  F.E.A.R. (Usually other people’s fears.)

 

What keeps LGBTQI people in the closet, and what keeps anti-LGBTQI people from seeking out and actually meeting with some LGBTQI people at PRIDE festivals or GLAAD meetings?  F.E.A.R.

 

Before I came out as transgender, I pondered (feared) what other people (especially loved ones and religious zealots) might think, say or do as a result of such a disclosure.

 

But guess what?

 

I  was greeted with love, compassion, and additional “confessions” from a handful of other transgender and LGBTQI people and their parents! I had never before felt such an outpouring of love and support in my life!

 

If anyone found my revelation shocking (which I highly doubt–I’ve dressed like a guy my entire life except when forced to wear dresses and skirts in grade and high school back in the day) or disgusting, they went away without a word and that was the end of that.

 

The only exception was my younger sister, who has always been super-sensitive about what people think of her and those she hangs with. (Here’s a hysterical example: Jackie said she wouldn’t sit with me at  her son’s football game in Southern California if I insisted on wearing the customary So Cal wraparound sunglasses, so I said “Fine! Have fun!” When she declared, “You have to go watch him!” I said, “No, I don’t, not if I won’t be sitting with you.” She finally relented, only to realize that everyone in the stadium was wearing them except her.)

 

Jackie asked me to keep my transgender status a secret from her friends, but that  became impossible when I wrote Womb Man: How I Survived Growing Up in a Booby-Trapped World, my contribution to helping hurting families understand why their loved one who has come out as transgender isn’t the crushing, one-of-a-kind anomaly they believe them to be, nor are they an abomination in God’s eyes. And her friends, uniformly, also embraced my truth. (One of them even told me, “I always knew there was something different about you that I just couldn’t put my finger on, but that’s it. You’re a guy! BINGO! It all makes sense now!”)

 

Jackie didn’t mind that I was transgender; she just thought other people might find the fact unsettling. Using that same logic, she shouldn’t ever be seen with black people, brown people, dwarf people, or anyone else who doesn’t represent the “average” look… and she has friends in every one of those categories that she hangs with.

 

F.E.A.R.

 

Yeah, there are some real creeps in this world who make “otherness” their special cause, but you don’t hang with them, do you? I presume you stay as far away from them as I do.

 

If you do, whatever it is you want to do with your life or proclaim as your essence shouldn’t cause you much fear.  The people who love you now will still love you. (If they don’t, they never really did and it’s good to find that out as soon as you can. Illusions of unconditional love and support are just that: illusory.)

 

So, take that stage…sing that song… write that book… embrace the person you truly are. Your true tribe will stay with you, and others will join you when you reveal who you are.

 

It’s only the fearful ones who will step away, the ones F.E.A.R. controls.

 

You need promoters and yay-sayers in your life, not pouters and naysayers.

 

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