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Celebrating Diversity

A Significant Other View
by Julie Freeman

This article is reprinted with permission from DEVIL WOMAN, the Diablo Valley Girls newsletter. Ms Freeman is the wife of a crossdresser. She can be reached at Julie39@comcast.net

Celebrating Diversity
As children, we looked for conformity. We wanted our parents to be like everyone else’s. We wanted our friends to be just like us or at least look like us! We wanted to live in a house like our friend’s. We wanted our neighborhood to be like our friend’s. We found comfort and solace in the status quo; we celebrated sameness! We not only did not like those who were different, we were terrified of being ostracized by our peers simply because we were different.

But as we grew older, we became more aware of our surroundings and came to realize that we are not alike at all. We are quite varied in our appearance, our philosophies, and our values.

So as we grew up and became more secure in our own individuality, we came to understand and value difference and some of us even grew to celebrate it. This over time required maturity, knowledge, and awareness.

Hopefully, we learned that without diversity the human race might not have survived. As children, we were told that men are the hunters and women are the nurturers. Men provide for the women and children, and the women take care of the household and the children. Well, we all know how impossible that scenario is in today’s world!

But let us go back millions or at least thousands of years. What would have happened if in one small community for example, the males went out hunting as was their assigned role and never returned! Perhaps they were killed by a neighboring tribe or perhaps they fell victim to some natural catastrophe. What were the women to do??

Obviously, some of them would have to take on the role of hunter if their community was to survive. Without diversity, there might not have been a single female willing to step up to the plate!! But of course this was not the case. Nature provided diversity to allow for such situations and those more masculine women probably enjoyed immensely changing their roles even if for only a short time.

Likewise, if the males return from the hunt to find the females had been killed by a neighboring tribe, some of them might have to step up to the plate to take care of any remaining children and babies. Without diversity, there might not have been a single volunteer from the male community and the children would simply have died from lack of care.

So it doesn’t take much education to realize that all of us benefit from belonging to a species, which is so varied and diverse. We should be celebrating diversity, not running from it.

Unfortunately some individuals never learn this. These are the people who ridicule anyone who is not like them; spout hatred in the name of religion when confronting difference, and may even resort to violence when they believe it necessary to restore the status quo.

So it is no surprise to those of us in the gender world to experience discrimination. We can only hope that through more education and awareness, those who discriminate may at least come to respect diversity even if they can never celebrate it.

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