The transgender debate is telling us a lot about the people participating in it. People who feel themselves to be transgender simply want the right to live unmolested. They believe themselves to be a different gender than the anatomy they were born with. This is a completely personal thing. If we respect personal privacy we will not make laws about it. The Make America Great Again crowd don’t want transgender people to exist at all.

Consider the campaign against Target’s pride display? There is footage on the internet of people pulling down displays and stamping them. This person is willing to commit vandalism on tape. Why aren’t they afraid of being charged and arrested for a crime? If they will threaten staff and destroy property in public what will they do in private? How safe is a trans person away from the camera?

Do trans people have a right to exist?

They do exist. Whether we acknowledge them or not. They have always existed. It’s true that in my youth gender was considered a coin with only two sides, male and female. The famous piano player Liberace was just eccentric, not gay. For a girl to be called a tomboy is a compliment, but to call a boy a sissy is an insult. Everyone who could hide it, did.

The young people now see gender as a spectrum. They know that 2% of the population is born intersexed (with both male and female sex characteristics).

The environment in school has changed in an effort to make it more fair. It’s OK for boys to play with dolls and for girls to play with power tools. Boys who play with dolls grow up to be men who hold their babies. Girls who know welding grow up to make a good living. No more shop or home economics, now it’s life skills. Everybody learns to sew and cook.

Why do the Make America Great Again people hate transgendered people so much they destroy private property and assault store clerks? Why hate them so much they want to legislate them out of existence?

I think hate is so powerful because it clogs your brain. When you are consumed with hate you are not feeling pain. If we are to address the hatred we must first address the pain.

Rural communities have a lot to grieve. Our landscape is dotted with empty factories. Petri’s did not die a natural death. ConAgra bought it to clean up the competition. There are similar stories behind all these empty decaying buildings. There are many farms no longer working. There are a lot of people who would like to be farmers but they don’t have a cash crop. Wendell Berry wrote a book “The Unsettling of America” about the bad governmental agricultural programs that have killed the family farm.

Empty factories mean empty houses decaying everywhere. It’s depressing to see a house with all the windows smashed.

We are all missing the ash trees. There is a new boxwood pest and I am afraid for the maples.

The MAGA group would like someone to blame. Immigrants, liberals, transpeople it must be someone’s fault. Things were good in the 1960s when only white men were on the news. When only white men were doctors and lawyers before gay rights and women’s liberation.

The world is never going to be that way again. Gay people are out and they will never go back.

There is something from the 1960s that we can bring back, a fair tax rate.

In 1960 the top tax rate was 70% in 2023 its 37%. Plus there are enough loopholes that Elon Musk brags he paid no taxes last year.

The poorest people pay the highest percentage of their income in taxes. Sales tax hits pretty hard. We are only asking that Elon Musk pay his fair share. Let’s make a special one time 2% wealth tax on everybody with over $1 billion. The rich person will not go hungry but we can use the money feed a lot of hungry people. Why should anyone, especially the elderly or children go without food so a rich person can hang on to every penny?

The question of hunger and social responsibility is worthy of more discussion. It is at the heart of the farm bill which if we could influence in the right way would give people a cash crop so that farmers could make a good living again. Financially viable farms would do a lot to lift rural moral.

Why are Republicans trying to legislate transgendered people out of existence instead of addressing our problems? Because they want to distract us from demanding the rich pay their fair share and from global warming. The fires in Quebec may be out but the one’s in California are still going. It’s only a matter of time before we have fires here in New York.

Marie Tomlinson is a Fredonia resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com