You don’t always know you’re in a cage until you find a door.
We all live in a prison. It is the prison we build every day when we label the world around us. Some people’s prisons are strong and inescapable. Others are more open. How you think and use language changes these conditions.
The struggle for Transgender rights is only another step on the road for all human rights. Whether it’s the colour of your skin, your gender, your class, your age or some other aspect of ‘you’ that makes you different. It is also the struggle for womens rights, men’s rights and everyones right to personal self expression. To be you, to be free.
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
I was inspired to write this by Sarah McBride’s talk which eloquently focuses on these issues toward the end:
It’s interesting in the 'comments section' of Sarah McBride’s talk on YouTube. Whilst most are positive, the few negative comments seem to focus on the fact she isn’t what they ‘label’ her as. Likewise these negative comments seem to be by individuals who don’t understand the difference between the sex and gender lables. Can they not see in labling (or miss-labling) her they are building a cage for themselves, their families and everyone? So much trouble and negative energy in our world is caused by too little education or miss-understanding. Education free’s us. And we all can learn.
“The sign of intelligence is that you are constantly wondering. Idiots are always dead sure about every damn thing they are doing in their life.”
Words are tools we use to explain things and hopefully clearly communicate. They are not reality. We do need words and labels but we must recognise when a potentially useful label stops being a word ‘we’ use and instead becomes a word that uses us. When this happens it becomes another brick in our cell wall, it becomes our reality.
“People have fallen in love with words and lost the world.”
When will we learn to treat people as individuals not as a label, a preconception or construct we feel they should be? If we as humans don’t give ourselves these rights no one else can, and we can never be truly free as a species. Until then we will daily create the prison for our mind that is the natural outcome of letting labels control us.
We should allow ourselves the freedom to express who we are without prejudice. We need to give ourselves and our children's children, the right to be free. Words can be used as positive tools but they can trap us if we don't use our minds when we communicate.
We may never truely be free in our own lifetime's, but at least we can begin to define the prision walls and learn where the door may be.
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