By now, most are aware of the horrific incident that took place in Portland, Oregon on May 26, in which two men lost their lives and a third was gravely injured as they attempted to protect two Black teenage females (one of whom was wearing a hijab) from what can only be described as a hateful white racist. 

As Michael Tanner observed in an on-line piece for the National Review, the three protectors couldn’t have been more different. He writes, “Rick Best was a 53-year-old Republican who had unsuccessfully run for county commissioner on a conservative platform….Taliesin Namkai-Meche was Best’s political opposite, a 23-year-old liberal environmentalist…(and) Micah David-Cole Fletcher, 21, struggled with autism. He worked at a pizza shop while attending Portland State University. In his free time, he wrote poems, including one on tolerance that had won a local contest.”

Tanner further observed. “These men couldn’t have been more different...Yet, last week, all three of them intervened (to protect the two teen women)….Anyone looking for American exceptionalism need look no farther than the courage of these three men.”

Rick and Taliesin were killed in the attack. It is reported that as he lay dying, Taliesin whispered “Tell everyone on this train that I love them.” (See this blog post by one of Taliesin’s professors who shares about the beauty of his student.) 

What brought these three men together to protect other humans? 

I often speak of how humans are “hard-wired for empathy” and how the vast majority of us (“99 percent”) want to do the right thing. These men represent what I firmly believe about our society and country—that we are collectively so tired of hatred and division and are willing to put our bodies on the line to prove that. Empathy has no political or ideological limits. Goodness is goodness regardless of the color of one’s skin or the box they check on a ballot. Everyone has the ability to speak up for others. 

Please remember the brave humans on that Portland light rail train.  

I’ve held off until now—Pride Month—to highlight a delightful story of transgender allyship out of Wyoming (not knowns for its liberalism). As reported in late April, cisgender (non-transgender) men across Wyoming donned tutus to protest a statement by Wyoming state senator Mike Enzi made in response to a high school student journalist’s question about LGBTQ rights. Enzi replied:

“We always say that in Wyoming you can be just about anything you want to be, as long as you don’t push it in somebody’s face. I know a guy who wears a tutu and goes to bars on Friday night and is always surprised that he gets in fights. Well, he kind of asks for it. That’s the way he winds up with that kind of problem.”

Some thought that Enzi was referring to a well-known Wyomingite, Sissy Goodwin, a retired college professor who also publicly cross-dresses wearing petticoats (which Sen. Enzi might have mistaken for a tutu—duh, most men can’t tell the difference). Goodwin joined the statewide protest, which gained social media traction as #LiveAndLetTutu, after the state’s unofficial motto, “live and let live.”

A local bar in Sissy Goodwin’s hometown, Butch’s, created a flyer under the banner #WeHaveSissysBack and offered free drinks to anyone who wore a tutu into the bar. Social media showed many pictures of tutu-wearing men at bars across Wyoming.

Sen. Enzi later privately apologized to Goodwin and publicly to anyone else he may have offended. Sissy Goodwin accepted the apology, stating, “He offered an apology and I have no doubt to believe it was genuine. I think we had a respectful dialogue. If anything comes out of this, we both agree that it’s opening a discussion and illuminating the issues to the benefit of everyone concerned.” (This is a good example of the need for both an apology and forgiveness-see elsewhere in this newsletter…)

On a more recent note, last week the state of Oregon announced that it would soon begin issuing drivers licenses with a third non-binary option, “X”, in addition to “male” and “female.” This is to take into account the thousands of Oregonians who don’t consider themselves one or the other gender and who view their gender as “queer” “non-conforming” or simply “other.” California is also considering adding a non-binary option to drivers licenses, birth certificates and other government-issued documents. A note to my friend Phil Durand—who is working on getting Minnesota to accept a non-binary drivers license category—doesn’t this make you happy?

And, did you see the photo of the gay Rhode Island of the Year who went all out to show that he wasn’t afraid to be oh so gay in a photo with President Trump? The photo shows Nikos Giannopoulos with head tilted away from the president toward a black lace fan he’d brought with him. He wore a rainbow pin on his lapel, a ring through his nose and a gold anchor (the state symbol) around his neck. As reported in the Washington Post, Giannopoulas said, “The issue with being openly queer is (sic) our existence is constantly politicized,” he said. “They never stop to think: Oh, maybe that’s just who I am.”

Finally, to the educators who are reading this, here’s a story about how teachers who are transgender are showing up more and more in the classroom. In some instances, doing so hasn’t’ been without major challenges. Still, this is the way of the future, as we all know.