I'm a simple being with evolving perspective.

I was scrolling through facebook this morning and saw a post that sparked something inside me. 

A tiny flame of anger. I do not often express my opinions on "hot button" issues. I am not political. 

I am not even religious anymore. However I like to think that in the past years I have grown-up in many ways and because of this my old ways of thinking now seem ridiculous. When I read this post that had been shared, I considered the source and thought, "I was like that once". Comparing things that have zero relation to try and bolster what I was convinced, because I attended the true church, (a topic for another day...) was no doubt true. Truer than true. No other way. Black and white.

 Right and wrong. While a fraction of things in life appear to be that way, even those rarely are. 

Identity is not one of those things. Biology is not one of those things. Love is not one of those things. 

I realize up to this point you have no idea what I'm actually talking about. It will take one phrase to let you know and to also color your thoughts, for good or for bad, for support or to disagree. 

The new target bathroom policy. 

See, you already either think I'm a hippie, heathen or 

you know exactly the judgement that I am referring to.

I have two reasons for my perspective. 

1. I sympathize with worried parents. I have no children of my own so I can only imagine and try to see your perspective of being worried about the safety of your children in a public restroom. Over the last year I have grown to love and worry about my boyfriends 7-year-old daughter. The first time we were in public and he let her go to the restroom on her own, out of protective instinct, I got up and went to the restroom too. I had to think this one through too. What else is a single father supposed to do? Hover at the restroom door? Take her in to the men's restroom? Either of those approaches would warrant all those before mentioned worried parents to think he was some kind of perv or shady character. That is 100% absolutely not the case. He is just one of those worried parents, doing the best that he can, teaching his daughter to be smart and safe. It's hard to see the situation from the outside. 
2. I have known two transgender individuals. When I was going to school to be an interpreter I had a great teacher who taught us many things about our trade. He himself was an interpreter so it was always good to have his insight on different lessons we were learning. Nothing really struck me about him or his appearance that made me think, he is different, other than he was rather short. I graduated from the program and he moved away. It wasn't until years later that I even found out that he was born a woman. And when I did find out, it did not change who he was to me one bit. HE had still been a mentor and a friend in my educational journey. It didn't matter to me that he had started life out using a different bathroom. The other person I know was a different experience for me because I was told from the start that she was not always the girl I knew. But just because she wasn't always a girl doesn't mean she was bad or different. Boy or girl she was a great role model to younger students at our school, involved, respectful, focused, friendly and that is what matters. Again not which bathroom she uses. 

I don't share my opinion because it's "right". 

I don't tell you my experience to change your mind or prove a point. 

I simply put my perspective out into the world in the hopes that it might help someone see the issue in a different light. That instead of thinking all the negative things that could happen in regards to a policy, maybe one could think of the people who could be positively effected. I am still learning to look at people and try to understand their journey instead of giving them a quick label and being done with pondering. My goal is to love. To come closer to understanding people by learning from them and not judging them based on my lack of knowledge.