Rhino Ramblings

What is riskier that a rhino on a skateboard?

I was in one of my favorite adult cities – Las Vegas – a few weeks ago.  I love the presumptive artificiality and fakeness. I also like blackjack.  I first played at Caesar’s Palace and sat at a table with roadies from Carrie Underwood’s performance (20 years ago, fresh off her Idol win). I won about $300.  Since then I have played occasionally in Vegas, DC and South Dakota ($1 tables in the Best Western lobby with rodeo cowboys hanging around). I typically come away a winner – guessing around $1000 in 20 years (I hope this does not get me in trouble with the IRS). This time I considered the risk and realized in no small part due to recent new windows and related house upgrades, the risk of losing $200 to $500 (for $15 tables that is a typical minimum to start with) was not attractive to me.  It is, after all, a gamble.  I did not take a risk and bravely or cowardly walked by the tables on the way to and from the conference. 

Bravery – a word I ascribed to me 30 years ago when, in front of 50 co-workers, I presented my plan to officially and fully transition to be Joanne. I have heard similar rumors of bravity in the past year as I re-emerged from my Glass Closet and embraced who I am and the meaning for myself and others.  I am always taken aback with that term.  The reason, perhaps, relates to the interaction of gambling, risk, bravery, certainty and need. Referring to my last blog, The Talk, Black parents do not do a risk analysis nor are they being brave when they have The Talk with their children about the risks incurred when leaving the house (as related to me by one of my friends and readers, The Talk was not one event but a daily one). I do not mean to conflate my life paths with others; however, similarities abound. In a movie with one of the longest titles: The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to Watch Titanic, the central and only fully realized character is blind and confined to a wheelchair.  The film explores his physical risks and a sub-text of the personal psychological risk (overheard neighbors’ comments: “what is wrong with him”; “He must have drunk himself into being in that state” etc.).  He has a need to venture on his own to meet his on-line friend who is dying of cancer.  He is not brave.  The risks are noted by himself and others.  And yet he must, not in a gamble but in a necessity, take the perilous journey. 

In the mid-1990s I had to take a journey (future blogs will explore what propelled the “had”).  I recognized there were risks.  I was explicitly told by the NASA lawyer I approached that, while he supported me personally, there were no legal protections and if management wanted, I could be fired.  Previous blogs noted other transition-based risks both imagined, real and in some cases acted upon by others.  One could argue (and I know people do) that it was a risk-based decision, unlike being Black or blind and in a wheelchair.  Those same people are likely to claim they are not racist, they just want everyone to conform (a recent term used by a superintendent explaining why a black student was expelled due to their hair style).   

The risks of money loss that result in passing a blackjack table is decidedly different from the risks of embracing who one is (DWB (driving while black); or holding hands with one’s partner/spouse who happens to be the same gender; or openly expressing one’s gender despite the original birth assignment), whether color of skin, physical handicaps, sexual orientation, gender identity, ethnicity or religious / non-religious or etc.  The common through line for these and similar examples is that risks are real, exist and may be dangerous.  The aforementioned friend told me that she will not risk going to certain places due to the risk factors.  Risks that are much higher than losing $500.  In my new journey/re-journey into supporting the LGBTQIA+ community I am taking on a DEIA leadership role. I was informed that the group is focused in part on the risks and dangers faced by staff in areas where trans and gay rights are being trampled and replaced by legal actions including fines and jail time.  In turn these legal actions legitimize the extra-legal violence against those now defined as obscene and unwanted due solely to their non–conformity.  Bravery does not define how to react – necessity does. 

In the 90’s and unfortunately still true in the 2020’s I encourage everyone to consider the risks that they face.  Those risks need not be the determining or even a determining factor in how one lives.  In Awakening the protagonist understands she risks everything to act outside of society’s rules but cannot do otherwise.  In the movie Maestro – a biopic about Leonard Bernstein – he risked his and his wife’s family and career due to being gay or bi. Difficulties and strife abounded, and yet they stayed together throughout.  I personally know of people who transitioned and remained with their partner.  In my case, the risk became reality and divorce was the result.   The risk I took was not from bravery but necessity.  I dreaded at a support group when the risks in a forthcoming discussion with a partner were ignored or discarded.  Loss of that partnership and in some cases loss of interaction with ones children needed to be acknowledged to prepare for resulting mental and even physical anguish. I recall one support member unprepared for the risk of losing their customers at their shoe stores in the end (they did lose the customers, the stores and perhaps not coincidentally and all so tragically died within a year or two of their transition).  Risk management is a good computer security term but not a good personal decision term.  Perhaps Risk Acknowledgement is the correct personal term.  Acknowledge and understand.  And then act, not while managing the risk and not by being brave and not by gambling one’s life.  Act as one must and can with eyes open to the risks.  The “can” and “must” are important terms – I do not mean to imply that everyone who is gay is able to or should openly profess themselves; or that every trans-person should jump up and transition; or that every Black person should happily go into a racist environment.  Every person and every situation has their own definition and level of “can” and “must”.  “Eyes open to the risks” may require a call for action or inaction or other action. 

A final thought – there is another related discussion path, not of “can and must” but of “want and desire and choice”.  Everyone should, as long as you are not harming yourself or others, be able to both act as one must and also as one chooses.