Confessions of prejudice: Getting educated can be a shock

It's socially dangerous to admit to having once held an unfair prejudice. Nonetheless I'm about to do just that... publicly. And, no, this isn't one of those things where I turn this around to make me look good. I had a bad prejudice. Bad at least among people I respect. 

I want to do this for several reasons:

• I have a friend who has courage and I want to measure up,
• It's one of those things, I think we individually owe the universe,
• It's possible that if I speak up, I may take some of the flack that others might unfairly face,
• I want people like me to know that prejudice is a something to change, not a reason for shame,
• And the story itself is prejudice-busting.

I have met with fairly extreme reactions in the past when I have named a certain attitude as "prejudiced." So, let's be clear. I'm talking about these two definitions from dictionary.com:

Prejudice (noun): 1. an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason. 2. any preconceived opinion or feeling, either favorable or unfavorable.

The easy way to keep this in mind is to remember that "prejudice" is "pre-judgement." 

So, here is my story...

Creative Commons image by Zuerichs Strassen of Flickr

I grew up very rural and mostly without a TV. That's not really an excuse because many people who live in cities and watch TV make the same assumptions. I'm just saying. I was a bit provincial. But I was brought up to be pro-civil-rights. My mother was the only white student made an honorary member of her university's Black Students Association back in the 1960's and we had diverse friends. I was taught to be open-minded about other people's appearances and abilities. I was born legally blind after all. 

And yet in my twenties I was a bit uncomfortable around gay and lesbian friends. Not very. Just slightly.

I had nothing against their private life, but the few times the subject of sexuality came up with them there was a combative atmosphere to the conversation and I lacked the sense of shared experience that I have with gay and lesbian friends today. Sex is part of life. It's fine to talk about what you like. It is no big deal that a gay friend and I agree on which men look hot (even if I'm married). But back then it was taboo. And that made it hard for a provincial young woman to get used to.

I got more used to it after I ended up with a no-nonsense lesbian roommate, who was instrumental in matchmaking my marriage. But she was tougher than most and tended to bury her own vulnerabilities in order to help those less educated than herself. 

Where I was truly prejudiced was in another area. I had only ever seen reference to transgender people on TV and almost all of the images were fairly flamboyant--men dressed unrealistically as women, being very loud and talking of nothing else but their desire for a "sex change." I certainly wasn't going to say anything out loud, but I secretly felt sorry for my lesbian and gay friends. It seemed like a shame that these "normal people" were being lumped together in the term LGBT with people who, in my view, seemed to be simply seeking attention and trying to be as racy as possible. 

Some years later, I was struggling with infertility and desperately wishing for friends who could really understand that painful road. I had one set of close friends who were rumored to be headed for IVF as well, but they refused to talk about it. I felt lonely and rejected, even though I knew how painful the subject could be. 

I'd known this couple for five intense years. The husband and I had been working together daily on a project for several years and I thought that if anyone would ever understand our struggle with infertility he would. 

When he finally did open up on the topic, I was in for a surprise. The reason he hadn't wanted to discuss it before was that he was transgender, having gone through the transition as a young adult. Knowing how much prejudice and stereotypes people often harbor about the issue, he kept it quiet. It's obviously a very private thing and in his case the only truly serious ongoing complication was the question of having children. 

I have rarely ever been so wrong about my guesses as to what was going on with a friend's silence. And it was telling to me that I could know a person for five years, work with him daily and never have any inkling of such a thing. I may be as likely to be taken in by prejudice as the next person, but I'm not a complete idiot. I realized immediately that this was definitive proof of the complete normalcy of transgender medical issues. 

In my friend's case it was almost entirely a past event. He isn't an "ordinary guy" because he's too awesome to be ordinary. But he fits no stereotypes and appears very comfortable with his life.

This revelation was one of a string of things that taught me an even deeper lesson than the simple banishment of a particular prejudice. It taught me to look at and recognize my prejudices, to question them and continue to grow in understanding. I am slower to jump to those silent judgments that people make when watching others. 

What's the greatest change of thinking you've undergone? Have you ever had to confront your own prejudice or seen that you were wrong in a judgment about people? I love your comments on these posts. Drop a line below and keep in touch!