I probably don’t have to tell you that I can, at times, tend to be just a tad bit stubborn.
What can I say? I’ve got opinions, I feel very strong about many of them, and I certainly don’t mind sharing them with anyone who cares to read or listen. And because I’ve put a considerable amount of effort into these things, I’m not always as welcome to change as others would like – sometimes this is a bad thing, sometimes quite the contrary. Of course, it’s often times easy to get into that rut where we so adamantly despise change because it would require moving out of the comfort zone that we’ve grown accustomed to and into something completely different. Those once confident and sure of themselves now feel anxious and defensive as the tables are turned – it’s no wonder we’d rather stay put!
But mind you, that’s only one side of the coin, for whereas some might see change as impeding and threatening, others welcome it as an opportunity to explore new worlds and ideas and beliefs – truly a glass half-empty or half-full kind of situation. I, myself, am often times found somewhere in the middle – cautious of change, but at the same time curious with an open mind to what else might be out there. Granted, I may very well not welcome or invite whatever changes are out there, but at least accepting that alternatives exist is a pretty good first step and often times I find myself wondering just how different our society might be today if folks were a bit more eager to think outside their own worlds and consider life in the shoes of another…
Well for starters, I suppose the last few weeks might’ve been a little more positive for Steve Stanton, City Manager of Largo – a vibrant community just across the bay from me here in Tampa – who was recently voted to be fired by the city after an embarrassing public outcry when it was made public that he wished to undergo a sex-change operation and keep his position after the transition. Having gone back and forth with the concept ever since he had been a child, Stanton had finally decided earlier this year to go through with the surgery to become a woman permanently and had confided in a very small group of individuals his plans to make the news public later on that summer when the time was right. Shortly thereafter, however, the story was leaked to the local paper who of course proceeded to run with it like the vicious dogs that they can be, inconsiderate of the intimate personal nature of the issue even if the man was a public official, and the chaos really hasn’t stopped since.
But even as appalling as the newspaper’s behavior was, I’m not here to talk about that kind of sensationalism that we’ve more or less come to accept from the media in general these days because ultimately I still think that such disregard is immensely overshadowed by the lack of compassion, understanding, and open-mindedness that was displayed by the very same people that Stanton has served with great success over the previous 17 years, with the first 3 bearing the office of assistant city manager before he was promoted to replace his predecessor who had resigned due to performance issues involving bad relations with other employees. Stanton had led a great career with the City of Largo and boasted quite an impressive paycheck to go along with it – some $140,000 / year after continual reviews of good performance – but it only took one difference of opinion to turn the people on him and send his world crashing down. Earlier this week, the man listened to over three hours of negative reactions and bias as citizens took to the mike at a special meeting to decide the fate of the manager’s future with the City of Largo and although a few supporters rose to his defense, scads more had nothing nice to say at all, citing everything from a lack of integrity and respect to even beliefs that Jesus Christ himself would agree that the man should be fired if he were present in the room. Ultimately the vote came down 5-to-2 against Stanton, with the only two votes in favor of progress being cast by Largo Mayor Pat Gerard and Commissioner Rodney Woods, although up until plans of gender reassignment were made public, not one iota of mention had ever been made to suggest that the manager should be fired or even that he wasn’t performing as desired.
It really disappoints me to see such harsh reactions from not only the general public, but also his own co-workers on this issue because even though I can certainly see how it’s a tough one to swallow, I guess I’d just like to think that in the grand scheme of things we’re all better people than that … unwilling to accept each other for what we are. Granted, sexuality has been a moral controversy for a while now with activism for gay, lesbian, and other “alternative lifestyles” on the rise in hopes of encouraging change, and in that respect the reaction to the transgender concept shouldn’t be all that much of a surprise because clearly we as a whole still have a long ways to go about accepting nearly anything outside of the current societal norm. I also think that religion plays a large role in the swinging of this pendulum in the wrong direction, as individual interpretations of the bible continue to drive some of the most vocal believers swiftly past that clause citing “Judge not lest yee be judged yourself…” and into a dangerous light where the most immoral of judgments are backed up by hellfire and brimstone and so on and so forth…
But we need to move beyond that because no matter what you choose to believe or where you otherwise get your morals from, the diversities of our culture as the human race are growing every single day and that’s a wonderful thing. As long as others aren’t hurt from it, people should always be free to live the lives that they choose without fear of being judged or rejected by their own peers – it’s a division that also happens everyday on as many angles as you can imagine, from race, gender and sexual orientation, religious beliefs, and even our interests, hopes, and dreams, and it really holds us back from achieving those dreams when we can’t have that acceptance on such a basic level. Just because someone doesn’t have the same interests or desires than you doesn’t make them a bad person, nor does coming to the decision that you’d be more comfortable as a woman than a man or vise-versa.
Steve Stanton, soon to be Susan Stanton, still has the option to appeal the commission’s vote to end his employment with the City of Largo, although at this point it’s hard to tell if anything would even come of it anyways. I sadly don’t think that our society is quite ready to be that comfortable with such a dramatic change as gender reassignment, not only because of the reactions expressed by residents at the commission meeting but also simply judging how accepting as a whole we’ve been of the gay lifestyle over the last few years. Some of us get it, but not nearly enough at this point and as hard as we try, it just always seems that those who continue to oppose it the most also end up opposing it the loudest. And maybe it would be different if Steve Stanton had been a lousy city manager for Largo, riddled with complaints and negative performance evaluations left and right, but he wasn’t – in truth he did great things for the city and was only cut short when his personal struggles were made public before he was ready.
Maybe the city wouldn’t have been ready for such a notion in June, either, but we’ve got to start somewhere, don’t we?
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