KRXQ Sacramento transgender apology moment: Rob and Arnie; their Mea Culpa, and mine…

Rob and Arnie of KRXQ may have been dissembling to save their skins on today’s show, an olive branch held out to the GLBTQ activists who cost the station 11 sponsors and counting, but if they were faking it, the fake was perfect. (More on faking it, and making it, below.)

You can listen to the broadcast here.

I would like to apologize for my own tone in some of my posts; I said I’d put aside my hate when I started this site, and at times, I haven’t.

In the end, we have to accept what people say—and then hold them to their statements. It is impossible know without doubt the content of another’s heart. We trust transgender people when they tell us what it is like to be inside their skin.

In the end, we have to listen to those who have made bigoted, homophobic and transphobic comments as well. If they tell us their statements were borne of ignorance, if they claim to be willing to learn, we have no choice but to hold our skepticism in abeyance long enough to see if having talked the talk, then can now walk the walk.

Many supportive families go through this experience; of faking it until they make it. After some research, intellectually they know that accepting transgender is the best course  of action, but their hearts lag behing their heads, and there is a grieving process for some that can take months or years.

If Rob and Arnie fake it until they make it, they will be no worse than many of us who are now accepting and supportive. If they slip back into old patterns of scapegoating and name calling, then it would seem, that the talk was just that. Talk.

The community of supportive parents and families needs to confer on what the proper response to Rob and Arnie is now. As a white met man who at one time might have snickered at the show, I may not be the best person to decide their fate. And of course, I won’t. I will share my opinion, as I urge all others to share theirs, in the marketplace of ideas.

For the record, it was abolitionist and Unitarian minister Theodore

Parker who first said, The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends

toward justice.1

It was abolitionist and Unitarian minister Theodore Parker who first said:

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

These are the words painted on the mural of my son’s accepting public school.

It’s a statement that helps me sleep at night.

Thanks to everyone who participated in this site.

Filed under: Calls to Action