I'm Probably an Asshole, As You Probably Already Know (But Here's a Heads Up Anyway)
I find this Mary Sue article really disheartening for a number of reasons. I haven't even watched much of Transparent (I think I got to episode three? I agree with a lot of commenters about the kids being hard to watch), but the implications of a lot of this for someone who wants to be an ally come across as less... I don't know how to put it. Less critical, I guess, and more possessive.
Which isn't unfair, really. In the position of a much-maligned minority, especially once with especially high rates of violence and low rates of representation, it's sort of natural to be possessive.
I think it can also be damaging, though, when it's taken to a certain point. Most notable in the article is the dismissal of the consultant the writers for Transparent have brought on, simply because she's a celebrity. She's a celebrity, so her experience won't be the same as your average, everyday trans person. Okay, that's obvious... but that doesn't mean her experience is invalid, or that it was a cakewalk, and implying that it makes her a worse choice for a consultant in the way that this writer here has carries this implication that she's not trans enough.
Is that a thing? No, wait, don't answer that. Obviously it is. I've been on Tumblr, and I know it's a thing. It's a way, way too popular thing, as is the idea of someone not being gay enough.
It's not even like there's no measure of validity to it, because, again, Tumblr. Someone who, for example, says they identify as genderqueer but prefers to present as their assigned-at-birth gender and use those pronouns - well, I'm in no position to say they aren't trans, or aren't trans enough, personally, but I can't say I'd argue with a trans person who didn't want them trying to be representative of the trans community. And I've seen people who are exactly like that, talking to people who face judgement every day because they don't present as their assigned-at-birth gender and have changed their preferred pronouns publicly as though they understand exactly what they're going through.
Okay, maybe that's being a bit harsh. That was how it felt from the outside, though, and it was incredibly uncomfortable when I wasn't even directly involved.
And there's the whole argument for and against including asexuality under the "queer" label. But much further than that and it starts to get really iffy. How fair is it to say a bisexual woman, with a history of dating both men and women, who eventually marries a man should not publicly identify herself as LGBT, or ever be a speaker at an LGBT event? And this is even less than that. This is like saying Neil Patrick Harris shouldn't be considered for gay roles, because, since he came out when he was already a celebrity, he can't possibly understand what it's like to be not famous and come out. I'm pretty sure people would get that that's absurd.
Ironically, this even follows up Cook's note - reiterated several times - that trans people are all individuals who have individual opinions. That should go hand-in-hand with the equally obvious truth that they have individual experiences. Being famous does not invalidate the fact that she is trans. Her experience is different, but it's equally true that a trans woman and a trans man will have vastly different experiences, that people in religious and nonreligious households will have vastly different experiences, that people who transition when they are in high school or college will have vastly different experiences from people who transition when they have adult children, that white trans people will have vastly different experiences from nonwhite transpeople.
Would Marcy Cook have dismissed their choice of consultant if they had taken on someone young? Would she have dismissed their choice if they had been from a more conservative place, or were nonwhite, or any other number of other factors that don't line up perfectly with the character? Is the only good option a white trans woman from a liberal area who transitioned when she had adult children and was divorced? If something like being a celebrity is enough to say that they made an entirely wrong choice, is anybody good enough? Would that also mean that if a trans celebrity wrote their own completely independent show about a non-celebrity trans person going through transition, they'd have no hope whatsoever of doing it right, or right enough to not be completely dismissed?
And for us cis people, what does that mean? I mean, I know, boo hoo us and all, but seriously, if working directly with someone who is trans is still open to that level of criticism before the result is even out there, it brings a certain feeling of "Why bother even trying?"
I admit that's a personal question, and one I've found myself asking a lot. Every time I try to start a new project, I feel self-conscious about my attempts to include people who are not like me. I ask myself, what right do I have to write a trans character? A gay character? A nonwhite character? Hell, even a Jewish character? Their experiences aren't mine. Having Jewish, nonwhite, gay, and trans friends doesn't mean I know even a fraction of their struggles. Cook here points that out, wondering if it's possible for cis people to ever know what it's like to be trans. Basically, no. It's not. Because we aren't. As much as I've questioned my gender identity over the years - and I think I have perhaps slightly more often than other cis people my age - I can't actually experience the life of a trans person any more than I can become another race or not be attracted to men. I can listen. I can learn. I can't live that life.
But can I write it? This article would suggest that I can't. Not, at least, without the help of someone in a very, very similar situation to my character. Well, as similar as it can get, really, given that I mostly write fantasy and science fiction. And even then, maybe I shouldn't, since I still can't actually live that experience. If the best I can do is get a lot of help and still be doing it wrong, maybe I should just leave it to those who are actually living those lives.
Which leaves me with the option of writing a lot of white, cis, more-or-less straight people. (I'm pretty sure nobody cares if I write cis dudes.) Or, I guess, I could just focus on those white, cis, more-or-less straight people and fill up the background with diversity.
But that's not what people want! It's not what I want, either. No one wants to just be a footnote, or a background character, or cinematic window dressing. And, like it or not, the vast majority of writers in the US are cis. They're also pretty white, male, and even straight. Our entertainment - our movies and television, our books, even our music - are white, cis, straight, and male enough. Even if we bring in more trans writers, we're still going to have a lot of groups of writers that are all cis, and a lot of people who write on their own who are cis. I feel like it would be irresponsible to forbid all of them from trying to write characters who aren't the same as themselves.
And that doesn't even come close to meaning that they'd be free from criticism. Writers fuck up all the time. Even good writers fumble the ball, and there are a lot of bad writers employed today. Television isn't even kind of an exception (if anything, it's a big showcase for people who fuck up in their writing). Criticism is a good thing. And for those of us who want to write characters who are different from ourselves, it's absolutely necessary. In ideal circumstances we can get the appropriate criticism before our work goes to the public, but that's not always going to happen, and as a group writers rely on public feedback to tell them when they've really stepped in it. Some may not like it, but that doesn't mean they need it.
I'm certainly all for criticizing Transparent when the writing fucks up. I just don't think the proper time to criticize is when they've just hired a trans consultant so they can fuck up less often. (Which doesn't mean they can't be criticized for what they've already done, either, and I don't know what it was Jill Soloway said about Bruce Jenner. I don't want to know, honestly. I'll trust that it was exactly as terrible as Cook says it was.) It's also fully within any person's right to decide that a show isn't of interest to them for any reason.
Okay. I'm going to ask anyone actually reading this to brace themselves right now, because I'm pretty sure what I'm about to say is going to be pretty unpopular (...working on the assumption that what I've already said isn't incredibly unpopular).
I don't think it's completely wrong for Transparent to be a show about cis people experiencing someone they're close to transitioning, nor do I think it's necessarily wrong for a cis person to portray a trans person.
Did you brace yourself? Breathe. You can hate me, it's okay.
My biggest reason can be summed up as follows: baby steps. It was a very, very short time ago that, for your average straight, white cis person, "trans" didn't mean a whole lot. We're still in the beginning stages of what kind of feels like a gender revolution. It's going to be a long, long road. I know people, myself included, would love to take leaps and bounds down that road, but that is unfortunately not the way our society works. Ever single step will be fighting against a wind of bull-headedness, some of it from hate, some of it from a stubborn unwillingness to recognize that this is just one more thing people need to get is different without being wrong. Media will move faster than a lot of people, but you still can't go from zero to sixty. TV didn't have Lucy and Ricky sleeping in separate beds one day and Sookie and Bill having enthusiastic, bloody sex the next. There still aren't a lot of shows with gay main characters. Hell, there still aren't a lot of shows with straight, white, cis female characters. There's even a pretty limited number of shows with nonwhite leads - enough that people are very ready to celebrate good shows with them.
And it really sucks to have to think of it this way, but that's the kind of slope we're working with, at least in America. Women got the vote before the Civil Rights Act, and we're only now seeing a point where our country is really moving on gay marriage and other rights. A lot of states still don't have protections for trans people at all, a fact I'm sure trans people are much more vividly aware of than me. It's not uncommon for me to talk to people only to find that as much as they support the rights of people women and people of all beliefs, races, and sexualities, they're, well, iffy about trans issues. They don't get it. Admittedly a lot of those people aren't as great at backing the other issues as they think they are, but they're at least trying, and they haven't gotten to that point with trans people yet. I can't even imagine actually trying to explain nonbinary gender idenfitication to a stranger on the street - it's just not something that people are even aware of. Hell, it wasn't that long ago that I wasn't even really aware of it, myself, and I've spent some time considering asking people to call me "they" instead of "she".
So not ever show with trans characters will be for trans people, because trans people already know what they're about and what they're fighting for. A lot of cis people really don't. Some of them would love to learn, but they're still trying to wrap their heads around it. It sucks, but they're going to listen to someone like them - someone cis - about the issues before they listen to trans people, in most cases.
I can only imagine how that feels. Sucky, probably, to say the least. I know I hate even the idea of a show about women that's really about how men feel about women. At the same time, I know I have to recognize that feminist men are an important part of women's rights, as unfortunate as that sounds, because I'd rather have men listen to them first and then listen to women than not have them listen at all.
As for Tambor's part as Maura - well, I have a few thoughts on that, but they amount mostly to the same thing. For a while, at least, a lot of people will be more comfortable seeing a cis man play a trans woman than they'd be seeing a trans woman play a trans woman, if for no other reason than because he's a face people know. Laverne Cox can't play every trans woman in film and television, and she probably doesn't want to, especially when there's as much emphasis as there is in this role on Maura's life before she's fully out (and, as I understand it, her brother isn't really an actor, so although he was available for parts of OITNB, I don't think that's going to be a reoccurring thing for the project she works on in the future). How many trans women and men would be comfortable portraying a character who isn't out yet, and parading around as the wrong gender? How many of those trans people are actors? How many of them are good enough actors to actually be cast in those roles? Probably more than we know, yes, but you know who else doesn't know about them? The people doing the hiring.
And transition storylines are likely to be a thing for a while, while people are still getting it. This isn't helped at all by the fact that transitioning by necessity takes more than a few days, meaning it will be in focus for longer than coming out stories about sexuality have been, and we're only just getting to the point where coming out isn't always the default storyline for gay characters.
To be honest, I'm not even sure that when we're past that point we'll stop having cis people playing trans people. A lot of people are and will continue to see it as another fascinating part of humanity to explore, and one that a good actor can encapsulate without living that life. I see less and less anger directed at straight actors playing gay characters these days. A part of me feels like it's almost a bit of a necessary trade off; the return is that it proves - well, kind of proves, we're still working on it, obviously - that gay actors can also play straight roles. If James Franco can play a gay man, there's no reason Neil Patrick Harris can't play a straight man (arguments about their respective talent levels notwithstanding), and I sure as hell wouldn't want Neil Patrick Harris (or Ian McKellan, or Ellen Page, or any other gay actor) being told they can't play a role because the character isn't gay. No, they aren't the same thing, but again, it's kind of going to be a necessary trade-off, and I'd personally be very happy to see more trans people not being limited to only trans roles. Erika Ervin's character in American Horror Story was not explicitly trans, and, if I remember correctly, there were hints in the writing to imply that she was cis. If I'm not remembering correctly, then I know at least that the show didn't dwell on that factor of her gender. She was a woman, and that was that, and that's a good thing in its own way.
That could go for writers, too, in fact. I certainly would hope no one would tell a trans writer they must write about trans issues. If every trans writer is not going to be writing shows about trans people and we already have very few of them, we'll need more effort put in from cis people, who, yeah, are going to do it wrong sometimes.
All the same, I do know that even agreeing with me won't make any of this good for a trans person. It's only natural - and right - to want to be represented in every aspect of the entertainment industry, and there are cis people, myself included, who want more trans representation. So maybe Transparent, because most of its writing staff and its main actors are cis, isn't the right show for trans people to actually consume. Maybe it fucks up royally on certain subjects (again: I have only watched a handful of episodes, so I'll default to agreeing with Cook here). I don't believe that means it's right to condemn it for these particular aspects, especially when the overall result could wind up being less representation if your voice is heard.
And no, I'm not going to let this stuff get to me, ultimately. I will continue to try and include trans characters in my writing (what I can manage of my writing, that is), and I can only promise to do my best to represent them fairly as people. I have a lot of doubts and insecurities about diversity in my writing, but my doubts bounce both ways, and for every moment I think that I should give up on trying, I have a moment of guilt over every single project I've started with white cis straight dudes as the main characters. All of those thoughts are silly in their own right. I've got my own convictions and stubbornness here, though, and I really do hope there aren't other writers out there being discouraged from including people from walks of life they have not personally experienced in their works, as sensitively as they can.
If you've actually read all of this (which, I'm going to guess, nobody has), thank you for being witness to my type-y word vomit. If you've read some of it, you're probably not reading this part at the bottom, but thanks nonetheless. I doubt I've really changed anyone's mind or given anyone much of anything to think about, since I don't have any readership here to speak of and I'm pretty sure I'm not someone anyone looks to for insight on any kind of issue, but thanks. I needed to get this out.
Which isn't unfair, really. In the position of a much-maligned minority, especially once with especially high rates of violence and low rates of representation, it's sort of natural to be possessive.
I think it can also be damaging, though, when it's taken to a certain point. Most notable in the article is the dismissal of the consultant the writers for Transparent have brought on, simply because she's a celebrity. She's a celebrity, so her experience won't be the same as your average, everyday trans person. Okay, that's obvious... but that doesn't mean her experience is invalid, or that it was a cakewalk, and implying that it makes her a worse choice for a consultant in the way that this writer here has carries this implication that she's not trans enough.
Is that a thing? No, wait, don't answer that. Obviously it is. I've been on Tumblr, and I know it's a thing. It's a way, way too popular thing, as is the idea of someone not being gay enough.
It's not even like there's no measure of validity to it, because, again, Tumblr. Someone who, for example, says they identify as genderqueer but prefers to present as their assigned-at-birth gender and use those pronouns - well, I'm in no position to say they aren't trans, or aren't trans enough, personally, but I can't say I'd argue with a trans person who didn't want them trying to be representative of the trans community. And I've seen people who are exactly like that, talking to people who face judgement every day because they don't present as their assigned-at-birth gender and have changed their preferred pronouns publicly as though they understand exactly what they're going through.
Okay, maybe that's being a bit harsh. That was how it felt from the outside, though, and it was incredibly uncomfortable when I wasn't even directly involved.
And there's the whole argument for and against including asexuality under the "queer" label. But much further than that and it starts to get really iffy. How fair is it to say a bisexual woman, with a history of dating both men and women, who eventually marries a man should not publicly identify herself as LGBT, or ever be a speaker at an LGBT event? And this is even less than that. This is like saying Neil Patrick Harris shouldn't be considered for gay roles, because, since he came out when he was already a celebrity, he can't possibly understand what it's like to be not famous and come out. I'm pretty sure people would get that that's absurd.
Ironically, this even follows up Cook's note - reiterated several times - that trans people are all individuals who have individual opinions. That should go hand-in-hand with the equally obvious truth that they have individual experiences. Being famous does not invalidate the fact that she is trans. Her experience is different, but it's equally true that a trans woman and a trans man will have vastly different experiences, that people in religious and nonreligious households will have vastly different experiences, that people who transition when they are in high school or college will have vastly different experiences from people who transition when they have adult children, that white trans people will have vastly different experiences from nonwhite transpeople.
Would Marcy Cook have dismissed their choice of consultant if they had taken on someone young? Would she have dismissed their choice if they had been from a more conservative place, or were nonwhite, or any other number of other factors that don't line up perfectly with the character? Is the only good option a white trans woman from a liberal area who transitioned when she had adult children and was divorced? If something like being a celebrity is enough to say that they made an entirely wrong choice, is anybody good enough? Would that also mean that if a trans celebrity wrote their own completely independent show about a non-celebrity trans person going through transition, they'd have no hope whatsoever of doing it right, or right enough to not be completely dismissed?
And for us cis people, what does that mean? I mean, I know, boo hoo us and all, but seriously, if working directly with someone who is trans is still open to that level of criticism before the result is even out there, it brings a certain feeling of "Why bother even trying?"
I admit that's a personal question, and one I've found myself asking a lot. Every time I try to start a new project, I feel self-conscious about my attempts to include people who are not like me. I ask myself, what right do I have to write a trans character? A gay character? A nonwhite character? Hell, even a Jewish character? Their experiences aren't mine. Having Jewish, nonwhite, gay, and trans friends doesn't mean I know even a fraction of their struggles. Cook here points that out, wondering if it's possible for cis people to ever know what it's like to be trans. Basically, no. It's not. Because we aren't. As much as I've questioned my gender identity over the years - and I think I have perhaps slightly more often than other cis people my age - I can't actually experience the life of a trans person any more than I can become another race or not be attracted to men. I can listen. I can learn. I can't live that life.
But can I write it? This article would suggest that I can't. Not, at least, without the help of someone in a very, very similar situation to my character. Well, as similar as it can get, really, given that I mostly write fantasy and science fiction. And even then, maybe I shouldn't, since I still can't actually live that experience. If the best I can do is get a lot of help and still be doing it wrong, maybe I should just leave it to those who are actually living those lives.
Which leaves me with the option of writing a lot of white, cis, more-or-less straight people. (I'm pretty sure nobody cares if I write cis dudes.) Or, I guess, I could just focus on those white, cis, more-or-less straight people and fill up the background with diversity.
But that's not what people want! It's not what I want, either. No one wants to just be a footnote, or a background character, or cinematic window dressing. And, like it or not, the vast majority of writers in the US are cis. They're also pretty white, male, and even straight. Our entertainment - our movies and television, our books, even our music - are white, cis, straight, and male enough. Even if we bring in more trans writers, we're still going to have a lot of groups of writers that are all cis, and a lot of people who write on their own who are cis. I feel like it would be irresponsible to forbid all of them from trying to write characters who aren't the same as themselves.
And that doesn't even come close to meaning that they'd be free from criticism. Writers fuck up all the time. Even good writers fumble the ball, and there are a lot of bad writers employed today. Television isn't even kind of an exception (if anything, it's a big showcase for people who fuck up in their writing). Criticism is a good thing. And for those of us who want to write characters who are different from ourselves, it's absolutely necessary. In ideal circumstances we can get the appropriate criticism before our work goes to the public, but that's not always going to happen, and as a group writers rely on public feedback to tell them when they've really stepped in it. Some may not like it, but that doesn't mean they need it.
I'm certainly all for criticizing Transparent when the writing fucks up. I just don't think the proper time to criticize is when they've just hired a trans consultant so they can fuck up less often. (Which doesn't mean they can't be criticized for what they've already done, either, and I don't know what it was Jill Soloway said about Bruce Jenner. I don't want to know, honestly. I'll trust that it was exactly as terrible as Cook says it was.) It's also fully within any person's right to decide that a show isn't of interest to them for any reason.
Okay. I'm going to ask anyone actually reading this to brace themselves right now, because I'm pretty sure what I'm about to say is going to be pretty unpopular (...working on the assumption that what I've already said isn't incredibly unpopular).
I don't think it's completely wrong for Transparent to be a show about cis people experiencing someone they're close to transitioning, nor do I think it's necessarily wrong for a cis person to portray a trans person.
Did you brace yourself? Breathe. You can hate me, it's okay.
My biggest reason can be summed up as follows: baby steps. It was a very, very short time ago that, for your average straight, white cis person, "trans" didn't mean a whole lot. We're still in the beginning stages of what kind of feels like a gender revolution. It's going to be a long, long road. I know people, myself included, would love to take leaps and bounds down that road, but that is unfortunately not the way our society works. Ever single step will be fighting against a wind of bull-headedness, some of it from hate, some of it from a stubborn unwillingness to recognize that this is just one more thing people need to get is different without being wrong. Media will move faster than a lot of people, but you still can't go from zero to sixty. TV didn't have Lucy and Ricky sleeping in separate beds one day and Sookie and Bill having enthusiastic, bloody sex the next. There still aren't a lot of shows with gay main characters. Hell, there still aren't a lot of shows with straight, white, cis female characters. There's even a pretty limited number of shows with nonwhite leads - enough that people are very ready to celebrate good shows with them.
And it really sucks to have to think of it this way, but that's the kind of slope we're working with, at least in America. Women got the vote before the Civil Rights Act, and we're only now seeing a point where our country is really moving on gay marriage and other rights. A lot of states still don't have protections for trans people at all, a fact I'm sure trans people are much more vividly aware of than me. It's not uncommon for me to talk to people only to find that as much as they support the rights of people women and people of all beliefs, races, and sexualities, they're, well, iffy about trans issues. They don't get it. Admittedly a lot of those people aren't as great at backing the other issues as they think they are, but they're at least trying, and they haven't gotten to that point with trans people yet. I can't even imagine actually trying to explain nonbinary gender idenfitication to a stranger on the street - it's just not something that people are even aware of. Hell, it wasn't that long ago that I wasn't even really aware of it, myself, and I've spent some time considering asking people to call me "they" instead of "she".
So not ever show with trans characters will be for trans people, because trans people already know what they're about and what they're fighting for. A lot of cis people really don't. Some of them would love to learn, but they're still trying to wrap their heads around it. It sucks, but they're going to listen to someone like them - someone cis - about the issues before they listen to trans people, in most cases.
I can only imagine how that feels. Sucky, probably, to say the least. I know I hate even the idea of a show about women that's really about how men feel about women. At the same time, I know I have to recognize that feminist men are an important part of women's rights, as unfortunate as that sounds, because I'd rather have men listen to them first and then listen to women than not have them listen at all.
As for Tambor's part as Maura - well, I have a few thoughts on that, but they amount mostly to the same thing. For a while, at least, a lot of people will be more comfortable seeing a cis man play a trans woman than they'd be seeing a trans woman play a trans woman, if for no other reason than because he's a face people know. Laverne Cox can't play every trans woman in film and television, and she probably doesn't want to, especially when there's as much emphasis as there is in this role on Maura's life before she's fully out (and, as I understand it, her brother isn't really an actor, so although he was available for parts of OITNB, I don't think that's going to be a reoccurring thing for the project she works on in the future). How many trans women and men would be comfortable portraying a character who isn't out yet, and parading around as the wrong gender? How many of those trans people are actors? How many of them are good enough actors to actually be cast in those roles? Probably more than we know, yes, but you know who else doesn't know about them? The people doing the hiring.
And transition storylines are likely to be a thing for a while, while people are still getting it. This isn't helped at all by the fact that transitioning by necessity takes more than a few days, meaning it will be in focus for longer than coming out stories about sexuality have been, and we're only just getting to the point where coming out isn't always the default storyline for gay characters.
To be honest, I'm not even sure that when we're past that point we'll stop having cis people playing trans people. A lot of people are and will continue to see it as another fascinating part of humanity to explore, and one that a good actor can encapsulate without living that life. I see less and less anger directed at straight actors playing gay characters these days. A part of me feels like it's almost a bit of a necessary trade off; the return is that it proves - well, kind of proves, we're still working on it, obviously - that gay actors can also play straight roles. If James Franco can play a gay man, there's no reason Neil Patrick Harris can't play a straight man (arguments about their respective talent levels notwithstanding), and I sure as hell wouldn't want Neil Patrick Harris (or Ian McKellan, or Ellen Page, or any other gay actor) being told they can't play a role because the character isn't gay. No, they aren't the same thing, but again, it's kind of going to be a necessary trade-off, and I'd personally be very happy to see more trans people not being limited to only trans roles. Erika Ervin's character in American Horror Story was not explicitly trans, and, if I remember correctly, there were hints in the writing to imply that she was cis. If I'm not remembering correctly, then I know at least that the show didn't dwell on that factor of her gender. She was a woman, and that was that, and that's a good thing in its own way.
That could go for writers, too, in fact. I certainly would hope no one would tell a trans writer they must write about trans issues. If every trans writer is not going to be writing shows about trans people and we already have very few of them, we'll need more effort put in from cis people, who, yeah, are going to do it wrong sometimes.
All the same, I do know that even agreeing with me won't make any of this good for a trans person. It's only natural - and right - to want to be represented in every aspect of the entertainment industry, and there are cis people, myself included, who want more trans representation. So maybe Transparent, because most of its writing staff and its main actors are cis, isn't the right show for trans people to actually consume. Maybe it fucks up royally on certain subjects (again: I have only watched a handful of episodes, so I'll default to agreeing with Cook here). I don't believe that means it's right to condemn it for these particular aspects, especially when the overall result could wind up being less representation if your voice is heard.
And no, I'm not going to let this stuff get to me, ultimately. I will continue to try and include trans characters in my writing (what I can manage of my writing, that is), and I can only promise to do my best to represent them fairly as people. I have a lot of doubts and insecurities about diversity in my writing, but my doubts bounce both ways, and for every moment I think that I should give up on trying, I have a moment of guilt over every single project I've started with white cis straight dudes as the main characters. All of those thoughts are silly in their own right. I've got my own convictions and stubbornness here, though, and I really do hope there aren't other writers out there being discouraged from including people from walks of life they have not personally experienced in their works, as sensitively as they can.
If you've actually read all of this (which, I'm going to guess, nobody has), thank you for being witness to my type-y word vomit. If you've read some of it, you're probably not reading this part at the bottom, but thanks nonetheless. I doubt I've really changed anyone's mind or given anyone much of anything to think about, since I don't have any readership here to speak of and I'm pretty sure I'm not someone anyone looks to for insight on any kind of issue, but thanks. I needed to get this out.