What is the internet outraged about, currently? **Sticks finger to the wind to see where the prevailing blowhards are wailing** Ahh, the internet is currently up in arms about the transgender. Great…
Of course, it doesn’t, because it never will, because there will always be people who can’t wrap their feeble brains around a way of living that is different from theirs.
The internet erupted last week as basketball legend Dwayne Wade announced via social media that his 12 year old son identified as transgender. This is something that takes an amazing amount of courage by Wade, and much more importantly, his daughter. As a family, their beliefs are their beliefs, and all that can ever be expected of you is to be supportive of your family and a role model to the ones you love. Dwayne Wade is that as a father. That is literally where this story should end.
The part of the internet that is basically a perfect circle Venn Diagram of religious zealots, gun nuts, and people who say “I’m not racist, but…” had a field day dragging Dwayne Wade and his family. He was ruining the fabric of the family. He was villainized for not making his daughter man up. Everyone on the internet is an expert when they are too gutless to have their own name attached to their flaming hot takes.
On a different part of the internet, one that reeks of body odor and self-loathing, a similar battle raged. A couple weeks ago, on an episode of AEW Dynamite wrestling, Nyla Rose, who was born a man but transitioned into a woman, won the Women’s Championship. I’ll note right here that AEW is professional wrestling, which means the outcomes of the battles are predetermined, and are done for the entertainment of the viewer. Wrestling fans, long known as being the most open minded members of fandom, were very supportive of this.
Just kidding. Wrestling fans, best known for being ride or die with Hulk Hogan, who said the N word (a lot) and did a sex tape with his buddy’s wife, lost their collective minds. Every lazy hack meme lord posted about this being the first time someone with a penis winning the women’s championship. This, of course, is not true. Noted penis haver Harvey Whippleman won the women’s title back in the day. Santino Morrella dressed in drag and won a Battle Royal to become the first “Miss Wrestlemania.” Wrestling fans have incredibly precise memories when it advances their argument but shove their heads into the sand like incredibly fat ostriches when their opinions are proven wrong.
Lets handle both of these separately for a moment. With Wade’s daughter, there are only two people who need to have an opinion about the way he feels and how he identifies: hher parents. Listen, toll booth operator in Raleigh Durham, nobody cares whether you think it is ruining the sanctity of family. Those of us who have chosen to live in a free and accepting society tend to condescend to close minded people. There are reasons for that, as well. The most accepting are the ones most likely to have strayed away from organized religion. Unfortunately, too large of society has taken a book about a boat with two of every animal, pro slavery takes, and other ridiculous stuff, which was written thousands of years ago, and tried to shoe horn it into today’s society.
By doing so, they hide behind their bibles as a way of protecting themselves from the belief by normal people that their opinions are wrong. There are things that can be taken from the bible, such as loving and respecting one another. But love and respect isn’t something ProverbMama64 is interested in doing on Twitter when she is telling Dwayne Wade that his daughter is going to be sent to hell.
The problem with society nowadays is that everyone thinks they have the right to be up in other people’s business all of the time. Some people invite people into their lives. Others don’t. Wade made the crucial mistake of being proud of his daughter for being open about the person he wants to be. By doing so, he opened the flood gates, and the Fox News watching, 2 and a Half Men enjoying, American flag as their Facebook profile having knuckle draggers came roaring through to give their opinions on the LGBTQ community.
As for Nyla Rose winning the championship: SETTLE. THE. SHIT. DOWN. WRESTLING. FANS. You all are making us look like fucking idiots. It’s a fake competition. They are actors and actresses. They went to school to learn how to be wrestlers. Then they grinded away on the independent scene for years until they got their chance to finally be on television, and how do wrestling fans respond? By having a collective temper tantrum because a trans woman won a big, pretty belt.
Wrestling fans have long been known as one of the worst, slimiest, greasiest fandoms around. They make flat earthers seem quaint by comparison. This is a large group of people who shit on wrestler physiques while desperately plunging their fat hands into a KFC bucket in the hopes that some skin fell off the chicken and had come to rest at the bottom.
As a wrestling fan, I’m embarrassed by wrestling fans. I don’t like to admit I’m a wrestling fan in casual conversation because such a high percentage of wrestling fans live up to the stereotype of the typical wrestling fan. It takes a certain level of pathetic to know that something is fake, then absolutely crap your Huggies when that fake thing outrages your sensibilities so much. Nyla Rose used to be a man. Okay, cool. If that bothers you, there is a really good chance you lost your virginity to a hole in an old mattress.
It’s impossible to overstate how much none of this matters in today’s society, no matter what some people desperately want you to believe. Whether it’s the guy with three chins covered by a smattering of pube-like hair, wearing 46×30 pants that haven’t been able to be purchased since Sears went out of business, rambling on about how wrestling is ruined because a woman existed at one point as a biological man, or it’s one of the jackasses that is causing traffic delays every Sunday because instead of being decent human beings and taking a right out of their church, they get police to shut down the roads so they can turn left, this doesn’t affect you.
We, as a collective, need to leave the people who openly act regressive to things they can’t understand behind. That’s what they want, anyway. Those who aren’t accepting of the trans community are the same people whose idyllic version of society was 1954. They chase that Leave to Beaver bastardized version of suburbia.
Seriously though, and if you take one thing from this, try to remember this point: We all are just trying to exist. Life is a game that nobody has won because nobody has gotten out alive. But if we just opted to, oh I don’t know, be accepting of everyone and lift people up instead of digging into our belief systems and knocking them down, we might actually make a little bit of progress in this country.
Note from Brandon: An earlier version of this post incorrectly identified Zaya Wade as Dwayne Wade’s son. The correct nomenclature is to refer to Zaya as Dwyane Wade’s daughter. This was an oversight on my part and I take responsibility for this. If this offended you in any way, please feel free to reach out to me to discuss this further. I am genuinely sorry by this glaring error on my part.
Fancy Boys Club 