Off Topic

This is not about me and mine, it is about something that annoys me. The subject is intolerance. You know how much it bugs me. I don’t understand it. On the flip side I don’t really understand why people seek attention either. That also bugs me.


This morning on CNN their humourist/satirist reporter told us that Bend’s own Thomas Beattie is preggers again. They spent the next 6 minutes finding different ways to mock him by calling him He/She/It. It just disgusts me. Let’s talk about identity for a second.

I was born in Prineville, Oregon, U.S.A in 1969. My parents named me and I had a relatively safe and happy childhood. Now I am an adult who prefers the nickname my baby sister gave me when she was 18 months old to my Christian name. I don’t identify by the name I was born with but with the name bestowed on me as a toddler by another toddler. I live in Bend and identify myself as a Native Oregonian before I identify as an American – but I am an American. Those are the identities I choose for myself.

I know a couple, one of whom comes from Canada and the other from South Africa; those are the countries of their birth. They identify as Oregonians and Americans – and then they identify with the countries of their birth as well. I have friends and family from Mexico who also identify as both American and Mexican. They chose their identity.

I know that a few of my gfs will read this and say, but Noni choosing your gender is not the same as choosing your cultural identity. I have to cry bullshit. It is the same. How you see yourself is exactly the same. I see myself as a Mom first, a Wife second, an Oregonian, a good cook, a yarning woman (both verbal and fiber, lol) , etc . . .

Thomas Beattie is a man. That is how he names himself, how he sees himself and how he lives his life. Why would anyone place importance on his marital status and procreative status? I know the flip side is that he put himself out there to begin with. I can’t confirm or deny that, and from a monetary stand point it was obviously worth it to him to create a 9-day wonder over his pregnancy because it landed paid talk show gigs. My privacy means more to me than money – but I wasn’t in the position of having someone out me to the press and being in a needy place for cash. So what Thomas does for himself and his family regarding the press and publicity is his and his wife’s business.

I’m not looking at what Thomas and family have done to put themselves in the public eye.

I am looking at the reactions of the American public. We haven’t grown up as a people yet, have we? That the press and the commentators and the angry Jane and Joe public have to get up on their soap boxes and preach against how another human being identifies himself is just flat out stupid. It does not threaten your wheaties, your taxes or your house plants. It does not make you impotent or make your eggs fall out of your uterus. It does not negate the existence of your god/goddess, you can still take communion, be baptized, and confess your lust of your neighbor and/or your lust of Thomas! His life, the lives of his wife and children do not make so much as a dent in your everyday routine unless you make a point of letting it.






Why does anyone deliberately hate?