Righteous indignation: is there a better way?

Okay, I admit it. I read the occasional business and marketing blog. I know nothing about either topic, and I've gotten more knowledgeable, but not more skilled, by reading them.

So while Seth Godin's blog is an unusual one to link to when writing about trans topics, this particular entry caught my attention: righteous indignation. Because this seems to be a response in a lot of trans people's repertoires, including my own.

I get irritated when I see a headline that says something like, "New city ordinance protects transgenders," or "Sex-change soldier kicked out of army," or "Obama insurance plan mandates sex changes." (That last one is actually kind of funny--I can't wait for those mandated "sex changes," and I hope Bill O'Reilly and Sarah Palin are first in line.)

And sometimes, I get more than irritated--I get righteously indignant. But I'm wondering if there's a better way.

Now, trans people as a segment of the population (and I'm including whoever wants to be included and not including whoever doesn't) have plenty of reasons to be righteously indignant, and we have reasons to be angry. I have fewer reasons than many other people--I have suffered much less. But in general, we're not society's darlings.

But it seems to me that, sometimes, in our righteous indignation and our anger, we turn on each other--especially in the blogosphere. Someone uses a word or term that we don't like or wouldn't use ourselves. Someone advances a thought or a theory that we don't agree with. Someone who doesn't even know us personally includes "us" in a category that we don't feel we belong in.

And we get angry, and we get righteously indignant, and we spend a lot of time and energy battling it out--time and energy that could be spent writing to the newspapers that use headlines like the ones listed above or campaigning for candidates that are supportive of trans rights or aligning ourselves with groups--trans-focused or not--that represent our personal positions on a variety of issues that affect our lives both as trans people and as people.

Healthy debate and discussion is good. It gives people an opportunity to see other sides to an issue. But anger and attacks serve to wear us down and make us less prepared to take on the real battles--with the people who would truly deny us rights, keep us as second-class citizens, and encourage, by their words and actions, the violence that members of our community continue to fall victim to.

I know that my own righteous indignation only makes me feel good momentarily--and then it's all downhill from there.

Godin says: "The thing is: it doesn't work. It rarely succeeds in accomplishing much, and it makes you unhappy at the same time.What if you took it out of your toolbox of responses?"

It's going to be hard to keep my righteous indignation in check sometimes, but when I see Bill O'Reilly lining up for his "mandatory sex change," I'm going to feel a whole lot better.

(Photo: me showing my righteous indignation circa 1977)