Home and Back Again: A student's tale

I'm leaving my home in Colorado for what might be the last time in my life. Oh sure, I'll most likely return see my family for small jaunts here or there, but in all likelihood, when I set my feet outside this morning, I will never again return for any hint of an extended stay.

This is, of course, a melancholy of my own doing. I am the one who chose to live in Seattle this summer, I am the one who decided that school so far away from Colorado was necessary, and it's entirely my own fault that I happened to keep aging long enough to actually reach adulthood.

There is more going on here than meets the eye. For example, that adulthood is a construction my parents built which requires A) that I leave the house and do not return to live with them, B) obtain a job which by which I can gain independence, and C) obtain the necessary life skills to pass on this way of living to my children, should I have any.

I sound like a whiny brat who can't seem to grasp the maturity to grow up. Touche, dear life! Call me a whiny brat then. In my defense, my buzzing rests simultaneously on my immaturity, and more and more on a growing skepticism of this strong individualism that we promote.

The argument goes like this, in a single question: Why should I learn to be a rugged and mature individual when the best life is found in community?

But so much for my intellectualism, eh? So much for my believing that my excuses for wanting to return home were ones based solely on my skepticism toward the pressure to be an individual. It is that, but also more prominently my immaturity at the whole process of growing old.

Bah! Enough rambling and self effacing. I have packing to do.

On Rhetoric

A few weeks ago I wrote an article for my university's newspaper regarding feminism. In this particular article, I argued that everyone who promotes gender equality is a feminist. This was a fine bit of rhetoric, but ultimately, if I were the one reading it instead of writing it, I'd have been a bit skeptical. Maybe it's a philosopher thing, but my housemate Ross was one of the first people to begin the attack against this equivocation.

Tonight I attended a Haven meeting where members from the Transgender community in Seattle discussed the nature of being transgender is a gender-binary world. Their stories were collectively heartbreaking: tales of exile from parents, injustice in the work force, and social issues surrounding a medical world which fails to recognize the reality of transgender people as a primarily social situation instead of a biological one.

They were especially ardent about the politics of the situation and I feel that this was entirely justified. However, I'm not sure I buy the rhetoric hook, line, and sinker. What they advocated for was a strongly liberal scenario, both economically and socially. While this may be the best choice, it hardly seems settled in my book. But their rhetoric was such that to be anything else but a strong liberal would be an injustice.

Here's the point. (Remind me that there must be a better way to demonstrate my pseudo-essay's point than simply stating so). To Ross, it seemed highly problematic to equate feminism with gender-equality advocation. To me, it seems highly problematic to equate pro-transgender equality with pro-strong liberal politics and economics.

Things to consider:
1)Just because a end is something you fight for, doesn't mean you must accept the means that others have taken for fighting for it
2)Just because you don't agree with the rhetoric of a specific cause doesn't mean that the cause is foolish and wrong--just their rhetoric
3)What is the right response to transgender advocacy?
4)I was moved by the problems facing the transgender community. How does this effect my interest in exploring sexuality and gender in the Christian Church?