One of the transgender people who lives at the women's side of the Pine Street Inn has started coughing at me every time she sees me. She's not the first transgender homeless person to harass me since I got to Boston in 2011.
Maybe it shouldn't surprise me when people who should know all there is to know about prejudice-based abuse are abusive to me. It often does, though.
Unfortunately, being a jerk is one of the few things in life that is always equal opportunity. It's additionally irksome when you know that the reason that a transgender person who was or still is physically male is allowed to stay at the women's side of the shelter is that she would get the proverbial s--- kicked out of her if she were made to stay at the men's side. The prevention of said death-beating is what gives such a person the opportunity to harass me at the women's side; the men's and women's sides of the Pine Street Inn are strictly separated. No matter what, I am not in favor of the death-beating, but I do have to bite my tongue not to say what I'm thinking when whoever it is emotionally abuses me. Perhaps I am unevolved in this respect, but it's frustrating.
Copyright L. Kochman, July 5, 2015 @ 5:25 p.m.
