I don’t usually get political in this blog–although I can be in-your-face political from time to time on my personal Facebook page.

 

Today is an exception because today is an exceptional day.

 

Today History was made!

 

Today the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples have the right to marry in all fifty states.

 

But there’s more to this story than meets the eye.

 

This ruling allows transgender people to marry their soul mates, too.

Transgender people are…

• people who were assigned a gender inside their mother’s womb but feel they’re “in the wrong body” when it comes to their true gender identity
• infants who were surgically altered shortly after birth when their bodies expressed both genders and doctors and parents chose just one of them without the newborn’s consent. This practice commonly occurred for many years before it was outlawed just a few decades ago.
• teenagers and adults who elect to undergo surgical procedures to transform their bodies from the gender they don’t align with (intellectually and emotionally) to the gender they identify with mentally
• people who decide, for whatever reason, to stay with the cards dealt them at birth (or shortly after) and go through life without the surgery that would satisfy their true gender identity

 

Personally, I fit into the second or last categories. I was either surgically altered at birth (no records were  kept of those who were altered, despite the fact that intersex expressions are as common as red hair, from what I’ve read) or I’m naturally transgender (mentally identifying with the male gender). Fortunately, I have no need or unending desire to alter myself at this late date. If I were younger and the surgical procedures were as advanced as they are today, I would probably have transitioned, but back then doing so would have been an embarrassment to my conservative family and a poorly-executed, state-of-the-primitive-art (essentially botched) re-assignment job.

 

As a male, I’m certain I would have been more successful in every venture I undertook. Females are regularly discounted and undervalued in the male-dominated business world we live in, despite the equality of intelligence between the genders. (As a transgender person, being regularly discriminated against based on my physical appearance is a deeply personal affront to me.)

 

All this said, I have no plans to marry at age 64; I’m perfectly happy being single. I love my private home sanctuary where I can escape at will to enjoy my introverted self whenever I want without inconveniencing or offending anyone else!

 

But I’m ecstatic beyond words to know that other committed couples who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender can tie the knot, pledge their ever-lasting commitment to each other, and enjoy the same protections and privileges that heterosexual couples have enjoyed for centuries. I know there are countless folks like them/us and that they/we are not an anomaly or a threat to anyone else.

 

I’ve been lucky to feel sufficiently trusted and loved by many of the people that I strike up friendships with that they’ve felt safe enough with me to divulge their “deepest, darkest secrets” and “confess” (long before it seemed safe to do so) that they don’t feel comfortable or honest pretending to be “cis-gendered” (perfectly happy in the genders their bodies express) or “straight”–that is, attracted solely to the “opposite” gender.

 

Today marks the beginning of the end of this type of nonsensical, almost hysterical discrimination.As of today, June 26, 2015 every American has the right to marry the human being he or she loves if the person they love willingly enters into the agreement. As of today, there is no such thing as same-sex marriage. There is just marriage. Let  wedding bells proclaim this happy day across the nation.

 

And yes, as a Christian, I believe that God is smiling today. Today God is affirming the notion that in the U.S. when it comes to marriage, Love wins and Judgment ends. Amen!