"A new eye for the straight guy."

I came near the end of the day for the Free Knowledge day. I came for the talk on "Marc Spooner:
"The purpose of a university experience: What are you doing here anyway?!" and stayed for the "Transgenderism" presentation and discussion.
I would like to focus on the "Transgenderism" presentation, as it was pretty interesting. Especially for me, as I have friends that are gay, and one them very free about the way he dresses, but I've never felt the need to sit down and have an academic conversation with him about his sexuality and how it is treated by the rest of society. He has always just been Fin to me.
The presentation was about transgenderism over the ages and over the globe. Transgenderism has been in the public eye since at very least the 1500's and everywhere on the globe. The Orient, Africa, europe and here in North America with the Native Americans. I was surprised about the amount of sub-classification of people that cross dress. There's a huge difference between a drag queen and someone that feels that they've been given the wrong sex. With that ignorance dispelled I continued to listen. The an important reminder was inadvertently given to me. People in the "queer" community still do not feel comfortable with expressing themselves freely and would like more understanding from society. Which is to say they are suggesting to the rest of us that they are human beings and should be treated with the dignity every human being deserves. Which is a perfectly acceptable statement and one that embarrasses me. To think that we can travel to the moon and back, cure disease but we aren't advanced enough to offer everyone the same level understanding or even the common courtesy that even if we don't understand something. That something isn't automatically wrong. Society isn't used to having its norms challenged and the "queer" community isn't used to openly challenging our convoluted norms. There does seem to be hope, the presenter said while there are a great many public places where he does not feel physically safe in expressing himself, there are a small few public places where he does feel safe. Which is a start, as previously there was even less places he felt safe to act himself out in public. My thoughts at the end of the lecture was that we need to give each other time, space and understanding. Time to figure out ourselves, space to make decisions of what is right for ourselves and the understanding that we all might not be perfect, but we should all feel safe.