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No, That Bird Does Not Make You a Pirate (and other fallacies)

Dear Kristi Merritt (and anyone who thinks she has a point with this stunt, below)



No, the Seahawks jersey, helmet, and football do not make you Russell Wilson, but then they aren't what make Russell Wilson, Russel Wilson, either. Russell Wilson is Russell Wilson because of WHO HE IS, not because of what he wears.

Mexicans don't all wear sombreros, drink beer, and eat tortilla chips - you're thinking of Americans who celebrate Cinco de Mayo. Have you ever been to Mexico? Mexicans are light, dark, black, brown, white, Asian, African, European, Native - just like in the United States. Mexico is a nation of immigrants, just like the United States and Canada. Just like every other country in the Americas, it's population is a blend of peoples from EVERYWHERE IN THE WORLD. Also, did I mention that Mexicans don't all wear sombreros, any more than all Americans wear cowboy hats. So no, your sombrero doesn't make you look Mexican. It makes you look like a gringa loca.

Pirate? No - these are pirates:



It's not the dress that makes you a woman, any more than your trousers in all your other shots make you a man. It's not the clothes. It's your identity - the same thing that keeps YOU from being Russell Wilson, Mexican, a pirate, or a decent and compassionate human being. If you think it's about clothing, you're sorely mistaken. As RuPaul Charles said, "We are all born naked, everything else is drag." .

Identity is internal. Clothing is an external reflection of your identity, it doesn't define you. In fact, it works the other way around. Before you invalidate the identities of others, perhaps you should take a moment to try to understand their reality - one in which people like you would rather see them attacked,  mocked, ridiculed, and made the butt of jokes repeatedly, or seen as entertainment rather than whole human beings just like you and me and everyone we know.

How would you feel if your child was told that they couldn't be themselves? Pick any aspect of their personality - now tell them that they not only have to hide and deny that aspect of their identity, but that they actively have to suppress it and act out the opposite to be considered "normal". Your child that loves football is forbidden from playing, watching, or dreaming about the NFL. They must instead take up knitting. Your child that loves to hike is locked inside the house and forbidden from so much as sitting in a sunbeam in the window. Or flip it. That is what it is like to be a trans* person in the United States.

All because of people like you who think it's disgusting that the person pissing next to you might have a different set of plumbing through an accident of birth. #ijustneedtopee

By the way - you shouldn't be looking. I guarantee you that they aren't.

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