No More Savage Transphobic Slurs, Not One More Insulted Person
ADAM MICHAEL LUEBKE
Los Angeles
The day was warm with a sluggish breeze, and every seat at every table outside the coffee shop was occupied. Little did anyone expect there would be a need for the ambulance a few minutes later.
Here she is
I had been chatting with an old friend of mine about his automobile. A well-used Toyota Camry that was having engine problems. My friend was concerned the car was on its way out, and he really didn’t want to think about springing for another vehicle. He shuddered at the idea of stepping onto the hot pavement and walking among the used cars, eyeballing their general conditions and comparing their relative mileage and prices, while the sun pounded on them and its light glinted off their windshields and blinded his eyes. And then the salesmen would descend with extended hands ahead of their rehearsed smiles….
What’s wrong with the car? I asked. What is it doing?
“The engine clunks sometimes,” he said, “and when I give it gas, it seems to slip for a second before it cracks into gear.” He laughed, apparently remembering a situation he’d had with it. “Damned thing is intolerable,” he said in a loud voice. “Maybe it’s the goddamned tranny,” he said.
A woman at the table next to us began panting. She raised a heavy white arm to her forehead. Her male companion sat up straight. “Excuse me?” he asked my friend. “What did you say?” Meanwhile, through gasps for air, the woman said, “That was so offensive.”
I glanced at my friend. He was baffled, as was I.
“Let’s get you to some shade,” the man said to the woman. He helped to lift her off the metal chair. She stumbled a few feet away, guided by her male companion, and then succumbed to her weakened knees. Thankfully, the man had just enough strength to lower her slowly. She squatted and then sat on the cooler cement.
All conversation had stopped. Eyes were on the woman in the white and pink summer dress — on any normal day, it was a pleasant outfit, although stretched tight in some places, but today it looked like the only spare bed sheet that would be sacrificed to cloak a dying woman.
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I still don’t know what is going on here, I said to my friend. In some way we might feel responsible for this, yet, I don’t know why. Let’s keep stiff upper lips about this until all the facts are in.
But we got our answer as to what had plagued the woman. A chorus of “What happened?” and “Oh my God!” arose. Two young girls and an elderly gentleman with a gray ponytail knelt beside the woman. The girls waved their hands to cool the reddening cheeks of the downed lady.
“That insensitive man,” her male companion said, nearly weeping. “It’s his fault.”
Many heads, but not all, shook in disgust at my friend, and me too, I suppose, as I was closely associated with him. In the distance, sirens wailed. Somebody had called either the authorities or the paramedics. We couldn’t be sure which.
Listen, I told my friend, because I could tell he wasn’t understanding. You dropped that explosive social buzzword for ‘transmission’ in public, and it seems you may have caused at least one casualty. There’s no reason to feel bad about this, I said, but we’re going to have to sneak away from here quietly when the opportunity presents itself. We may never be welcome at this coffee shop again. You’ve pissed in our pond.
“You mean tranny?” he asked.
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I put my finger to my lips. You louse! I said. Keep it quiet.
“What’s wrong with tran…” he asked.
Don’t you read the news? There was just a huge uproar over that vocal gay man named Dan Savage. He used trann– excuse me, he used that word as a guest speaker at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics. The students, some of the brightest in the nation, are also the most sensitive to cultural buzzwords. Many people were hurt, a few seriously injured because of Savage’s thoughtless ejaculation.
After Savage used his ‘transphobic slur’, I told my friend, some of the UofC college kids were outraged. Others fainted and had to be carried out by their brave collegiates. I saw the footage. It was like teenage girls being at their first Elvis concert in the 50s. Massive loss of emotional control and basic motor skills.
“But that’s what we call a transmission in a car,” my friend said.
It doesn’t matter. This is not the 1970s any longer. We are in the 21st century, big boy, and there are twenty thousand new sensibilities you’ll have to learn so you don’t keep causing commotion wherever you go. You’ve clearly disturbed the natural order of things. You’ve stirred the collective conscious and now everyone’s dizzy, I said.
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The distance sirens approached and cleaved our ears. They were cut off in mid ‘whoop’. My friend and I were the only ones still sitting.
Two handsome gentlemen, both the same height and with the same tanned color skin ran over to the crowd of folks who had surrounded the dying woman. One of them told everybody to stand back. “Clear some space, for God’s sake,” he said. The other asked what happened.
From behind what looked like a cage made of legs, the kneeling male companion said his wife had suffered a shock after an insensitive
man had uttered the word ‘tranny’. The woman wailed and gasped for breath again. Many people scoffed audibly. “He said that?” a woman in a floppy hat said.
“Like transmission?” the paramedic asked.
“Get the [unintelligible]” the other said to his partner. “Hurry.”
The man ran to the ambulance, pulled open the back doors, and set up a stretcher. He wheeled it over. “Let’s back up now!” he hollered. “She’ll be fine. Just needs a little air and some space.”
After the ambulance drove away with her and her husband in the back, the group of people disassembled. Some cast disgusted looks at our table.
“Is there a book or a website that stays current on these cultural language issues?” my friend asked. “Who makes up these things?”
I’m going to create a website soon, I said, so good people like yourself can check it each morning and never fall victim to these horrifying scenes. Never Again will be the motto. Not one more insulted person! Not one more offended sensibility! Only innocuous words and nontoxic sentences.
“It’ll be easier to make a list of the remaining words that people are free to use. That would be shorter than if you compiled the words that have been deemed offensive,” my friend said.
Let’s not get cynical, here, I said. A little social re-education and you too will be fit the mold of a 21st century human being.
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[transmission photo by Ereshkigal1; ‘ticked off t—ies’ by David Shankbone; gay pride photo by istolethetv]
