Judge not.

I've been having a slow conversation through Facebook with a friend from high school.Hopefully she will display up here eventually.But she's a little busy training to be a Peace Corps volunteer, so we'll se.In one of her messages she wrote:You get an original voice. I know that transgender issues are understandably important to you, but I also feel your posts on other subjects to be fascinating.

You save with love and are capable to cut the macrocosm down to the infinitely human microcosm.Also, everyone changes as they know their lives. Most of us don't wish to be judged, but if we are, we wish to be judged by who we are now. As an old high school friend, I would wish to see you handle this character of consequence in kinship to transgender politics.I'll try to do that tonight.with a small bit of other stuff mixed in.No, I don't want to be judged by who I was, though I am not ashamed of that person.I led a pretty good life up until the spot where I could not do it any longer.But, my oh my, do I care I had been capable to live a life like Oak Reed or Andy Moreno.Truth is that I was too afraid.afraid of what my classmates would get said or would have done.I was not secure enough to present that.So I waited.and slowly matured.And I learned about who I was, slowly and surreptitiously, to be sure.When I was much younger, this kind of information did not exist.or was so easily hidden as to be virtually nonexistent.And maybe more than I should have, I've divorced myself from most of my friends I grew up with, under the premise that it is good to strong for them to understand.I mean, I did attend my 30th high school reunion in 1996, a pair of days later my surgery, but that really didn't go so well, all in all.A few people talked with me for a small bit, but it certainly wasn't necessarily the masses with whom I would get preferred to pass time (with a pair of exceptions).Then again, most of them had no idea I'd had a sex change, so maybe the distance between us shouldn't have been unexpected.I shouldn't judge them based on that encounter, if but for the fact that it was 14 years ago.It may be somewhat ironic that as a teacher, it's my job to judge, if not the students themselves, at the very least, the character of their work.I strive mightily to make certain it doesn't go beyond that.People shouldn't be judged.as people.by how good they do in a math class.And the soul a pupil is when he or she takes a year from me is not the sami as the soul they will finally become.These are, after all, young adults.Who would want to be judged by who they were as a young adult.or a high school student.or a grade school student.or a minor in preschool?And for those of us who are transgender and/or transsexual, why should we be judged by how we were labeled when we were born?How would you wish that if it were you who were so judged?As a transwoman I am not ashamed of the man I was until I was 44 years old.but I am not that person now.I'd sooner be calculated by the woman I have been for the past 18 years.I'd know it if some of my friends from my past contacted me.I recognize that I have touched so much and had so many upheavals in my spirit that that I haven't done a secure job at keeping in contact with those people.If I could open it, I'd love to make a gigantic retirement part when the sentence comes and have all those friends who helped me on the way be there.Unfortunately, it is dubious that will always happen.ObstaclesFriends Along the WayI started out on this road all aloneFear and Painmy only companionsI wondered ifI would lose myselfThe road seemed darkand fraught with perilTil I found I hadFriends along the wayAs the road woundthrough hard terrainI sometimes doubtedmy ability to go onBut I fought backthe Fearand worked throughthe Painwith the aid of myFriends along the wayAs time passed bythe road ascendedObstacles less frequentbut harder to passAnd at timesI needed theplaces of refugerespite and careoffered to me byFriends along the wayI've come to the crestof the mountainI've climbedAs I see down belowI see all of thebarriers crossedthe challenges I metand the lessons I learnedI will never forget thoseFriends along the wayWhat lies overthe top of the road Thither is noway of knowingBut deep in my heartFrom the depthsof my soulI know that I'll haveThe company of myFriends from on the way-Robyn Elaine Serven-July, 1994