Keep it Simple: In search of the next bogeyman

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines bogeyman as a monstrous imaginary figure used in threatening or scaring children. I like the Collins dictionary definition better: Someone whose ideas or actions are disapproved of by some people, and who are described by them as evil or unpleasant in order to make other people afraid.

I will be the first to admit there is a lot about people who are transgender I don’t get. And, I will be the first to admit it doesn’t matter what I do or don’t get about someone who is different from me. Fact is we are all different and should be celebrating our differences, not heaping hate on those who don’t conform to what we consider normal. I also don’t get people with pink or blue hair but I would no more deny them their rights than I would someone who decides they were born in the wrong biological body and wish to be true to themselves.

Unfortunately, our country is once again in bogeyman mode — hence all of the hateful rhetoric aimed at transgender people who only want to be left alone to live their lives in relative peace like the rest of us. If you look at the more than 500 pieces of anit-LGBT+ bills introduced just this year, with 76 currently signed into law denying simple rights to mainly folks of the trans persuasion, you will note we are well into the current phase of demonizing and bogeymanizing trans people right out of existence.

To date, 21 states have enacted sports bans for trans folks and 20 have bans denying them gender affirming care. This is despicable discrimination but this is how some people are intent on imposing their hatred onto others — “But we need a bogeyman,” they say, “to pile on all of the fears we feel in our lives and right now trans people are the perfect bogeymen to serve as our foil.” Again — despicable, and I’ll add — disgusting.

Now I’m just a curmudgeonly old white guy, born of privilege, and should just keep my mouth shut about the current spate of discrimination going 'round but I can’t. Nobody, not me or you, or anyone else can be free unless we are all free. We have been a supposedly free country for almost 250 years but we still can’t quite seem to get it right and some go out of their way to create new bogeymen to assuage their fears — real or imagined.

We have a long history of creating bogeymen — at the top of the list are of course women and Black people who were descended from slaves — we aren’t quite, here in the 21st century, ready to acknowledge they have equal rights; the same as this curmudgeonly man and his white, male descendents. We can add to the list of bogeymen Jews, other people of color, the disabled, queer folk, and on and on and here we are in 2023 bogeymanizing transgender people.

Where will it end?

I am guessing once the hoopla of bogeymanizing transgender people dies down and they are lumped along with all of the other former bogeymen, my minority will be the next group singled out — I am, of course, talking about lefties. No, not those notorious folks who are left of center politically, but the 12 percent of Americans who identify as southpaws, left-handed people specifically.

Yes, I predict the next group the haters will heap their hate on will be the innocent left-handed folk who do everything “backwards” according to the majority “right.”

I imagine state legislators will be falling all over themselves to legislate us right out of existence, just as they are currently attempting to do with trans kids. I wouldn’t be surprised if legislators pass a bill to deny my youngest left-handed grandson the right to use left-handed scissors when he enters kindergarten next year and suppose state legislators will clamor for ace lefty baseball pitchers such as former Tiger Max Scherzer to only be permitted to throw right-handed on the mound. I predict his and other left-handed pitchers' earned run averages will plummet dramatically.

Yes, discrimination and bills will be passed at a furious pace to “protect” us lefties from ourselves. It will indeed be a perilous time for those of us who inherited the lefty gene in our DNA.

And, yes, watch out all you purveyors of fear-mongering — whether of transgender people or lefties there will be other haters out there just licking their chops to make you the next bogeyman to project all of their unfounded fears upon.

To paraphrase Kermit the Frog, “It’s not easy being the bogeyman.” A truth the transgender community knows all too well right now.

— Michael Jones is a columnist and contributor for the Gaylord Herald Times. He can be reached at mfomike2@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Keep it Simple: In search of the next bogeyman