California is so different from Louisiana

I can’t get out of my head that I have to blog about Victoria Kolakowski. I cannot remember if she came last week or the week before to the law school, but she did come and share her life story with us. I wasn’t expecting her story to impact me, at all, really. The law school clubs have various meetings every single week, providing free lunch and a speaker. I rarely attend. Mrs. Kolakowski was just going to be another one of those lunches, but she was interesting and I didn’t have anything to do. So, I convinced my best friend to stay with me, and we got free rainbow cake before she started talking. Already a good deal.

The reason that this woman was so interesting is because she used to be a man. No, I’m not kidding. You can look it up. Victoria Kolakowski is an LSU Law graduate. She started law school as a man named Michael and finished as a woman named Victoria. Now she is a judge in California. Aside from the obvious social repercussions that come from all areas of the country when one makes a decision of this sort, Victoria Kolakowski came out her final year in law school. In Louisiana. In the late 1980s.. I can’t even imagine how conservative it must have been at that time because I was still in diapers. But, with my understanding of the cultural environment of our state today, in 2011, I know that this woman’s decision was borderline crazy, even if God himself was on her side. So, I went to listen to her talk. I mean, why not? It would be worth it, regardless of how I came out thinking about her.

And if I am going to be honest, I have to say that listening to her talk changed the way that I view transgendered people. This woman wasn’t weird. She didn’t look like a man, and she didn’t have a deep voice. She carried herself very well, like a classy female, with dignity and grace. She was down to earth, but confident and  with a good sense of humor. And she didn’t try too hard. She was just Victoria Kolakowski: yeah, I used to be a man, but who doesn’t have skeletons in their closet. And strangely enough, I related to all of her very human experiences. Frustration. Confusion. Ridicule. Love. Support. Pride. These are all things that we as humans share while we are doing this thing called life. The more she talked, the more I felt like I got where she was coming from..

It’s easy to give people who are different a bad rap. They don’t fit the typical mold of what we are raised to expect ( and respect). I know gay people are just normal people. I realized that several years ago, despite my small-town upbringing. It’s the transgendered thing that got me. That is a very serious thing to do to one’s body.. But, the more I think about it, the more I realize that people are just really people. We all need the same basic things for survival. We all have the same basic emotions. Regardless of who you are, it always comes back to birth and death. I share that with everybody.

Take from that what you will. I took a lot. Transgendered people will no longer be met with skepticism and doubt from me. We each have our own paths, and we are who we are for a reason. I respect that, and I am going to make more effort to be open to the person presently in front of me, no matter who that person is.

“Change the world, but don’t forget to pay the bills.” -Victoria Kolakowski