Uh-huh, Dat's A Man!

Yesterday, during a typical boring early afternoon on a day off, I took an hour to channel surf through my beloved cable tv. There wasn't a damn thing I found interesting, and I couldn't bring myself to watch the news channels. It's becoming too surreal at CNN lately. I believe it was the 42nd time around the dial (for those of you under twenty, televisions used to have dials to change channels), I stopped on the Maury Show because the remote batteries went dead.

While I searched for my CD walkman (for those of you under ten, before i-pods we used to listen to compact discs, and for those of you under thirty, a walkman used to play cassette tapes), to steal the batteries, I noticed the program topic was something along the line of "Dude Looks Like A Lady" or something. As they brought various women and men in drag to the stage, the audience members would yell out "Uh-huh, Dat's A Man!" It was a little like a game show without prizes, but I know I've found the Maury Show a hundred times before with each show being about men who look like women or "That Ain't My Baby."

I have no problem with the choice of programming for Mr Povich's show. I think he's doing a valuable service for people who have a hard time draggin themselves out of the house. The thing that confused me is how often I've stumbled upon this same topic on his program (for those of you under thirty-five, a guy sporting long hair, a hippie, used to be all it took for a man to look like a woman). I've seen transvestites and transexuals millions of times in the media and on the street, so it isn't really that big of a deal, but it still seems to be a fascination to a lot of people. Still, whenever I'm walking with someone and I see a person of the gender-bending set, one of us will certainly say, "Uh-huh, dat's a man!"

Stranger still, everytime I see a man who "looks" gay, I have to tell it to whomever I'm with, "Yeah, that guy's gay," and if I don't say it, I'm sure whomever I'm with will. I'm friends with several gay men and I no longer see a stigma attached to sexual preference, but I still have to point it out. I'm sure the person in question is completely aware of their own sexual preference, but all of this sexual transwhatever is still so ingrained into my psyche as "foreign" that I have to point it out like I need to punch the person I'm with in the manner of seeing a VW Beetle.

I've been pissed before at people much older than I for their backward attitudes, but I'm finding that no matter how much I've changed my own, there is always a part of how I used to think that still sticks with me. I even still bow my head everytime I hear Jesus mentioned just like I was taught in gradeschool, and I haven't those beliefs in over a decade. No wonder my brain doesn't work anymore. It's still full of all of the trash I've accumulated throughout my life. I suppose I could do with a good brainwashing.