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I invite you all to participate in a thought experiment. I have a series of questions about you (yes, you!) but you don't need to answer them in a reply here; just in your head. Be honest though, that's the point of the exercise.

What is your sexual orientation? Again, no need to answer to the class, no one here wants you to be uncomfortable. But you know whom you are attracted to, right? When you dream about someone at night, you probably have a particular gender in mind. That strong muscular back, those well rounded calves -- mmmm-hmmm! Next, when did you realize your attraction? Did you have a moment of realization while watching a movie starring the person of your fantasies? Or maybe, like most people, you never even noticed a particular time, it was just always there. Next question: how sure are you? Have you ever looked at someone opposite of your preferred and ached to touch them? Remember, this is all in your head, so be honest.

So, to those who answered the questions thus: Straight; Always there; 100% sure, ewww, I'd never. Why would you think gay people are any different in the certainty of their answers? A straight person is always swimming in a sea of straight media, culture, friends and neighbors. Sure, there are more examples of gay people in media than in the past, but still precious few. And yet, gay people know their own sexuality as certainly as straight people. How could they not know? Just like for the straights: it's always been there.

You might see where this is headed. One more step, and it's a doozy. If you accept that people do not choose their sexuality, that it's part of their inborn nature, (I've lost all the people I wanted to speak to already, but for the choir, here goes) then does it not follow that transgender people are trans by birth? It is their nature, as incontrovertible and ineluctable as sexuality. No one is being converted to gayism or trannyhood. It who they are.

Rugged individualists aside, nobody wants to be significantly different from their peers and neighbors. By standing out, you invite ridicule, bullying, hatred. The proud nail gets the hammer, after all; the squeaky wheel gets greased. Knowing how much attention -- overwhelmingly negative -- trans people receive, do you suppose they would have chosen to be that way? Imagine yourself standing up in a room crowded with Desert Eagle carriers and saying you don't like guns. Would you enjoy the target that would put on your back? Welcome to being gay. Every day. How long would it take for the gun bros to run you out of the room? To threaten you with harm? To drive by your house brandishing their sexy guns? Welcome to being trans. Every day.

Gay and trans people are tougher than you. Yes, I said it. They have spent their lives swimming against the current in that sea of cis/straightness and they are still true to themselves. They are proud* of who they are and proud of the fight that brought them (most of the way) to open acceptance. They raise the ire of intolerant people merely by existing but they still stand up. Even when everyone in the room has a gun, they keep standing up.

You straight folk have it easy. Maybe someday it will be just that easy for gay/trans folk too. Not any time soon though, unless enough people can stretch their empathy muscles a bit and realize that there's no difference.

*The word "pride" here is often misunderstood by the intolerant, probably intentionally. It is not the sense of "I am better than you because I am __________." Instead, it is the opposite of ashamed. "I am not ashamed to be ____________, which some people think I ought to be."