Carol Bergman

 

 

And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge…

 

-William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

 

 

Former New York State Governor Cuomo looked and sounded like an old dog throughout his resurgence into the limelight. But if Cuomo was an old dog wreaking vengeance without media savvy, Mamdani was a puppy with a blue sky smile. Are we kicking an old—"experienced" – dog  to the curb and elevating an–"inexperienced"—puppy  to higher office?   That's what many in the city fear, including many of my city friends. 

 

I had intended this post as comedy today. Reading the news every morning is hard enough, and the image of the old dog and the puppy amused me. Even though I moved out of the city in 2018, I still follow every electrifying, insane New York city election. But this one hurt and, in the end, was not amusing. It was amplified by hate, ageism, innuendo, tropes, and entitlement, an echo of the devolution of political discourse and language, especially on social media, but  not only on social media. Despite Elon Musk's getting-to-Mars fantasies, there is no Planet B, as yet. We have to settle down and try to make things work right here. I hope you will join me in an experiment to broaden and steady our frontal lobe thinking, as follows:

 

1.      Study in earnest-- and with as open a heart and mind as possible-- any issue which engages and challenges your life. Read  more, scroll less. Get more informed—more  educated—than you have ever been.  Read what you would not normally read in the mainstream media. Read and listen to media from other countries. Podcasts are available in abundance.

 

2.     Try not to assume that your point of view is the right one, or the only one. Consider-with an open heart and mind-other points of view. 

 

3.     Mentor anyone younger than you are. Showcase your experience, but allow new ideas to surface. 

 

4.     In general, listen more, talk less, as per my last blog post.

 

5.     Define and then re-define smear words, stereotypes, imprecise phrases. Study their historic source. Study propaganda. Take notes.

 

6.     Take a deep breath. Exhale.

 

I look forward to your findings and observations in this  utopian experiment.  We can reach for the stars, and one another, right here on earth.

 

 

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way… For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best."

 

― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

 

 

         

I have a new friend in town and we have so much to talk about that there is very little oxygen left in the café. We usually hang out for two hours or so, though I could listen to him and talk to him all day. I have no illusions that we'll agree on everything we discuss as we get to know one another, but it doesn't matter, the air is clear, the conversation is civil, there is no judgment at the table.

 

 It seems particularly important these difficult days to practice deep listening especially when we are just getting to know someone and their politics. What if our opinions are deeply held and divisive?  The tenor of conversation must remain respectful if we are to remain at peace with ourselves and one another.

 

Tea and empathy. Talk less, listen more. These are my mantras as I interview people, run a writing workshop, or cultivate a new friendship. Though we have no need of bomb shelters in upstate New York, and hopefully never will, we are enduring internecine warfare, gunshots ringing out across a peaceful suburb in the dead of night, hatreds old and new ascendant even among relatives, friends and colleagues. How easy it is for fury to turn violent, three-time poet laureate Joy Harjo reminds us in her poem, "Overwhelm." She warns that a country that "drinks from illusion," can "go down."

 

Listening to a Haaretz podcast this morning, I heard a still sane reporter gasp for breath as he used what Aldous Huxley called  "pleasant sounding vocabulary" to describe mass murder in Gaza and a missile attack on Haifa. After a while I did not hear this reporter's words, I felt his breath, escaping from his chest with a hiss, like steam. He was burning up inside.

 

Even in the safe enclave where I live, I encounter hatred daily. There is shouting and accusation, racialized slurs, and palpable fear. A man at a dinner party challenges what I have written and misunderstands my intention: to describe accurately, to report deeply, to understand a different point of view and analyze it with discipline and attention. I receive belligerent emails and delete them, turn my back on rage, move sideways out of range. Hatred is not sustainable. If it persists, we will annihilate each other.

 

We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law!

― Arthur Miller, The Crucible

 

 

 

The asylees and refugees arrived for a resume workshop. I could imagine my refugee parents in that room pulling an old suitcase with all their belongings, all their valuable dog-eared, well-fingered documents neatly held in a small satchel, the sorrow of family and friends left behind visible in their gestures and facial expressions. I am here because the United States took them in, a lifeline.

 

I had volunteered that day because I wanted to do something useful after the strengthened restrictions at our southern border and the belligerence against our neighbor to the north. We share a 5,525 mile border with Canada, the longest international border in the world; our problem becomes their problem, and though we may share firefighters during a wildfire season, as we did on the Minnewaska Ridge in upstate New York last summer, we don't share a culture of acceptance when it comes to refugees and asylees. According to the Pew Research Center, and the UNHCR, Canada leads the world in refugee resettlement.

 

I have two cousins who grew up in Canada because the refugee agency placed them there, separating our family. This happens a lot, even today, or even more so today. My husband and I recently mentored Nathan, a young Tamil man from Sri Lanka. His family was displaced during the Civil War after his father was killed. Nathan and his mother and sister fled, eventually reaching a refugee camp in Tamil-speaking South India. Because he was young and fit, Nathan was sent by the UNHCR to America to work and study; his mother and sister were sponsored by relatives in Canada. But Nathan had been granted asylum in the United States, which meant that he could not request asylum in any other country. "At least we are close enough to visit," he told us during one of our last visits before he disappeared. His mother's promise to find him a bride could be easily fulfilled from within the Tamil community in North America, he assured us. But he was having a hard time. He'd finished some schooling, received his US Citizenship, but he was still living with six other unmarried asylees and working two menial jobs. We had him over for dinner most Fridays to cook together, practice English, talk about everything and anything, a surrogate family, but not his family. And then he'd disappeared. We heard he was visiting his mother and sister in Canada.

 

At the workshop, I was matched with a young man from the Arab-speaking world whose father and uncle had been killed in a civil war. His schooling had been interrupted, his family scattered, many killed; his mother was missing and assumed kidnapped. I didn't get the full story; that wasn't my job. I had to find a way to create a one-page resume quickly so that he could find an internship or volunteer position while awaiting asylum, which can take years.

 

The young man has to be nameless here—asylum is not guaranteed, and deportation is always a possibility now—but suffice to say he was sophisticated, educated, a former competitive swimmer and marathon runner, easy to work with—eager like most young people are—to complete his education and remake his life. I enjoyed myself, enjoyed getting to know him, enjoyed helping him. I am a swimmer, too, so that was our first touching point. Many others followed.

 

It takes a village, and this young man had lost his through no fault of his own.

 

 

I hope that cisgender people realize that we are fully formed human beings, and often after our transitions, we feel even more fully formed. And getting to know us as people, rather than as just trans people, is very important.

 

-Erin Reed, author of "Erin In The Morning" Substack, in an interview with Kairo Weber in Sociologists for Trans Justice

 

  

The trans son of a friend of mine suffered for more than 15 years before he figured out that he wanted—needed—to transition. Raised in the Hudson Valley, he's living in New York City now which I would have thought—before talking with him recently—was congenial for trans men and women. But, since the 2024 election, the atmosphere, if we can call it that, is anything but congenial. "I've put my 'I'm proud to be trans tee-shirt away'," S. told me. "I don't want to be targeted again on the street."

 

Please note I am keeping S. anonymous here, for several reasons. He's a professional who works for a private organization that caters to trans men and women, and he's active in the trans community. But he's had his share of challenges. "I still need to go to a gynecologist," he told me. "Just imagine what could happen if the doctor has not been trained properly, or has never met a trans person before?"

 

I am not sure it is entirely analogous, but my conversation with S reminded me of what it was like for women not that long ago who wanted to procure birth control, or an abortion, without being sent to prison. And here we are again, fighting for the basic freedom to choose in a democracy.

 

Fortunately for S. and many others these days, he has a loving, empathetic, educated family, and he grew up in a liberal enclave. But when I asked about his high school experience he said, "I kept my identity to myself."  I wondered why that was necessary in a "liberal" town, but didn't probe further.  I felt sad that closeting in public, or at work, may again be necessary to feel safe in the threatening, abusive eco-system we are all navigating right now, especially if we are in any way "different." 

 

June is the month to celebrate the courageous, vocal LGBTQ+ community. Despite fear and struggle, they carry on, they resist.

 

An Addendum to this post: Human Rights Watch Issues Scathing Report on Anti-Trans Healthcare Bans in the US.  A first-of-its-kind Human Rights Watch report documented the impacts of trans youth care bans in-depth.  Here's the link:

 

https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/06/03/us-bans-gender-affirming-care-harm-trans-youth

 
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Human Rights Watch released a sweeping report on Tuesday detailing the harrowing experiences of trans youth, their families, and their healthcare providers in the United States—a first-of-its-kind analysis, the global non-profit says.

"It is the first comprehensive account by an international human rights organization to document how US state bans on gender-affirming care violate fundamental rights—including the right to health, the rights of the child, the right to non-discrimination, and the right to personal autonomy," said Yasemin Smallens, an officer in the LGBT Rights Program at Human Rights Watch, who is the document's principal author.

The report is titled "They're Ruining People's Lives": Bans on Gender-Affirming Care for Transgender Youth. Smallens told Erin in the Morning that, while gender-affirming care bans are often framed solely as an "LGBT issue," these findings situate trans health care within the broader framework of international human rights law. The bans may outlaw surgeries, hormone therapies, or affirming psychotherapy; they may criminalize providers of such care and punish parents who support their trans child.

The report was based on 51 interviews across 19 states with transgender youth, parents, healthcare providers, and advocates. The testimonies were pseudonymized to protect interviewees amidst growing political attacks. Even with guaranteed anonymity, however, Smallens said during a press conference that trans people and their loved ones were reluctant to speak out, especially upon the election of Donald Trump.

"With time, people were more and more afraid to speak to me," Smallens said. The report also notes that it was largely limited to trans kids who had supportive parents, and that the harm runs even deeper for trans kids in unsupportive families.

However, these narratives are vital in informing public debate about trans health and policies, especially as junk science and studies are elevated by the Trump Administration and anti-human rights zealots. In May, Trump's Department of Health and Human Services released a 400-page anti-trans screed full of pseudoscience and transphobia couched in graphs, charts, and the veneer of statistics and academic rigor.

"People are talking about the ontology of sex as opposed to the people that these policies are harming," Smallens said. "But these histories and these stories will remain."

Participants described navigating the current minefield of care barriers as devastating. "I want [lawmakers] to know they're ruining people's lives," one trans teen, identified as Sophia, said.

Multiple families reported having to move or otherwise change their location of care on two different occasions; when they fled to one place, another ban was enacted. Parents said they pay tens of thousands of dollars out-of-pocket for out-of-state care. They discussed doctors who have abruptly stopped care without warning, and that even the appearance of offering a referral sparked fears of legal action under states' "aiding and abetting" laws. One family reported that their gender clinic was targeted by an arson attack.

At the same time, the report supported and was supported by the overwhelming body of evidence that shows trans-affirming care is life-saving. Many of the trans young people profiled were happy, thriving members of their community until the healthcare bans, or the threat of such bans, drove children to attempt suicide.

"It felt like I wasn't allowed to have puberty and be happy and just be a regular child," said Kai, a trans youth. "I had to feel horrible and depressed and suicidal because it isn't who I am—to be in a woman's body, to be going through a female puberty—because I'm not a girl."

Meanwhile, Smallens struck a hopeful note about the potential for radical change at every level, issuing recommendations for the Oval Office and Congress cascading down to the most local levels of government—things lawmakers and officials can do to protect trans kids, their families, and their providers. State legislatures can enact "Shield Laws," which protect doctors from out-of-state, anti-trans prosecution. Medical boards can reaffirm their support of holistic, evidence-based best practices when it comes to treating trans patients. County officials can resist orders to investigate families for providing gender-affirming care to their trans children.

When these kids are allowed the care and support they need, Smallens' report highlights the potential for trans joy, growth, and resilience. One parent, Grace, said her son used to cry at his own reflection until he accessed gender-affirming care. "Shortly after [he started] testosterone, I walked by and he was in the bathroom grinning, grinning at himself [in the mirror] like an idiot," she told Human Rights Watch "And I'm like, 'What are you doing?' And he said, 'I finally feel like myself.'"