HAVING THE COURAGE TO BE

There is an old saying, “To thine own self be true.” Like most old sayings this is something easier said than done. This past Sunday I had the pleasure of interviewing a man who knows the difficulty in meeting the challenge of this task and has done it anyway. My guest on this particular edition of WIP SUNDAY was Scott Turner Schofield. Scott was born female but knew at an early age “I’m a boy.” With everyone around him telling him he was a girl he managed to hold on to this difference sense of who he was and was not. Pressure from family,friends, peers, school and religion told him that who he knew himself to be was a wrong idea. Yet, he managed to prevail. Many others in his position have been deserted by family, have run away, given into addictions or other physical/mental health problems. Scott did none of these things. He held on tightly to the courage it took to be who he was. Getting an education while finding support from his family Scott found a network of supportive friends. Eventually finding the fiscal resources and the the emotional courage he took the final surgical steps to make the inner Scott and the outer Scott be one. Transgender people in our society are a hidden minority. Fearing scorn and social ostracism we often force them to live lives of “lets pretend.” Scott refused to pretend. In his work as a storyteller/performance artist he urges us to look past the question of what body parts a person might have (and what the might do with them). Rather we should consider them, he suggests, by what they do(and who they are) with the total package. This is a radical stance to take in our often racist, sexist, ageist, ablest society. If you want to know more about this truly unique and I believe courageous individual just Google the name SCOTT TURNER SCHOFIELD. You will find much to learn from this man who invites us all to be ” free to be you and me.”

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