Legislature’s Anti-Trans Bullying Drives Aberdeen Woman from South Dakota

I know Miranda Gohn. I met her in person during my 2014 blog tour. She’s an Aberdeen neighbor and a friend who helped me with some political activity last year.

I never wrote about her, because she’s been trying very hard to live under the radar. She wasn’t on the lam, wasn’t hiding EB-5 or GEAR UP money (actually, those crooks don’t have to hide: they get to keep their nice houses and nice paychecks). She just didn’t want to deal with the hurt and harassment she’d experienced all of her life from South Dakotans who get over the fact that she was born with male anatomy and chose to undergo sex reassignment surgery.

But the rabid bigotry of the South Dakota Legislature is too much for Gohn to stand in silence. She’s taking her many talents to the Twin Cities… but not without taking her story public to Stu Whitney in an attempt to show legislators and everyone else that transgender people aren’t twisted mental cases but fellow South Dakotans who’d just like to be themselves and live their lives:

Her hope is that more people fight through preconceived prejudices to find common ground when it comes to transgender rights, especially with the clock ticking in Pierre. Having lived most of her life in fear of being exposed as “different,” she knows that most people’s basic interpretation of happiness is the same.

“I want to go kayaking,” she says. “I want to ride my bike. I want to find a job. I want to focus on relationships, just like everyone else. I’m not asking for sympathy or special treatment, just the feeling that we can move forward without fear and find the strength to live our lives” [Stu Whitney, “Transgender Fear Takes Shape,” that Sioux Falls paper, 2016.02.13].

Driving people like Gohn out of their home state is probably just what certain Republican legislators want. It’s a shame to see such thugs win. I hate to lose allies like Gohn who could stay with me in South Dakota and fight those thugs. But I’ll never blame a target of bullying who tires of fighting a constant battle against neighbors and laws that treat her like garbage and sacrifices her home to live in a better, fairer place.

Gohn’s departure reminds us what we lose when South Dakota legislators act like jerks. Gohn’s departure reminds us Democrats, liberals, progressives, LGBTQ citizens and allies, and everyone else who believes in equal human dignity how hard we have to work to make South Dakota a place that everyone can call home.