I can’t count the number of people who, after knowing me for all of twenty overcrowded-cocktail-party minutes, have laughed at one of my wisecracks and said, “Wow, you’re really cynical.” I’ve never understood that, unless the folks I meet socially have an Alanis Morissette-type understanding of the word; if we take cynical to mean “contemptuously distrustful of human nature and motives,” then I don’t consider myself cynical, because if I thought that little of my fellow human beings, I wouldn’t stand around drinking beer with them, if you see what I mean. I’d categorize myself as “captious,” perhaps, or “overly judgmental,” and you can take “sarcastic” and “bitter” to the bank for sure, but “cynical”? I don’t think you can call a woman who begins tearing up at the mere mention of certain scenes in The Shawshank Redemption cynical.

But I do wonder on occasion how I – how anyone – can have any faith in my fellow human beings at all. Once in a while, I hear the disheartening story du jour on the news as I get dressed in the morning, and I come wandering out of my little dressing area with one arm into my sweater and a wet head, unable to believe my ears, and I stand there and say “uch” and “oh, Christ” and “now this I don’t believe,” and the cat regards me with gentle concern, and I remember that I used to tease my grandmother for talking to the TV, so I go to finish getting dressed, and I walk across town to catch my train, and usually I think about other things as I walk – by design, because if you dwell too much on the horrors abroad in the world, you’ll never to get out of bed in the morning. Sometimes, though, the story sticks in my mind and I can’t get it out. Last year, I dragged the Biscuit with me to see The Brandon Teena Story, and as we walked out, he said dryly, “Well, that was a pick-me-up,” and I just stared at my feet, and then I announced my intention to renounce the company of other people and move to a cave in Outer Mongolia with a couple of cats and perhaps a small sheep. For days, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, but eventually, though, my seething disgust for Teena Brandon’s killers subsided somewhat, and my indiscriminate anger at the entire human race over her tragic end ebbed as well.

I saw Boys Don’t Cry last night, and all of it came back. I sat in my seat and I wept for Teena, and I also wept because I felt horrified and disgusted and, above all, deeply furious, and a lot of times when I get really angry, I burst into tears. I watched Teena almost get away with passing as a boy. I watched Teena fall in love with a girl. I watched Teena make friends with other boys, and steal tampons when her totally unwanted period came, and mug in front of the mirror, and have sex. Then I watched her so-called friends uncover her secret. And rape her, brutally. And kill her. I sobbed for about fifteen minutes, and when the movie ended, the Couch Baron and I staggered out into the lobby, and I walked home and thought poisonous, ugly, hateful thoughts about people.

At times like this, when I have just seen incontrovertible evidence that people suck, I have absolutely no faith in anyone with opposable thumbs. At times like this, I hate people. I am not a perfect person by any means; I tell white lies, I make fun of people, I make unfounded judgments, and I almost shoplifted a bottle of nail-polish once in seventh grade (don’t worry, Mom – I wimped out), so I don’t hate the imperfect people in line at the post office, although God knows I’ve started muttering “Outer Mongolia” to myself when the woman ahead of me in line counts out exact change, in pennies, for a single solitary goddamn stamp. But people beat up and rape and kill other people. People beat up and rape and kill their own children sometimes. People drag other people behind trucks. People tie other people to fences and let them freeze. People shoot other people thirty-nine times at point-blank range. People conceive little people, and then they disappear. In Nebraska, people made friends with a confused girl, and then they raped her, and then they shot her in the head, and they shot her friend in the head with the friend’s baby in the room. I hate people that do those things. “Cynical”? Me? Why not? Why should I put any trust in other people to act right? What reason have other people given me to believe in them?

Well, I’ve heard it said that a cynic is just a disappointed romantic, and that sounds like me. I go around grumbling, “Damn, I hate people,” but then I see a happy story on CNN, or a cute boy holds a door open for me, and then that day I go around smiling, “People. Go figure.” A guy saved a woman he didn’t even know from getting stabbed on the train last week. A woman I know has gone nearly broke providing foster care to homeless cats. Yay, people! Even little things give me hope, like browsing through a short-story collection and finding a sentence as flawlessly turned as an ankle, a lyrical, functional sentence, perfectly suited to its purpose, and impossible to replicate. Kisses. Aretha Franklin. A stranger rolling her extra tampon to me under the partition. The mysterious elves in my neighborhood growing up, none of whom ever saw each other coming and going, but all of whom pitched in to decorate the bitty little fir tree on the traffic island up the block, until the tree nearly pulled a “Peanuts” and swooned under the weight of all the ornaments. Potluck. Movies like Boys Don’t Cry: beautifully, mercilessly written; lyrically shot; and acted like you wouldn’t believe. Hilary Swank and ChloÃŽ Sevigny should win Oscars for their performances. Neither of them puts a foot wrong; Ms. Sevigny could take home a statue just based on the smoldering stare she gives Brandon through her screen door. It’s not easy to watch, this film, and it tells a terribly sad and terribly ugly little story, but it tells the story so well, and as I walked home, I hated the people that killed Teena Brandon, but I still had hope. Teena Brandon jammed a lot of courage into a short, bleak life, and Kimberly Peirce made a beautiful thing out of the end of that life. Go see Boys Don’t Cry. It’s the best film of the year.

So, for now, I will postpone my move to Outer Mongolia . . . unless of course people keep cutting in front of me at the grocery store, in which case, my sheep and I will check you later.

Gwen has some tips for people.

The official site for Boys Don’t Cry.

For more information on transpeople,

follow these links,
thoughtfully provided by a TN reader.

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