coy
[koi] adjective, coy·er, coy·est, verb
adjective
1. artfully or affectedly shy or reserved; slyly hesitant; coquettish.2. shy; modest.3. showing reluctance, especially when insincere or affected, to reveal one’s plans or opinions, make a commitment, or take a stand: The mayor was coy about his future political aspirations.4. Archaic. disdainful; aloof.5. Obsolete . quiet; reserved.-via Dictionary.com
Coy Mathis did not choose her name. This beautiful six-year-old one-third of a set of triplets also didn’t choose to be the banner people have decided to wave in the the current knock-down drag-out surrounding which personal pronouns with which she should be allowed to refer to herself, and where she can use the restroom when she’s at school.
“Critics who treat ‘adult’ as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” -C. S. Lewis
Coy was born male. During the beautiful innocent phase of childhood, where gender, color, and economic status mean nothing, her decision (arguably influenced by the diagnosis of a psychologist, who told her parents she is transgender) to live as a girl, supported by her parents, has catapulted her into the limelight while at the same time removing her from public school, where she was the object of limitless in-your-face scrutiny.
Where is the seat of identity? Is in in our physical bodies more than in our minds? Do we entrust science to answer such a question? Or do we appeal to faith? Is Coy just weird for being…coy…with regard to being male? Does Coy, a child of six, deserve to be given a serious answer to the question she asked at age four: “When are we going to the doctor to get me fixed so I can be a girl?” When she asked that question, was she sinning?
How does society balance the rights of the masses against the rights of the individual? Should the public school accommodate the needs of one trans-gendered child even though those needs will no doubt cause much discomfort to many other children? Does accommodating an elementary aged trans-gendered child set a precedent that much be followed by high schools? What is the right thing, the just thing, to do? Better yet, what is the most human thing to do?
Coy’s parents have chosen to file a formal discrimination complaint against the school and home-school their child in the aftermath of the school’s decision to ban her from the girl’s bathroom, and this action has made their private turmoil fodder for fiery public discussion. In my opinion, the decision to home-school Coy protects her and her schoolmates, who are probably handling the situation with far more class than the adults are: when you’re six, you just go outside and play.
But, are her parents nuts? Are they using their child in an effort to have their Fifteen Minutes? Or do their actions on their child’s behalf indicate an unconditional love? Honestly, I’m baffled as to how parents could best raise a child with this delicate issue. Imagine the looks they must get at the grocery, or worse, in any church they might set foot in. Imagine the struggles they have internally as they rock their child to sleep in the dark. Imagine the intestinal fortitude demanded of each sibling, and the patience and understanding her parents much find.
The Bible records the creation of the woman in Genesis 2:21-23, and some scholars think that the use of the Hebrew word “tsela”, which can mean “side”, indicates that Adam was not just deprived of a rib, but that he was pulled in two. (Other interesting theories exist as well, but the separation this thought illustrates, and subsequent in-completion of people, is what interests me in this case.) If the Biblical account is accurate, literally or figuratively, perhaps there are some of us who are born nearer to Adam’s open wound. Perhaps their connection to both genders is a gift.
How do faithful people treat such a child as this? This one who is truly The Least of These. Reading reactions to the story on the web and social media, the Faithful seem to have taken the predictable position of grabbing the nearest stone and heaving it in Coy’s general direction, with very few exceptions. But, each of us, at a deep and spiritual level, need to be accepted *as we are.* That is the very essence of grace. I hope that people of faith could stop for just a minute, and see this family with their hearts, and be able to genuinely say, “Peace to you. Peace of Christ to you.”
We see stories like this in much less dramatic fashion every day. Look at your Facebook feed: people pull on that “Like” button and share pieces of themselves: needs, hopes, desires, and dreams, with the rest of their world, often with the blank stare of zombie-eyed gambling addicts yanking on a slot machine hoping against hope for that Big Pay-Off of comments and “Likes” so they will feel Special and Valued, even if only because others like the same things they do, and the validation they received required no actual effort on behalf of their friends. Others write statuses and mini-manifestos that are more often than not just scrolled over on the off-chance that someone will have a real conversation with them about something that matters to them. We chirp and pin and poke and prod and reveal who we are fearfully, because we need each other.
What a fragile species we are.
I feel for this beautiful child, for the rocky road she will walk. I have no wise words that will help her or her family, or those with whom they come in contact; all I can come up with are these:
“Grace, and peace to you.”