Trans lives are human lives, and anti-LGBTQIA+ hate is wrong

"Dirty, f**got-loving motherf**ker." That's what someone yelled at me after I answered my office phone yesterday. I wish I knew who it was, but they chose to hide behind a blocked phone number.
For the past two days, I've posted about how employers can better support their transgender employees. Coincidence doesn't always equal causation, but in this case, I have to believe my posts and that awful phone call are linked.

The prank call I suffered was not the only anti-trans tirade this week. On Monday "rapper" Kid Rock (complete with MAGA hat atop his head) tweeted a video of himself shooting cases of Bud Light with a semi-automatic rifle, yelling, "F**k Bud Light, and f**k Anheuser-Busch." One can only conclude that Bob's tirade was in response to Anheuser-Busch partnering with trans activist Dylan Mulvaney on an ad campaign.

(Wait a minute … Was it Kid Rock who called me yesterday?!?!)

Please explain to me how someone else dresses, or the gender with which someone identifies, is anyone's business other than the trans person in question. Why do we care? We should care about the content of people's character, not the clothes they wear, the pronouns they choose, or the bathroom they use. 

We've lost our collective minds. Decades from now, we will look back on the current run of current anti-trans hate with the same scorn with which we look back on post-Civil War, pre-civil rights racism.

Let me make this very clear. There is no good reason to justify anti-trans discrimination or harassment. Do me a favor. In place of "transgender" or "gender nonconforming" substitute "Black", or "woman", or "Jew". How does that discrimination or harassment sound now?

What side of history do you want to be on? I know my answer, and I'm not going to let the bullies shut me up or change my mind.