Last week, I sat in my office eating candy corn with a client. Created in the 1880s, it is one of the nastiest substances on the planet, but my client and I were using it as a means of mindfulness training. The idea is to focus all your attention on the candy (or raisin or whatever) in order to come fully present without being swept away by inevitably distracting thoughts. Notice the colors. Notice the sugary taste. Notice the waxy exterior. I was trying really hard, but inevitably the distracting thoughts arrived, weaving themselves into a story.
Once upon a time, a little orange boy with tiny hands and thimble-sized genitalia was born in New York City. It wasn’t long before his constant lament about his genitals caused his brain to erupt through his skull. His wealthy parents took him to an emergency hair salon where a team of surgical stylists created a hairdo inspired by the tailfins of a 1959 Cadillac. The surgeons labored 18 hours sculpting the super-sticky bouffant from cotton candy that had been dyed orange and yellow, just like candy corn. After the enhancement, Donald put his hands on his hips and said aloud for the first time, “I am a very stable genius!” But others called him girly.
Sadly, Donald’s drama didn’t end there. By the time he was 7, he almost exclusively ate huge quantities of Big Macs and ice cream. Eventually, doctors quietly concluded that his eating disorder was a defense against fully acknowledging that he was transgender. Incredibly, he actually became president, and in 2018 began supporting elimination of the word “transgender” from the English language so that he could deprive the newly nonexistent trans-people from civil rights protection. Some call it internalized transphobia. At the least, he seeks to legitimize gender-based discrimination.