I’ve Won the Lottery More Times Than I Can Count!

Let me let you in on my secret

OK, I promised in my title and I will deliver, but first, please stay with me to the end. I am so afraid I will lose you at the start. You see, my first win (1) was just being born. I was born as a white male into a highly educated middle to upper class (if class is really a thing) family. I was granted all the rights and privileges that come with my station upon my very first breath and scream in this world. This world erupting with unwelcome sensations of cold breeze, bright noise, painful colors exploding into my consciousness, all balanced by the loving comfort of my mother.

Now this first lottery win, being born a white male in a well-off educated family isn’t exactly along the lines of beating the odds to win the Powerball! Male? About a 50% chance. White? About 76% chance in the USA. Upper class by income when I was born? About 14% according to a quick Google Search. The chance of all three? 50% * 76% * 14% = 5.3% OK, so that is about a 1 in 20 chance of winning. Not favorable, but not like I overcame staggering odds.

There are so many of us born with the same privilege, that same unfair advantage. And we can become truly horrible caricatures of humanity if that is the grand sum of our worth (Hey Mr. Tangerine!). But here is how I had already won the lottery a second time (2). You see, my parents had both experienced hardships in their lives, having been raised and taught by survivors of the great depression, and taken those lessons into their very hearts and beings. They also lived through World War II, and they learned some tough lessons. So they also taught me from the beginning that:

• While I am special, everyone is special. I am no more special than anyone else. I mean anyone else. Gender, race, physical disadvantages, none of those justified placing anyone above or below anyone else. Education is important, it is and always will be a solution, an essential tool and gateway to critical thought and open-mindedness that must be shared and granted to everyone without regards to their past or current circumstances.
• The benefits I received as a white male in our society were a responsibility, they most definitely are not an enoblement. They were not something I deserved or could ever earn, but rather I have a responsibility to live and behave in a way so that I enable others to receive these self-same benefits and privileges. And that means being sure that I give back to the world around me in equal or greater measure all of the bounty I have received. I won’t pretend I have succeeded at this, but my obligation to you, whoever you are, is constantly in my mind and weighing on my conscience. That may be unhealthy, but it feels very right to me.
• My mother and father constantly taught us that we are not lucky people. I was told again and again that the world is not kind. That if we ever tried to cheat or steal, not only would they be ashamed and disappointed in us, but we would be caught. In the long run, we are not people that can get away with crap. I think that really is true of most people. There may be a few outliers who somehow are never caught and get away with …. But you can’t make a solid life plan expecting to be one of them. Besides, living a life based on cheating and stealing does something your spirit. It will destroy your empathy, love, compassion, and eventually make you inhuman (like Mr. Tangerine).

What were the odds of having parents like that? I can’t quantify it as I can’t tell you how unusual or usual they are. Many, many people have wonderful loving parents that give their children love and support and help them grow into wonderful people. My parents were far from perfect, and some of what I shared above has its dark side too. Still, as a child born in the 60’s, I think parents like mine were pretty unusual. Let’s use 5% as a probability, which places the odds of being me at about 0.27%.

Are you still with me? I am glad. I figured you might be thinking, “OMG, another white racist incel telling me how to succeed in the world. Telling me what is wrong with me! WTF?!” But that isn’t what I am going to tell. I am going into some of the other lotteries I have won, and maybe, just maybe, they will balance the scales just a teeny bit.

Here is number three (3)! I was born as a transgender child. Yes, you are reading that right. While out of the womb I couldn’t express that I was a woman in a male body. I do know that my core identity from my earliest moments always gelled with the women and girls in in my life. I never felt kinship with the men and boys, including my brother. This isn’t the same as like or dislike, it is more a sense of tribal, spiritual, and conceptual belonging. I have always been team girl! I know some of my brethren didn’t know that early, and that is OK and doesn’t imply anything against the validity of their experience. I didn’t ‘know’ back then either. I just was. No choice, no growing out of it, it has been a constant in my life.

And what are the odds of being born as a transgender person? Well Reuters reports that about 0.5% of all adults in the USA identify as transgender. Having only reached adulthood at age 60 after coming out (😊), I fall into that category. So now the odds of being me go from 0.27% to 0.0013%! Now we are talking!

I have written elsewhere about my personal experiences and shared some of the challenges and hardships I experienced growing up as transgender. For me they were hard. Compared to stories I have heard from others in the LGBTQ community, I had a cakewalk. I don’t think we can or should compare. But if you are jealous of me, or feel like I haven’t suffered enough, I won’t argue. I just want to fight to prevent any of us, newborn, child, youth, adult, or senior from ever experiencing any of that bullshit again. I don’t have time nor the inclination to to argue that my transgender identity is valid in spite of how little of the worst the world has to offer that I actually experienced. Remember number two (2) lottery win above? I was taught, and integrated into my very core sense of self that I have an obligation to do everything I can to lift others up not just enjoy all the opportunities and benefits I have, but actually to help them move above me.

I don’t worry that if you climb a ladder past me and reach the top, that the ladder is used up or broken. There are always paths upward. My path is helping you as best I can.

OK! I am going to quickly share number four (4) through eight (8). This isn’t the sum total of my wins, but really, I think you might get bored of hearing about my good and bad fortune. But I will share it now, and then I will explain why I shared this with you in the first place.

I won the lottery when I finally came out as a transgender woman at the tender age of 59 (4). I won because I was able to come out without losing my job (5) or my family (6). I won because I found friends both new and old (7), whom I didn’t really understand that I had. I won because I finally met myself, and found out that, while I am not perfect, I am a pretty OK person (8).

I can’t calculate the odds of these things happening, and it really doesn’t matter. There are over 8 billion people in the world today. The odds of being me is less than 1 in 8 billion. I say that since if there are 8 billion more people in the future, that doesn’t mean I will have an identical younger twin with the same life experiences, that would be astronomically unlikely even after 8 billion rolls of the dice!

So why am I sharing this? I can’t tell you the secret to winning the lotteries of my life. But I can tell you that you have won many lotteries of your own. Lotteries can be for good things, awful things, and some just don’t make a difference. Like winning $10 out of state but never getting back to the state to claim the win… The point is to think about who we are today and who we want to be tomorrow, striving towards that goal. In that striving, we map out paths to get there, and then we play the lottery. We succeed or fail as the tickets dictate. Each year, month, week, day, and hour we find out if our piece on the board advances towards our goal or takes a detour or encounters roadblocks. Life’s GPS constantly alerts me with the sound of “Rerouting” or even “Make a U Turn”. Life’s GPS will never say, “You have reached your destination,” because our goals always push us onward.

The game’s not over. The game will never end. Eventually we all will leave the board, but I am not in a hurry to go. I have too much to do, and I need to make a difference. I need to make more of a difference, so that, when my piece finally does make an exit, the odds are better for you and everyone else. That is my dream, my passion, my hope.