Kindness Starts With One®

One smile. One hug. One cup of coffee. One person...

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Accepting Others

My younger trans friend, whom we will call Jane, had just come out in school, and most of her peer group still saw her as male, either because they didn't know of her transition or just because they were being ignorant.

One day, Jane tried to put makeup on at school without using a mirror, and it went about as well as you would expect. I took her into the women's bathroom and got some paper towels to help clean her up when another female student walked into the bathroom.

Jane was getting nervous, because she had only just started using the female bathrooms at school, and this new girl kept looking at her from the sink. I did my best to stand between them as I kept applying wet paper towels to Jane's face, trying to get rid of the makeup.

"Is that makeup?" The female student asked from the other sink.

"Yes," I answered, fully prepared to stand up for my sweet baby.

"Well don't use those," the girl said, reaching over and pulling the paper towel out of my hand. "They'll hurt your skin," she told Jane. "I have some makeup wipes in my backpack, those will work better." The student handed Jane a full pack of makeup wipes, and proceeded to tell her that she could keep them, before informing us that we could buy them relatively cheap at the local CVS.

"They also have these little mirrors that you can carry around," she told Jane, "So you can put your makeup on without going into the bathroom. Anyway, I love your hair! Do you curl it, or is it just like that naturally?"

"It's just like that," Jane answered. She wasn't very happy with her hair, which was a beautiful orange color that curled just around her ears, because she wanted it longer and straighter and more like the societal representation of a girl.

"Oh, I would kill for hair like that."

"You would?"

"Oh, totally. It's gorgeous. I have to get back to class now, but it was nice to meet you!"

We had never met that girl in our lives, but she was so nice to Jane in a school where most of the students either didn't understand the situation or were just being rude about it. By taking ten minutes out of her day to help my friend out, she made Jane feel incredible about herself and boosted her confidence, which was a big deal. Thank you, student, for spreading some love to my friend!

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