Dogs, Horses, And The Marginalized

Be an ally to those who have been hurt, whether they are dogs, horses or humans

There are so many ways to approach this essay’s topic. I was thinking about dog rescue and the people who insist that no dog should be euthanized, even though it’s a Herculean task to find homes for them all. A task that is even more difficult is finding homes for all of the horses that nobody wants. I know that most people think that horses are expensive, and yes, they can be, but actually obtaining a horse is the least of it. I would have no trouble getting as many free horses as I could ever want, and some of them might even be healthy, sound and even rideable! A horse we had for quite a few years was one of these. Leroy had been purchased at auction for $35, and once we started feeding him – in the case of severely emaciated horses, they actually call it “refeeding” – and got him healthy, he turned out to be very well-trained, and was Don’s riding horse for years. Here is a link to the YouTube video of Don riding Leroy in our pasture. Apologies for the dog barking in the background. I guess you would call this “raw footage”:

So yes, I want to talk about the animals and people who have been marginalized, displaced, and fallen through the cracks. I have written about our dogs Honey and Gryphon before; we got their DNA analyzed, and Honey is a purebred German Shepherd. Gryphon is three-quarters German Shepherd and one-quarter Australian Cattle Dog, to our surprise. Honey’s results also surprised me because she also has a sable coat, a coat color that is usually highly sought-after. How did a high-quality purebred dog end up as a stray? I suppose that will always remain a mystery. Here are some pictures of Honey and Gryphon:

Above is Honey

This is Gryphon. He is the reason we call our home “Mythical Beast Farm”.

Our horse Sunny, registered name Reflective Sun, also fell through the cracks, but at least his breeder was responsible enough to surrender him to a rescue. I have heard stories of people who let their horses loose when they can no longer afford to feed them. Once an animal has been domesticated, they cannot fend for themselves and shouldn’t be expected to. Being let loose never ends well for the horse.

Sunny is a registered purebred Arabian, and we were lucky to find him and be able to adopt him. Here is a video of him getting some exercise in our round pen a few nights ago:

So that pretty much covers the animals who have fallen through the cracks. Now, on to the people who have been marginalized. I recently listened to the audiobook version of the actor and singer Billy Porter’s memoir, entitled Unprotected. He talked at length about the television show he starred in, which was entitled Pose. The show was recognized for how good it is, and garnered four Emmy awards. I have been watching Pose, which is available on Hulu. It is about marginalized people in New York City in the 1980s and 1990s. The characters are almost all transgender women and other members of the LGBTQ+ community. Many of them are black or from other ethnic groups. Many of them are HIV positive or have AIDS.

My cousin Mike lived in New York at that time, and I heard bits and pieces about the beginning and scariest parts of the AIDS crisis, including about how the Reagan administration refused to do anything to respond to the onset of AIDS and all of the people who were dying from it. It was a terrible time. My cousin Mike saw many people die, including his own husband and many friends. He himself got good health care and lived until 2015. The AIDS crisis is one of the themes of Pose - there are many characters who either have AIDS, or are close to death. There are many funerals in the show.

The main theme of Pose, however, is of people building community and creating chosen families. The characters are divided into “houses”, where each house has a mother and “children” who all take care of each other and function as the family that none of them otherwise have. Many characters were thrown out of their biological families due to being gay or transgender, and many of them them were homeless before being taken in by a house. Many of them continue to suffer rejection and spend time homeless, sleeping on park benches. Some of them turn to prostitution when money is tight. But a major part of the show, and the source of the title, are the balls. Each ball has categories in which participants can offer their performances, which usually consist of dancing and/or strutting like a runway model, all while dressed in elaborate costumes. They are judged, and the winners get enormous trophies. It looks like a lot of fun, as well as being an effective means of uniting a community that often goes unseen and unrewarded. I just did a quick Google search, and not only has ballroom culture survived, but it has now come out from the underground and spread to cities all over thew world.

Someone like me of course can’t fully understand what it is like to be marginalized the way these people are. From time to time we all feel rejected by society and like we don’t fit in and don’t share in the rewards that others seem to enjoy. As someone who lives in a rural area and commuted 60 miles each way to work, I often felt judged.

I could see that there are real divisions between the attitudes of people who live in cities and suburbs, and those who live in rural areas. On the whole, I prefer the rural areas. When I drive through suburbs, I see houses crowded close together, tiny yards in which there is no room for a garden, and neighbors who sometimes don’t get along. I look at these neighborhoods and think about how if I lived there, I would feel like I was in jail. On our country road, you can ask for help from a neighbor and they will willingly give it. We have tried to help our neighbors too, when we can. Last year our neighbor across he road had a serious, big barn fire, and we ended up giving them some of our pitchforks when cleanup was starting. We also housed his pony in our barn. Our horse Sunny was thrilled! Horses are social animals and need other horses for company. Sunny’s only companion, my mare Luna, had died. Sunny didn’t like being alone, so he was very happy to have a “roommate”. Our neighbor is an Old Order Mennonite, so the pony is a working animal that we sometimes see trotting down the road pulling a small cart.

People judge each other for so many other reasons, too, and some people seem to love criticizing others. Those of us who don’t know the accepted definition of how to dress, act, or otherwise fit into the culture we find ourselves in have to find ways to adapt, without compromising our integrity. If you allow yourself to be hurt by the microaggressions from others, your life will be miserable. You have to find coping strategies, ways to understand the culture and either learn to live inside it without getting your feelings hurt, or to not care what they think about you. In my case, regular visits to a therapist provided me with the help I needed. Also, I finally decided that I was going to do what made the most sense for my own mental and physical well-being. If others didn’t like it, that was their problem; it had nothing to do with me. Since this was an attitude I should have adopted when I was about eight years old, before so much damage had been done to my mental health, I think the saying “better late than never” is appropriate here.

I know that I am lucky to have a certain amount of privilege, so it is good for me to try to learn more about what life is like for those who don’t have the privilege that I have. I am not likely to meet anyone similar to any of the characters on Pose, although I did have a coworker who was a transgender man, until he left for a better-paying job. I can’t really form opinions about an entire group, based on a sample of one person. So I don’t have an informed opinion of the transgender community, and don’t feel I need to have an opinion about that segment of the population. Thus, it seems to me that the best approach is to mind my own business and not worry about what other people need to do to be mentally and physically healthy. If you are a woman who is stuck in a man’s body, or a man who is stuck in a woman’s body, I think that you should do whatever you need to do to be happy.

This brings us to the topic of allyship. The characters in Pose don’t seem to have more than a few allies, mostly a nurse who provides them with supplies of AZT, which was the first medication for AIDS. She also takes some of the other characters to a meeting of ACT UP, the first organized group to begin demanding a response from the government. ACT UP stood for “AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power”. I still remember that from real life. My cousin Mike was in ACT UP. He also took AZT, and got all the medical care that would allow him to live almost a normal lifespan. I cried when they staged a protest “Die In” at St. Patrick’s Cathedral during a church service. That show sure makes me cry a lot. It also makes me happy and joyful when something good happens for the characters. I guess that is one of the many things that are good about a well-crafted television story. In this case, it is honest, very well-acted, well-written and even has great costuming and sets. It is a near-perfect example of entertainment that in the course of telling stories also provides an education for those of us who know little about the topic. It teaches us in the same way we learn from life. Since the culture depicted on the show is one that I have neve experienced and certainly never will, I need this education. It provides the background to help me better-understand so much of what I see and hear in the course of living life. If I didn’t understand the struggles that LGBTQ+ and transgender people go through, it would be harder to understand the controversial topics discussed on the news, for example. Educating myself gives me a firmer grasp on understanding the world we live in now. I want to be an ally to everyone who is suffering and being discriminated against, even though I stay home most of the time. I guess that anyone who reads my Substack essays will know that there are people like me out there cheering them on.

Awhile a back I wrote an essay entitled Critical Thinking Is Fun. Well, being an ally and a lifelong learner is fun, too. It gives such a sense of happiness to feel like you are doing the right thing, providing support for those who need it. I suppose that it’s a cliche to say that when you help others, you will be helped, too. Maybe that’s a cliche because it is true. There are so many who need your help, whether they are dogs, cats, horses, humans or even Mother Earth herself. Go out and find someone who needs you, and who knows what good place it may lead? It’s up to you.