The Freedom to Be, or the “Freedom” to Scapegoat, Which Will We Choose?

Cue the broken record.

The pattern goes: Family members feel shame. Rather than look at their shame they quietly conspire to make one family member a scapegoat. This person’s perceived difference from the rest, this person’s gifts, innocent enough in the beginning, become the family’s rationale. The family turns this person into their garbage can. They sabotage this person, so that in their eyes, this person, as a failure of a person, becomes worthy of their shaming. Thus they train this person to become the character they say they are and to believe they are what the family says they are. Thus this person becomes the entire family’s willing garbage can.

Eventually though…

The weight of an entire family’s shame becomes too much for one person to bear. It becomes so great that the scapegoat must heal the shame or die. Compelled by pain and grief and harried by confusion, the scapegoat sets out on a journey.

If they’re successful, which sometimes they are, they transform the shame they carry, recover their authentic selves, recover their gifts and realize their gifts are indeed gifts for everyone. They discover that the original shame–literally all of it–is a lie.

Compelled by their discovery, the scapegoat returns home to share the good news with their family.

But they also discover that they can only meaningfully teach their good news by acknowledging and accepting that the family has indeed committed a moral crime, and yet also at the same time finally forgiving — giving anyway — for the greater good, for the healing and liberation of all.

Thus the scapegoat emerges into compassion. And it is compassion that quickens the scapegoat’s return.

The scapegoat’s return is the story of the ugly duckling becoming the adult swan, and simply by being itself, helping the family realize it’s okay for them to be beautiful as the ducks they are. The scapegoat’s return is the hero’s Eternal Return, told and retold in myth, epic and legend from around the globe. The scapegoat’s return is the story of the caterpillar becoming the butterfly and returning to teach the family it can be a family of butterflies too. And perhaps the scapegoat’s unwitting role of cleansing cultural shame is like that of the body’s immune cells, who learn to identify and remove harmful viruses and bacteria, and in so doing innoculate the whole.

But when the scapegoat returns, does the family choose to receive the scapegoat’s offer of compassion and freedom? Or do they remain staunchly committed to their story of shame? Do they remain committed to being a family of caterpillars? Do they even demand the scapegoat see themselves as their little family trashcan caterpillar once again?

It is the family’s choice after all.

For the scapegoat, the return spurned can be the most painful part of their entire journey. They can beat their butterfly wings in fury, pleading “There is no need for this! Come fly the heavens with me! Really there is far more to fear if you stay on the ground!” But sometimes all the pleading in the world can be to no avail. Sometimes the butterfly must embrace this terrible loss and confusion, seek its solace among the butterflies, and through its grief, transform even yet again.

I know this has been a lot, so let’s pause for a moment.

Okay, now that you’re back, let’s continue.

As with families, so with societies, or if you will, nations, or countries.

From the perspective I’ve shared above, what shall we make of the anti-trans legislation now sweeping the USA? Are there butterflies in this story? If so, who are they? Are there caterpillars? If so, who are they? Are there caterpillars demanding the butterflies return to the ground?

Could it be that the point of all the anti-trans legislation afoot these days is to keep the scapegoat home, so they never go on their journey, and thus keep proving to themselves and everyone that they’re worthy of nothing more than being the family garbage can?

Is the point of all this legislation to keep the scapegoat home even when the family shame has long become too great to bear?

Are we as a country saying, “Better they drink themselves to death and prove us right, than that they should become butterflies, show us all that the windows are open, and that we have nothing to fear?”

Are we choosing the “freedom” to scapegoat over liberation from shame once and for all? Are we choosing the “freedom” to scapegoat over the freedom to be? Are we choosing the “freedom” to scapegoat over the freedom to fly?

Consider this an invitation from your favorite little scapegoat:

Perhaps we should stop concerning ourselves how to finance the posting of guards to demand our papers at every public bathroom in the US-of-A, and instead ask ourselves:

• What is the family shame anyway?
• Where did it come from?
• Did someone put it there?
• If so, whom?
• And why?
• What did they not want us to see?

And most important of all:

• How shall we finally be free of it?