Dashka Slater’s New York Times: Magazine article “The Fire on the 57 Bus in Oakland” illustrates the obstacle our society faces in dealing with the cycle of hatred we hold towards minorities.

Sasha Fleischman, an 18 year old a-gender Californian, was set on fire during a bus ride home on November 4th, 2013.

Identifying as a-gender, Sasha refuses to confrom to society’s standards of “female” and “male”.  Although often associated as a branch of the LGBT community , there is a lack of knowledge about the identity of a-gender and as a result a lack of social expression for those who identify with such a label.

Most questionnaires include boxes for male and female, bathrooms typically segregated into these two categories, and even the way we dress segregates and lables us as either female or male.

For those who refuse to play into gender norms, society makes it very hard.  As a result, those who break such norms are stereotyped as “weird” or “different”.  Historically, society has made it difficult for anyone who falls outside of any social norms to be not be labeled in a derogatory manner.

The perpetrator, Richard Thomas, a 16 year old African-American boy, could in society’ s terms be stereotyped just as harshly as Sasha for being outside “normal”.

Richard as a lower middle class African-American male is automatically seen as a thug, hoodlum, or gangster.  Not living in the best neighborhood or having the most acceptable grade point average, he is at first glance what we as a society would stereotype as a criminal.

Looking at the initial facts of the story it seems there is one victim and one criminal.

Obviously there was a crime committed and someone suffered while someone inflicted the suffering; however, what this case exemplifies, and what Slater’s writing implies, is that both people in this situation are in some way a victim of hatred and violence.

I would never condone the act of setting another living being on fire, and yes Richard should be punished for his actions; however, the immediate reaction that what happened is a hate crime against those identifying as genderqueer (the refusal to identify with the gender of male or female) could instead be looked as a crime of society not taking the time to teach the acceptance of differences in each other.

Throughout history those that have ascribed to a belief system or who have outwardly looked different from what the majority in power deems “normal” have faced hatred and violence.

Lynchings, Nazism, and same-sex marriage bans are all based on one groups fear of differences.

As terrible a crime as he committed, Richard has also been a victim of society’s hatred.  His act towards Sasha illustrates how encultured he is in the idea of “normal” as only male and female.

Rather than society allowing for people to determine who they are and how they wish to be identified, we automatically label and determine without consideration of how a person feels.

This inherently leads to a lack of acceptance and the desire to push conformity onto those who attempt otherwise.

While Richard Thomas has definitely crossed a line in his actions, at the same time so has society for teaching people to fear or dislike what is different.

What is even worse is society’s attempt to enforce conformity through law, medical diagnosis, and social humiliation.

Richard Thomas’s actions were as he put it, “a practical joke gone wrong”; however, they parallel the larger actions of society that legitimately use violence as a means of suppressing the voices of those they don’t want heard.

We may not outwardly profess dislike or hatred towards others, but through our collective silence and lack of social change that would allow people to express who they are freely and without consequence, we are indeed perpetuating a cyclical pattern of hatred.