In our polarized society, we’re into labels, and then assuming we know what those labels say about us. We’re using them a lot, but I don’t think they always mean what you think they mean…

I’m a woman, but that doesn’t mean I’m a bad driver. At least, not yet. It also doesn’t mean that I subscribe to Emily’s List.

I’m a redhead, but that doesn’t mean I have a volcanic temper. I mean, I have a volcanic temper (in that I look calm, look calm, look calm, and then blow my top and bury a city with the ashes of my molten rage) but I do that only because it’s justified, not that my hair color demands it.

I’m a feminist, but that doesn’t mean I think that men are bad, or that women should always win, or that there should be no difference between the sexes. It does mean that I think we shouldn’t automatically think that something is true about a person just because they’re a man or a woman. It does mean that we should get to know someone before we decide what they’re capable of.

I have kids, but that doesn’t mean I’m one of those helicopter parents who think everything in the world revolves around her special snowflakes. I’ve devoted twenty-five years teaching The Snowflakes that it doesn’t. I do everything I can to keep my own world from revolving around The Snowflakes, but I don’t always succeed.

I have four kids, which in this day and age is a lot of kids, but not because I’m Catholic. It really means I’m kinda bad with calendars.

I work outside the home, but that doesn’t mean I think every mom should. Of course not: that would make it much harder for me to find a job when I need one.

I mostly worked outside the home while raising my kids, and had to do the usual drill of working from home when they were sick or leaving early if the sitter bailed, but that doesn’t mean that I think I should have the same career breaks as someone who didn’t have to do all these things. Rewards should go to the people who get the best results.

I’m almost old enough to live in a retirement community, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t remember what it was like to be a teenager. It does mean that I now have proof that being a teen is survivable.

I’m a Christian, but that doesn’t mean I don’t believe in science. I believe that God can do anything, up to and including the creation of understandable principles that explains all the amazing things in the universe.

I’m menopausal, but that doesn’t mean I’m unpredictably moody. I mean, I am, but like the volcano-temper thingy, it’s because it’s justified because everyone around me is ridiculously getting on my nerves, not that I’m importing my estrogen from the supplements aisle at Safeway.

I’m a Star Trek nerd, but that doesn’t mean my life is centered around Gene Roddenberry’s utopian vision of a model society. I mean, I essentially met my husband at a Star Trek convention, so I have kids who owe their lives to Gene Roddenberry, but I don’t have an Uhura uniform. I swear, on my Starship Enterprise blueprints.

And finally: I’m from Arizona, but that doesn’t mean I support SB 1062. Under the cut: what I sent to the legislators from my district this morning.

© E. Stocking Evans 2014

When I first sat down to write this email, I was going to ask you why you voted to pass SB 1062. I have decided not to waste our time on that question, as it’s clear that your answer will tell me that this odious legislation is meant to protect my religious freedom.