Brent Staples In The Early Morning Rain

In society, everyone needs to be treated with respect regardless of what they race, and gender they are. Brent Staples was born in 1951 and received a Ph.D. in psychology. Jennifer Boylan was born in 1958 but as James Boylan. Brent Staples and Jennifer Finney Boylan discuss the difficulties they went through. Although they faced different types of obstacles, both authors display how their lives were affected. Each author has written about their experience growing up with prejudice in their style. Both essays are concerned with what society thinks of them. Boylan is concerned with what society will think when they find out she is transgender. Ever since she was a child, she has wanted to join the girls but was always left out. She wants

“I opened my suitcase and put on a bra and some jeans and a blue knit top.” (pg.82) The biggest difficulty Boylan faces is herself. She had a hard time accepting the fact that she was transgender because she was aware of what society thought of it. She decides to go to a cliff and when she does the wind blew her backward. (pg. 82) “Are you all right, son? You’re going to be all right.” (Pg.82) This gave her comfort, even after years pass it still gives her comfort. Boylan also discusses how difficult it was to come out to her mother. She was worried because her mother was a religious woman. When she came out to her mother, her mother told her “I would never turn my back on my child.” (Transgender Lives.) On the other hand, Brent Staples didn’t face the difficulties of being transgender. Staples faced many challenges of his own like his skin color. He was born in 1951 and received a Ph.D. in psychology. In “Black Men and Public Spaces,” Staples is trying to reduce the stereotypes people have of black men. Brent Staples explains the difficulties of black men walking the city streets. He explains by saying that his first victim was a white woman in her early