I was thinking about a recent meeting with a friend of mine. My friend is one year older than me. We both grew up in Northampton and both went to Northampton schools. We were both brought up in families with a similar value system.

My friend has a sister, I have a brother. We are both parents to sons, both love cats, and both lost our moms at too early an age. The most obvious difference between us is that she was raised as a girl and I was raised as a boy.

A couple of weeks ago, my friend and I were sharing drinks and some munchies at a local restaurant just down the street from our respective homes. We were talking about the horrors of the new Trump administration and the topic of Trump’s attacks on the transgender community came up. Regarding my past gender dysphoria and subsequent transition to female, my friend said that she doesn’t understand the feelings that led me to transition, but stated that she supports me.

I greatly appreciated her response, especially considering how hard it is for cisgender people to comprehend what it is like to live with gender dysphoria.

While I do understand what living with gender dysphoria is like, there are many things that I can’t understand. For example, I can’t understand what it is like to be a person of color in America. I can’t understand what it is like to have a small person form and grow in one’s body and subsequently give birth to that new person nine months later.

I can’t understand what it is like to suffer from the horrors of war and have PTSD from the experience. I can’t understand why someone, in their mental health and addiction crisis, chooses to sleep on a park bench, out in the open, on a night with below zero temperatures. Similar to my friend’s comment, I may not understand, but I do care about and support all these people. This is probably why I choose to work in a very people-centered field like behavioral health.

It is, however, beyond my comprehension how a bunch of wealthy, mostly white males, who are at the very top of our social food chain, have decided they don’t like or understand the rest of us and are going to dictate new rules for our nation about how we are all going to live.

The men, filled with the fear and anger that their type is going to be replaced in society — and like it or not, they will all be eventually replaced in society — feel the need to call the shots to protect their turf.

These societal leaders, whether they are elected or the ones financing everything, are not going to live forever, and they cannot stop the changing demographic in this country any more than past generations have tried to do. What good does it do to own the entire Monopoly board if you can’t get anyone to clean your mansions, groom its grounds, or maintain you fleet of cars, boats and planes?

Unlike the people I mentioned in the previous paragraph, when it comes to this uber-wealthy group, I both don’t understand and I really don’t care.

I assume it is some personal twisted belief among these men that God has chosen them to rule because of their sex, the color of their skin, and all the money in their pockets. For most of these people, it all comes down to smart business decisions and a little luck. For others, it is by birthright or being born into money — frequently both.

Humans, by their very nature, are very diverse creatures. Separating people by color, gender identification, sexual orientation, political leanings, religion, or any other common category is nonsensical, and yet the conservative leadership lacks imagination by wanting to make everything in this country into a binary choice of either this or that.

These same people would be upset if their were only two television networks, if vehicle choices came down to either Fords or Chevys, if religion came down to Christianity or “other,” or food was limited to beef or chicken.

For me, I know that my life has been enriched by the diversity of the people of this nation and all the choices we have traditionally had. The U.S. is a melting pot, and that is what has made us great. Not honoring and learning from the diversity in this country will Make America a Giant Abomination.

Mariel E. Addis is a native of Florence. She left the area for 16 years but returned in 2013.