Born A Girl...

“She can’t do it, 
she can’t change it -
It’s been going on for 
ten thousand years....”
-- adapted from 
“The Great Mandala” 
by Peter Yarrow 

She was born a girl. At 3, she couldn’t have had many other faults than that. But that’s what got Exeter’s little Sophia Acosta killed, a fact that’s churned through my mind since reading the fine article in this paper two weeks ago on the legal proceedings against her accused murderer.

Did you read the article?” I asked several friends.  “No,” was the most common, embarrassed reply. I didn’t want to either, for fear of nightmares.  But when I saw both Reggie’s and Mo’s names in the byline, I was moved to read what they wrote. By reporting the Exeter PD’s officers’ testimonies, they unpacked a very human story of the discovery of a monstrous event, a meltdown of human values so clear even a dog would recognize it. “I’ve gained a lot of respect for the officers,” Mo told me later.  “for what they have to face.”

Mo was born a girl. When I complimented her on the article, she said quietly “I was there the whole day.  I heard all the testimonies, saw all the photos.  He (meaning the accused) was sitting right there in the courtroom.” I offered my sympathy. “I had to tell myself  ‘Just breathe. This is my job.  Write it down.’”
Reggie is the father of two small children, one a little girl.  It couldn’t have been easy for him either.  But this is a community’s story, not just a family’s. In publishing the story’s elements as they unfurl, they offer us a chance to see where we may have failed this child, which may instruct us how to help the next.

Sophia’s great-grandmother was also born a girl. One morning this May she unfurled her story of trying to get CPS and other agencies to intervene, knowing something was horribly wrong. She also bemoaned CPS’s decision to give custody of the remaining daughter to her blood father, who never wanted her in the first place. That fact gave me, also born a girl, cold chills.

A simple majority of the world’s population is born girls. I don’t know whether that makes us more expendable or more valuable, but I do know that few of us become women without experiencing some kind of male tyranny.  Unfortunately, we are not alone: male tyranny is also exerted against males, with just as devastating consequences.  And I’ve witnessed enough female tyranny to know it isn’t carried on the Y chromosome alone.

What are we to feel, much less do, about this young man who tortured a 3-year-old with his manhood? “Sometimes you gotta thin the herd,” a friend replied to my question, a soft way of saying what I was feeling. My own tyranny was in full bloom: off with his head. Then I remembered I’m a Quaker. Quakers have been against capital punishment for centuries.  Then there’s “due process.”

I think the important thing is that we embrace this story, not run from it. The Bible, which many of us use to guide ourselves on a moral path, contains stories of just such horrors as well as proscriptions against them. It’s in our genes to treat others as worthless; we can’t keep it from cropping up. But maybe we can learn to protect or comfort each other better when it does.