Empathy! How the fudge does it work?

[Content Note: Ciscentrism; transphobia. Part Two in an ongoing series.]

Taking a page from the Saxby Chambliss Playbook (the WORST playbook!), Congressman Paul Broun (R-GA) explained his opposition to insurance-covered trans* healthcare by saying he's not trans* and doesn't need it, so why should anyone else?

"I don't want to pay for a sex change operation," Broun said last week in a speech against Obamacare, "I'm not interested. I like being a boy."

So do trans men! Which is the most concise way I can think of to underline everything that is wrong with Broun's fundamental misunderstanding of gender identity and transitioning.

This cavernous lack of empathy, this colossally clueless centering of self and universalizing of one's own perspective and experience, doesn't even make being a decent human being possible, no less a decent public servant in a representative democracy.

Diverse constituencies don't send people to D.C. to legislate on the basis of personal need. That such a huge percentage of elected representatives don't seem to understand this basic principle is an exponentially more monumental problem given the lack of diversity in Congress along multiple axes of marginalization.