I believe that empathy is necessary, useful, possible and happens all the time. Empathy is the core of many of the relationships and friendships that we develop everyday. We connect with people through the commonality that we have with each other and sometimes through the shared emotions, feelings, thoughts and opinions. Without empathy, there will be a lot more lonlieness...but then again people could empathize with each other over the facr that they both know what it feels like to be lonely. So therefore, empathy is very necessary and possible. 

Empathy is complex. Anyone can sympathize with another’s problems, not everyone can empathize. Empathy requires having the experience of some negative experience that made you feel in ways you’ve never felt before. Without having been through something terrible, it is hard to empathize with those that have been through a lot worse than you. 

Empathy has always been an easy concept for me to understand. I can often see where people are coming from in conversation, and I stay out of trouble by reading people’s moods before they utter a sentence. However, I am a terrible verbal sympathizer. I laughed when I read Emily’s post because I am not the person who fakes empathy, but rather I struggle with shoveling out sympathetic response.

I told my girlfriend about the prompt for this week's post (Making it Local) and mentioned the post you did, Anne, on "Signifying the South," and her comment was, "I feel like people won't think the trans topic is as relevant with the race stuff going on. Based on the conversation last night, people will feel like they have to pit those two things against each other."

Like Rose I too encountered moments where friends required more than just my assistance, but its difficult to be the person one runs to when you're still learning. Its like I'm standing behind this glass wall, even though I can see what you're going through, that connection can't be made because I haven't been on the other side. So I could only offer sympathy on those occasions. Time and time again though, there was always one person that I constantly crossed paths with.

I'm currently dating someone against the approval of most of my family.  We've been together for a long time, but it's been on and off, and because of that, my brother and my friends have stopped supporting our relationship.  In this case, their lack of empathy makes an already confusing situation much more difficult for me.  Most of them never were in a turbulent high school realtionship so they and view our ups and downs as just more tallies against the likelihood of our relationship ending well.  They see how I've been hurt a few times, and how the two of us are different people, but the

Thanks for this, Rhett--clearly, I wasn't quite caught up with this movement towards giving "space," so explicitly using "trans" and "cis" as modifiers--and appreciate the update. I'd glad you're also using this occasion to open up a larger conversation about language use--let's all keep sharing what we know, what we hear, what troubles us, as words arise.

As you will all have heard by now (and I know that some of you have been involved in these conversations for the past week or so), Bryn Mawr's campus is offering us another "local" opportunity to work on identity matters, and questions of representation ("what's the sign? what's it signify?"). Two students in Radnor dorm have been displaying a confederate flag there -- first in the hallway, then, after efforts to seek its removal, from their window -- as well as a line of duct tape labeled "Mason-Dixon Line" leading to their room.