Because I'm from North Dakota, I get asked the same question a lot lately, with only slight variation.

"What do you think about Standing Rock?"

Of course no one expects me to be happy about the situation. They just want to understand if I have some special insight that will blow the lid off of why and how those darn Midwesterners seem so out of the loop when it comes to human rights within their own state.

First and foremost, I cannot speak directly about the very intense and painful topic of what Native Americans go through in my homestate, as it's not my story.

I can, however, speak as a trans person, which is another topic that my state seems to struggle with, and maybe that will help paint a picture of why this state's residents are so dismal at confronting what other communities are suffering. I'll try to show you, through my perspective, why it's more personal than just a tussle over legal papers, and how such a big state can feel so far away from even itself. But as an expat of the prairie, my solution at the bottom of this post will be entirely hypocritical.

First of all, let's start at the roots. North Dakota is certainly booming in many ways — off and on, adjusting to the ebb and flow of economic fortunes. The oil boom in Western North Dakota has already busted, but it brought North Dakota back onto the map. Young Minnesotans who feel disillusioned with the political fine print riddling their own state are moving to the less-trampled Dakotas next door.

Most, of course, head for Fargo, the biggest city in North Dakota (although, I've been told it's not a city at all by Floridian standards, with a population of about 113,000 that makes it a little smaller than Coral Springs).

Where, then, are the rest of North Dakota's 739,000 people? Let's just say there's no limit to how small the towns can get.

For those who haven't experienced a small town, allow me to paint a picture.

There is nowhere to hide. There's no corner of town where you can show up and pretend no one knows you. If you're shopping in the tiny grocery store (assuming you have one), you can tell who's two aisles away just from the back of their head.

That means, your next door neighbor's opinion can be as important as that of your own aunt — because chances are, neither will ever live more than a few miles away from you, nor will their ten closest friends. You'll probably even need their help again next time you get a flat tire.

If you're part of a VERY small community, the only way to truly erase the gravity of your own reputation is to leave, which means abandoning everyone and everything you have ever known.

But if you stay, all eyes are upon you.

Anything that makes you stand out is pointed out; sometimes lovingly, sometimes painfully... and sometimes, with cruelty. An example is my own childhood; for years, the other kids in town used to follow me home and throw rocks at me, until I finally began to dress in clothes that were "OK" for my assigned gender.

Even for me, giving up and conforming was the only option. There was just nowhere else that was safe; my entire world was made up of myself vs. the rest of the kids in town.

When I stood in my back yard, staring into the flat horizon, I used to feel deep down that, if I tried to run away, I would end up running in one long straight line around the entire planet until, eventually, I would just end up right back at my front door.

To grow up so isolated, it really feels sometimes like the rest of the world might not even exist. And if it does, then it's not your problem anyway... the people out there are different, with different problems, in a land so far away that you'll never see them anyway.

Here's a fun example of how diverse my home was: when our class was instructed to do diversity group projects, most of us had German ancestry, and the rest were Norwegian descendants, except for one... our peer with Irish grandparents stood out as the only minority in class.

Until I reached middle school (which required a 50 minute bus ride every morning), there were no LGBT kids that I knew of in my classes, nor were there any children of color. There was no one besides myself to hold up a label as "somehow different," and I was too scared to become the first one to do so.

Such extreme isolation is already changing — in the age of the internet, children now have the opportunity to connect to people around the world, learn about new opinions, and challenge the way they were raised to think. Even I was somewhat on the cusp of this change.

As a result, small towns have continued to see a massive outflux of young minds like myself. This great loss has added to a growing threat that many communities might never change.

But, this sometimes has the opposite effect. The more images pour in from the outside world, the more these small towns are reminded how scary the world really is... further driving their community's determination to self-isolate.

In time, many (like myself) decide to embrace the dream that there's more out there, and end up leaving. But out of everyone who stays behind, are they truly all content with their tight local communities? Are they truly disconnected from the world?

As I have many dear friends back in the midwest, a few of whom are quite rural, I can say with certainty... absolutely not.

The problem is, for the majority of those in the average small town, there is no desire to expand beyond their way of life, because their way of life has simply worked. The town just functions quite well the way it is. You could say, anyone is lovingly welcome there — as long as they don't threaten that way of life.

In the mind of the average small town resident, there is no concern about what is happening elsewhere; that town is like a bubble of safety that is impenetrable by anything that happens to the outside world... and there's very little that could change their mind.

Given time, most who spend their life in such a community will either succumb to the same closed-off mindset, or risk being aggressively alienated if they continue to speak up.

And thus, as most make the obvious choice, life carries on... with little concern about anything, other than what the neighbor will think when they're asked for help with another flat tire.

So, by the time Channel 3 mentions what's happening even just a few hundred miles away, residents in these towns are likely just as lost as the rest of the nation, and incredibly, even less prepared to deal with the solution. Despite living just a few hours away, they already know far less about the sensitivities of other cultures within their own state than the people watching from their televisions in California do.

And once election time swings around, in their mind, there's almost no way to know what the real problem is... after all, the world out there seems like it's all just going to shit.

So what is the real answer? Who could possibly understand these small towns enough to speak to them, while also bringing in new perspectives of why the outside world might actually be on the right track about certain things?

I feel that the key for North Dakota — along with many other states in decline — to truly see an upward swing in human rights, there needs to be a true wave of young former residents returning home.

The open-minded knowledge brought from afar, combined with the preexisting trust of being a former resident and just the right amount of empathy towards the way their small towns think, would give an unprecedented boost for these communities.

Certainly the media and technology have allowed secluded towns a door into the world of new ideas, but without one of their own to explain in Catholic terms how two shirtless lesbians at New York Pride are playing an important role in advancing humanity's freedom, it risks only adding to frustrations — something entirely evident in the current political turmoil revolving around our current Presidential Election.

A small town is a gem in many ways, and it's possible to protect that sparkle without isolating its residents from the future of human rights. Every time a kid leaves home, never to return, that community has lost more than a resident... it's lost an opportunity to learn about a world that, at times, might as well be on another planet.

It's a great fear of mine to return home, because I know that the scars on my chest from gender reassignment are unlike anything that town has most likely ever seen. I know my town is close enough to Fargo that it's also unlikely everyone in town would remember my slew of childhood nicknames, but it wouldn't take long for that knowledge to resurface as popular chatter and quickly spread.

I know, however, that doing so would also be an opportunity to prove that transgender rights are a very relevant topic. And who knows, that might be the first step that my little hometown neighbors would need to finally understand.

Like I said, it's a hypocritical solution. When I look back at that life, I cannot for the life of me imagine returning. There just isn't enough in it that's worth it for me... at least not me personally.

What things might be worth it for someone else to return, though, I wonder?

Any number of things... the security of home, an escape from the grind of the city, take your pick. But ultimately it's about changing the world, one town at a time. 🐾