Sometimes I wonder if, as far as the news is concerned, I’ve begun to resemble the protagonist in “The Princess Bride,” who develops an immunity to a poison, iocane powder, simply by ingesting a little bit of it every day. Incredibly, the monstrousness of our age no longer shocks me, not least because I spend part of each day taking it all in.

But on Friday, for the first time, I read the newspaper and just collapsed in a chair and wept actual hot tears. My wife and son came over and held me in their arms, fearing, perhaps, that I felt unloved.

But that’s not why I wept.

I’ve always felt a ridiculous love for this country, a kind of cheese-ball passion that is almost embarrassing to admit to. Maybe it’s because my mother was an immigrant, or because my father went from rags to riches, Horatio Alger-style. Maybe it’s because when I came out as something as unexpected as transgender in midlife, there seemed — against all odds — to be room for me. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just that I love rock 'n' roll, and Philadelphia hoagies, and the Boston Red Sox, and James Cagney. I am that Yankee Doodle boy — or, you know, girl.

The story that slew me, of all things, was about a proposed change to the Affordable Care Act, removing its civil rights protections for gender identity. The move wasn’t unexpected; after all, the Trump administration has been considering various means of erasing transgender identity since at least last fall.