Why the “Transsexual” vs. “Transgender” Debate is Irrelevant to the Fight for Equal Rights
I hesitate to jump into these shark-infested waters, but here goes.
I certainly have my own opinion on the “transsexual” vs. “transgender” debate that has ignited many a flame war on the internet over the last few months between those who want to separate our community based on those who have had or, at least, want to have, SRS, from everyone else, but I’m not going to express that here. Instead, I’m going to take a position that I’ve never seen expressed by anyone else, although some have come close. My position comes from my background as an attorney and my understanding of how anti-discrimination laws are written and are intended to operate.
Here’s what I know to be true: the dispute about who is transsexual and who isn’t is irrelevant to the fight for protections for transsexual, transgender, genderqueer and every other gender variant or gender nonconforming person in this country. Why? Because of how anti-discrimination laws are written for both practical and constitutional reasons.
Why anti-discrimination statutes don’t use terms like “transsexual” or “transgender”
If you look at federal or state anti-discrimination laws, you’ll see something very interesting. Although the primary purpose of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (including, Title VII, the federal ban on sex, race and other discrimination in employment) was to end discrimination against African-Americans, if you read it, you will see that nowhere does it say that it is illegal to discriminate against African-Americans. Instead, it says that it’s illegal to discriminate against anyone on the basis of race. There are two reasons for this approach.
First, using terms like African-American, Hispanic, Asian-Pacific Islander or Native American would lead to difficult, if not impossible, problems of determining in any given situation who fits into the relevant category. For example, I have a friend who identifies as both African-American and Native American. However, upon seeing her, many people may doubt that she is anything but “white.” So, where should the cut-off be? Should it 1/8 or 1/64 native or African-American blood, which is the cut-off used by some Native American tribes for tribal membership? Should it be how the person self-identifies? Or should it be whatever a court or jury, employer or shelter operator decides a particular person is? Our courts are already bogged down enough; we don’t need to compound that problem by introducing such difficult, and, ultimately, unnecessary, issues.
Using such vague categories leads us to the second reason why such categories aren’t used in anti-discrimination laws: statutes that are so ambiguous that they allow for arbitrary distinctions and enforcement are “void for vagueness” under the Due Process Clauses of state and federal constitutions. In other words, if whether one person is or isn’t protected depends on distinctions that can’t be made on any sort of objective basis, so that different people may reasonably interpret and apply the law in different ways, the statute is void and unenforceable.
In addition, there is another constitutional problem with using terms like African-American in anti-discrimination laws. If a statute protects only people who fall into one racial category, but not another, what you have done is enshrine in the law the very racial discrimination that you are trying to eliminate. That, in turn, makes the statute unconstitutional as a violation of equal protection under both state and federal constitutions. Therefore, for a statute meant to eliminate racial discrimination to be constitutional, you have to ban all racial discrimination, not just discrimination against the particular minority group or groups you are most concerned about protecting. That’s why the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other federal, state and local anti-discrimination laws make it illegal to discriminate on the basis of “race,” not particular racial categories. In other words, by protecting everyone against such discrimination, you avoid claims that the statue violates equal protection. The other benefit of that approach relates to the first problem discussed above. By using broad categories like “race,” you eliminate the need to decide what race someone belongs to.
For the same constitutional and practical reasons, the 1964 Civil Rights Act and other anti-discrimination laws don’t ban discrimination against women; instead, they ban discrimination against anyone, male or female, man or woman, based on “sex.”
Lastly, and, perhaps, most importantly, this approach fulfills one of the most important founding principles of our county: the belief in “equal justice for all,” not just the rich, not just whites, and not just men, and not just those who are poor, black or female.
How does this apply to protections for trans people?
What does all this mean when we start talking about protecting members of the trans community (however broadly or narrowly you want to define that community) from discrimination because of who we are? If anti-discrimination statutes intended to protect our community used terminology like “transsexual” or “transgender,” whenever any of us tried to invoke those protections, we would find ourselves in the same endless discussions about what those terms mean and who belongs in which category that have been taking place over the last several months, and which I believe are highly damaging to the goal of ensuring that we can all live our lives as who we are. Any such statute would, thus, be unconstitutional as both “void for vagueness” and a violation of equal protection. Why equal protection? Because everyone has a gender, gender identity and gender expression. Therefore, everyone should be protected against discrimination on that basis, since none of those characteristics are relevant to whether a particular person can do a particular job or should be allowed to buy a house or rent an apartment, regardless of how they identify. (As for the problem of bathrooms and other sex-segregated facilities, see below.)
Consequently, when you look at the proposed Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) or any of the state or local statutes protecting our community from discrimination, you’ll see that most of them ban discrimination based on “gender identity” or “gender identity and expression,” not based on whether someone is “transsexual” or “transgender.” (A few subsume those categories under the definition of “sexual orientation” and then prohibit discrimination based on that term.) Under this approach, everyone is protected against discrimination based on their gender identity (i.e., the gender they identify as internally), regardless of whether or how that identity is expressed outwardly, and against discrimination based on their appearance, mannerisms and other behavior that are interpreted by others as an expression of gender, regardless of the person’s gender identity. In other words, everyone has a gender identity and a gender expression; therefore, everyone is protected against discrimination on that basis. Thus, the housewife who is too harried with housework and delivering kids to and from school to put on makeup or a dress can’t be kicked out of the grocery store for wearing her husband’s flannel shirt and buzz cutting her hair because she doesn’t have time to care for it (or simply likes it that way.) Similarly, the straight man who, for whatever reason, talks with a lisp or has what others see as effeminate gestures, and the straight woman who has a square jaw, large hands and feet and facial hair, are protected from discrimination simply because someone decides they’re not masculine or feminine enough to qualify as a man or a woman. Those people, too, suffer the effects of prejudice deriving from our society’s gender norms and deserve protection against discrimination just as much as trans people.
(One of the most famous cases relevant to protecting trans people against discrimination involved a cisgender woman, not a trans woman. In that case – Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, Ann Hopkins was a CPA working for the accounting firm who was eligible to become a partner. She was denied partnership, however, because some of the existing partners thought she was too aggressive for a woman, and needed to dress and act more femininely. When she got to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Court held that Price Waterhouse had violated the ban on sex discrimination under Title VII by discriminating against her because she failed to comply with the “sex stereotypes” held by the existing partners for how women should look and act. This is the legal theory that has since been applied to protect trans people against discrimination under state and federal statutes that ban sex discrimination, even though they don’t explicitly bar discrimination based on gender identity or expression. The best and most recent example of this is Diane Schroer’s decisive victory over the Library of Congress.)
But what about bathrooms?
But what about sex-segregated facilities like bathrooms, locker rooms and showers? Personally, I wish we could do away with such segregation and people could just get over their discomfort and fear concerning their own and other people’s bodies and bodily functions. That’s not likely to happen in my lifetime, however, and sex-segregated facilities are going to continue to exist. So what do we do?
When we are challenged for entering a restroom, it’s because someone doesn’t think we look feminine or masculine enough, or, if you wish, because we look too masculine or feminine, for the sex that restroom is designated for. When those who oppose trans women’s use of women’s restrooms are asked why, they invariably respond with fears about men in the women’s room and the risk of rape or other sexual predation. When pressed, they will usually expand that by explaining that they don’t want anyone with a penis in the women’s room. But, of course, no one knows what genitalia any of us, cis or trans, carries when we use such spaces (at least, not in the absence of criminal activity or a close, personal relationship). Instead, people decide who is a man or a woman based on their perception of the other’s gender expression (clothes, makeup, mannerisms, etc.) and visible portions of the person’s body (face, hands, feet, etc.), and then make the assumption that this person must have a penis or a vagina and, therefore, is a man or a woman. It is this process that leads to masculine women and effeminate men, whether gay or straight, being confronted, ejected and even arrested for using a restroom for which, if anatomy is the determining factor, they are certainly qualified to use. It is also this process that results in post-op trans women, and, less frequently, trans men, being subjected to the same treatment even though a “panty check” would reveal the same genitalia as the intended users of that space. Finally, it is because this process results in even post-op trans people being excluded from sex-segregated facilities to which their genitalia should give them access that limiting trans people’s access to such facilities based on whether they have had genital surgery, or plan to do so at some point in the future, is unworkable. (It also grants doctors, psychiatrists, therapists and/or the government the power to determine who is and is not “woman” or “man” enough to use such facilities, a power I am not willing to cede to anyone.)
So, again, what do we do about sex-segregated facilities? Here’s my proposal: If the statutes we pass bar discrimination based on gender identity and/or expression, then it is unlawful to deny someone access to a bathroom, for example, simply because someone thinks that person’s gender expression isn’t masculine or feminine enough for that space. In other words, if someone is presenting as a woman, she has the right to use the women’s room, and vice versa for men’s rooms, regardless of whether zie is post-op, pre-op or non-op, and regardless of whether zie identifies as transsexual, transgender, genderqueer, crossdresser, drag queen or whatever other gender category zie cares to claim. Since, barring illegal activity or a close, personal relationship, no one knows what’s in another person’s pants, if it’s wrong to exclude a butch, cisgender woman from a women’s room, then it’s equally wrong to exclude anyone expressing hir gender as a woman from that same space. In either case, the exclusion would be based not on the person’s actual anatomy, but on someone else’s assumptions and prejudice about who is “really” a woman. Our country has always opposed unequal treatment based on personal assumptions or prejudices about who is and isn’t entitled to the benefits of our society, and I see no reason that we should deviate from that principle when it comes to sex-segregated facilities. (Of course, the same arguments apply to men’s rooms and people who present as men.)
Okay, you say, that takes care of bathrooms. What about showers and locker rooms where nudity sometimes takes place? Here, I believe the best solution is that proposed in ENDA, since it gives proper respect both to concerns about personal privacy and to each individual’s gender identity. As introduced, ENDA contains a specific exclusion that provides that an employer’s “denial of access to shared shower or dressing facilities in which being seen unclothed is unavoidable” would not violate that statute, “provided that the employer provides reasonable access to adequate facilities that are not inconsistent with the employee’s gender identity” at the time the person was hired or as established by a later notice to the employer “that the employee has undergone or is undergoing gender transition.” (ENDA, Sec.8(a)(3); my italics.) In other words, employers could continue to maintain sex-segregated locker rooms and showers. However, in determining who is allowed access to the men’s or women’s facilities, the employer must recognize the employee’s announced gender identity with the sole exception that, where nudity is “unavoidable,” the employer may require someone whose presence may make other employees uncomfortable to use separate facilities, but only if those separate facilities conform to the person’s gender identity. (In other words, an employer couldn’t make a trans woman use the men’s locker room, or vice versa. Note also, that this could be applied to cisgender, not just trans, men and women. When butch women and effeminate men start getting excluded from the men’s and women’s locker rooms, I suspect that we’ll win over quite a few allies to the idea that segregation based on someone else’s perception of our gender expression is patently ridiculous.)
(Some people reading this may wonder how this principle applies with respect to things like dress codes. Basically, if an employee is hired as a man, ENDA allows the employer to require him to conform to the dress code for men until such time as the employee informs the employer that zie is transitioning to female, or vice versa. (Sec. 8(a)(5).) After the employee transitions to living full time in hir affirmed gender, zie must then conform to the dress code for that gender. This scheme is actually quite elegant and workable in practice. In addition, it has the advantage of not requiring the transitioning employee to prove to the employer that zie is “really” a woman or vice versa by providing a letter from a doctor or therapist, or proving zie has undergone SRS, hormone therapy or any other medical treatment. Instead, it allows the employee complete freedom to work as the person zie knows hirself to be, without interference or second-guessing by anyone else.)
So, there it is. It isn’t necessary to determine whether someone is transsexual, transgender or anything else to provide legal protections for everyone, cis or trans, against arbitrary discrimination because zie doesn’t fit someone else’s concepts of who is “really” a woman or a man, or to determine who can use sex-segregated bathrooms and other facilities. Therefore, I, for one, intend to ignore that debate and get on with the business of enacting fair and just legal protections that allow all of us to simply be who we are.
Abigail Jensen (aka ArizonaAbby) is a trans woman and attorney in Prescott, Arizona, and a general rabble rouser on trans, as well as LGB, issues. She is also a founder and a member of the Board of the local women’s shelter.
[Cross-posted from my personal blog. This essay has also been posted on my Facebook Wall, and on Pam's House Blend. I want to thank Lisa for allowing me to post it here, as well. I've learned much from reading this blog over the years and am grateful for the opportunity to make this contribution.]
That doesn’t take care of the “bathroom question” at all, though, unless you’re suggesting a law that functionally allows anyone to use any public restroom. Where is a non-binary person to go? Must we change our appearance and attempt to pass as binary in order to go to the bathroom? Do we continue to search for gender-neutral restrooms while binary trans people have at least some legal protection? This seems like a way to throw non-binary trans people under the bus.
Anja Flower
20 Jun 11 at 12:16 pm
The principle under the Price Waterhouse case, which gender identity anti-discrimination laws write into statute, is that no one can be treated differently because they fail to conform to someone else’s notions of what a man or a woman should look or act like. That principle applies to both binary, and non-binary, identified people.
ArizonaAbby
20 Jun 11 at 12:38 pm
It’s sad how threatening this appears to be to some people. Sometimes I admit I can’t tell if people (regarding this post and issue, people of trans history/similar labels) are arguing from a place of good faith, or not. Too often to me it seems like plain old transphobia/cissexism. Though as is often said, intent may not matter.
Anyway, good post. I
jayinchicago
20 Jun 11 at 2:53 pm
Abby, I understand and mostly agree with your main point, especially as you present it in the second paragraph. But I’m afraid that your OP goes astray after that.
First, I agree with Anja’s comment above.
I’m a transgenderqueer woman, and though “woman” is *part* of my gender, it is *not* my gender. I don’t feel comfortable using binary-sex-segregated facilities for *either* binary gender, so where does this leave me?
No, it’s not. Again, where do non-binary-gendered people fit into this scheme? I dress in a fashion that is coded “androgynous” by cis society. Should I dress in stereotypically male-coded dress or in stereotypically female-coded dress? Or should employers be permitted to discriminate against me because I don’t fit into those two male/female boxes? And even for binary-gendered people, being required to dress in a stereotypically gendered fashion to avoid discrimination is … well, discriminatory.
What??!?? No, our country has *enshrined* and *mandated* such unequal treatment. cf slavery. cf AZ 1070 in your home state, which *mandates* police discrimination and violence against anybody the police perceive as being so-called “illegal”, and similar legislation spreading like a plague throughout the country. cf the Arizona legislation which *prohibits* teaching the history of POC in schools, because teaching about the history of Latin@s might encourage insurrections or wev.
I mean, it took nearly 200 years for the Civil Rights Act to be proposed and passed, and its implementation is deeply flawed, at best, and is being attacked and rolled back piecemeal at every turn.
GallingGalla
20 Jun 11 at 3:43 pm
@GallingGalla, No, an employer shouldn’t be allowed to discriminate against you because you don’t fit in either gender “box.” Sadly, for reasons that I’ll never understand, sex discrimination statutes nationwide have been pretty much uniformly interpreted to allow employers to enforce binary dress codes and similar requirements. ENDA, which I use as a model here, is drafted in light of that existing law, as well the strong opposition to the idea that gender identity protection statutes will allow an employee to appear as one gender one day, and the “opposite” gender the next. This opposition is generally phrased in terms of male “crossdressers” who want to wear a dress one day and show up as a man the next. That opposition usually doesn’t mention non-binary-gendered people like you and Anja. Nonetheless, it affects you, resulting in provisions that could be used to force you into one box or the other on the job. So, you’re right, in the area of employment, ENDA doesn’t protect non-binary-gendered people with respect to dress codes and similar restrictions.
Everywhere else, however, GI/GE protections statutes protect you and Anja, just as much as a binary-identified person like myself, including your right to use public restrooms for either gender. The dilemma you face when there are no “unisex” facilities available is the result of culture and the failure of such statutes to go further and completely outlaw sex-segregated facilities and/or mandate the construction of non-designated facilities. Personally, I look forward to the day when that happens, either by law or changes in social attitudes, but I doubt very much that that will happen in my lifetime.
As for the remainder of your comments, yes, our country falls far short of our ideals. Nonetheless, appealing to the ideals of equality and freedom is one of the tools we have to convince legislators to enact such laws.
ArizonaAbby
20 Jun 11 at 4:15 pm
It amazes me the level of alarm with which many people – not just cis people, but some trans people – respond to the idea of ending sex segregation in restrooms. They bring up all sorts of objections which after all are really just matters of privacy-oriented restroom and locker room design: floor-to-ceiling toilet stalls, stall showers instead of communal showers, and so on. We face an extremely hostile social environment which will have to be overcome before a transition to unisex public restrooms is achieved, but the actual problem of designing and implementing the proper restrooms themselves is just a matter of changing building regulations.
Anja Flower
20 Jun 11 at 4:49 pm
To be fair, whilst our opponents focus on the restroom issue and posit it as such, our allies look not at the potty, but at the question of showers and similar locations where nudity is considered unavoidable (though in my case I’ve found it to be entirely avoidable ’cause I’m a gifted young lass).
THe bathroom thing really is as simple as “so, you peeking in the cracks twixt the doors now, are you?”, whereas the showers and locker rooms require going into a whole discourse on modesty.
Fortunately, however, once you get them past that, then they talk about something unrelated to the issue — “predatory men” using the spaces.
While we are willing to work towards a solution to sch an issue, we aren’t, at this time, discussing an issue relating to predatory men, we are discussing an issue that revolves around women, men, and people who are either both, neither, in between, or somehow not fully one or the other using the restroom.
And it gets worse with the bill in CT.
Abby, my friend, this is truly a great piece. Lisa and Co., thanks for hosting it.
Dyssonance
20 Jun 11 at 8:32 pm
There’s nothing to really disagree with here, but it seems to me a particularly American perspective. We’re all outsiders, so lets fight for the broadest, most inclusive frame possible. It is more practical, it is the direction we are going, and so on…
It doesn’t do much for papers though, or for the fact transsexual people are handled in the US entirely in terms of administrative accomodation. ENDA should surely be a gender identity protection. But it doesn’t address the old and painful fight — what about my passport? What is my legal gender? What if I don’t want “other” — some folks do, and more power to them, but I don’t. This impacts people on a variety of levels that relate to human rights and civil liberties, every time I cross a border or show my ID.
We chose to go the fully inclusive route in the US, and it is probably the only path open to us. But when I contrast US law to the way western europe is evolving, it is personally rather painful. We chose to make this most deeply about human rights and gender, instead of about people who are specifically transsexual. There were moral and political and cultural reasons for that, and many of them are very good reasons. But it isn’t without cost…nor as unambiguous as all that…
jessl
22 Jun 11 at 11:35 am
I disagree that it’s a matter of administrative accomodation wrt to transsexual folks like myself (and I assume you) and many others reading here. The fact is transsexual people sometimes or often have things about us that do put us outside of the binary gender system and many of us in fact do need broad gender identity based protections. Some of us are of non-binary gender, or are judged to be outside the gender binary occasionally, or sometimes, or always. If someone walks in on me in the men’s room at work and notices x about myself, for example let’s say urinary prosthetic use having an ‘m’ on everything in the word won’t protect me from discrimination and possible violence.
Maybe that’s not even what you meant, but I myself am sickened by and sick of us v them style trans politicking. I see it [a broad coalition] as completely mutually beneficial because there are plenty of situations where both trans people with binary and nonbinary genders could be discriminated against in the exactly same ways–I have personal stories about bathrooms that could curl hair.
anyway, i don’t see how we’ll all win without a big tent.
jayinchicago
22 Jun 11 at 2:09 pm
jessl – Are you implying that binary-gendered transsexual-and-not-transgender people should be granted rights that those of us who don’t fit that narrow profile should not be granted? In other words, are you trying to carve out a small sub-population of trans folk that you feel should be exclusively granted these rights? Where do you draw this line? And how do you think this advances the cause of comprehensive framework for justice for all trans*, genderqueer, and gender-variant people?
Because to my thinking, your comment directly contradicts Abby’s OP, which I see as calling for broad-based approach to gender justice, rather than carving out one special subpopulation and throw the rest under the bus.
(I mean, really, it’s a good thing I lost internet connectivity last night, because the comment I was trying to post last night was much angrier.)
GallingGalla
23 Jun 11 at 3:17 pm
>” After the employee transitions to living full time in hir affirmed gender, zie must then conform to the dress code for that gender. This scheme is actually quite elegant and workable in practice.”
Embracing a dress code built around the gender binary? You anti-feminist sellout.
Jemma
25 Jun 11 at 9:33 am
“Anti-feminist sellout”? No, just a realist discussing this in the context of the state of the law as it exists today, as I explained above: http://www.questioningtransphobia.com/?p=3798#comment-86591. As I said, I, too, oppose binary dress codes, but changing the case law that says they are currently permissible is not something that we can accomplish in the context of passing gender identity and expression anti-discrimination laws.
ArizonaAbby
25 Jun 11 at 10:22 am
jessl,
I believe that in the US you can get a passport in your correct gender. Am I mistaken? This was apparently a big deal not too long ago.
I don’t understand your reference to “other.” Do you mean defaulting trans people to “other?” Is that happening anywhere? I mean, I know that often “transgender” is an option along with “male” and “female” forcing binary trans people to choose whether to acknowledge they are trans or acknowledge their true gender. Is that what you mean?
I know I certainly want some option aside from “male” and “female” on official paperwork.
As for the costs of being inclusive, I am not sure what they are, precisely. Most of the difficulties trans people of all varieties have in the US are ingrained into the cultural fabric as various degrees of hatred against us, not caused by the inclusion of more categories than just binary transsexual people.
Lisa Harney
25 Jun 11 at 11:18 am
Oh, as for dress codes – I would love to see dress codes that are inclusive of non-binary people and no longer set up different standards for men and women. But I am not sure referring to existing dress codes that are unlikely to go away is selling out or anti-feminist.
Lisa Harney
25 Jun 11 at 11:20 am
Why have binary dress codes at all? I mean, how hard is it to write “we expect employees to wear a dress jacket over a shirt or a blouse with either ankle-length pants or a knee-length skirt” and so on? Somehow I can’t imagine hordes of cisgender individuals going gender-berserk. But this isn’t strictly speaking a legal problem, unless there were a law forbidding binary gendered codes of any kind (which would be neat, but I’m not holding my breath).
Carto
25 Jun 11 at 11:27 am
I agree with you. We don’t need binary dress codes at all, which is what I was trying to say in my immediately previous comment.
The reference in the post is a legal problem as businesses with gendered dress codes do try to enforce dress codes relevant to sex assigned at birth on transitioning or transitioned trans people.
Lisa Harney
25 Jun 11 at 12:26 pm
Typical of the kind of conflicts that trans people encounter when working for an employer with sex-segregated dress codes and, in this case, job assignments (which, in most cases, are illegal), is this story from In the Life about Ashley Yang, who was fired by the TSA because she refused to present and work as a man: http://youtu.be/9-4b69WD6pI. Fortunately, with the help of the Transgender Law Center, TSA agreed that her firing was illegal sex discrimination and settled with her.
ArizonaAbby
25 Jun 11 at 1:26 pm
Dress codes based on rigid binary standards have another problem: they are ableist, especially to women. In many corporations with strict dress codes, men get to wear comparatively comfortable clothes and (especially) shoes, whereas women are typically expected to wear high heels.
So where does that leave women, who like me, have chronic joint injuries that leave them unable to wear heels? Even the typical “alternatives” of low-heeled shoes (kitten heels, skimmers, mary janes, etc) are still hard on the feet.
Basically, the only shoes that I can wear are running shoes or Doc Martens. Any other shoe will hurt my feet that I won’t be able to walk after a day or two.
This is where sexism and ableism intersect: men can find comfortable dress shoes, women cannot. Then you add transphobia on top of that, and now you have both trans men who are forced to adhere to female presentation and trans women who are forced into a very narrow presentation that not all are comfortable with (there are butch and androgynous trans women). Then add in binarism, where non-binary gendered folk are force to pick one of two rigid presentations. In my case, none of these work: I don’t present as masculine, or as feminine, or butch, or andro – none of these work for me.
So I’m really struggling with how forcing anybody, cis or trans, gender-congruent or gender-variant, binary or non-binary, femme, butch, andro, or otherwise, into exactly one of only two rigidly constrained choices represents “gender justice” in the workplace.
Because at the end of the day, I fail to see how “After the employee transitions to living full time in hir affirmed gender, zie must then conform to the dress code for that gender. This scheme is actually quite elegant and workable in practice” is any other than plain old sexism and cissupremacism. I’m not saying that *you* are sexist and cissupremacist, Abby, just that you’re too ready to endorse a “solution” that is sexist, cissupremacist, and binaristic.
GallingGalla
25 Jun 11 at 8:25 pm
Oh, yes. Tell me about the high heel thing – if I wear heels for like two hours nowadays my calves feel like they’re on fire for days afterward. I mean it’s not just muscle soreness, my skin is painful to the touch, like a sunburn. I couldn’t get by on a dress code like that. On the other hand, I am pretty sure that should fall under workplace accommodations as described by the ADA.
I do agree that the idea of having dress codes strictly defined for men and women with only those two options and requiring people to pick one of those options is problematic and it is not elegant for a lot of people who do not comfortably fit into the binary, and dress codes for women are less comfortable and more likely to be painful than dress codes for men.
As for Abby’s reference to the dress codes, I thought she answered that in her comment above:
This problem – and it is a problem – goes well beyond Abby’s example of how GI protections would work.
Lisa Harney
26 Jun 11 at 10:18 pm
Well, I kind of stepped in it here :} Yes, Lisa, I can get a passport. It is not granted by law, but by the accomodation of the state department. Similarly for B.C., and everything else.
Rather than respond to the folks who do far more good work than I do, and whose work I have great respect for, who are, um…cheesed at my comment, I want to say that it is a bit telling that arguing for specifically transsexual rights is seen as a blow against our entire movement. Maybe it is…but I don’t think so. I think it should be _part_ of that movement.
I was fairly careful how I put stuff. I think the way things are going now is good and that gender identity is an appropriate focus. That is not the same thing as saying transgender and transsexual folks have some political interests which differ. It is also not the same thing as saying that transsexual interests, where they differ (or rather, form a subset) of transgendered interests, are superior or more important or somehow trump the real issues of jobs, violence, and civil rights. But…I still think it is a real thing. Maybe not in practice, but certainly in the way civil rights arguments have moved in different countries.
jessl
27 Jun 11 at 7:13 am
Hmm, where there were questions I was really asking for clarification, not trying to imply anything. I’m sort of at sea with what you are responding to in that context.
I don’t see that arguing for specifically transsexual rights is a blow against the entire movement, but I think the context often goes deeper than that. Such statements are frequently wedded to condemnations, insults, attacks, and complaints about the transgender community or transgender people. They also tend to come with complaints that transgender people are somehow making life harder for transsexual people.
Lisa Harney
27 Jun 11 at 4:58 pm
Thankyou for writing this is a great post.
cheshire
4 Jul 11 at 11:52 pm
This is a great argument and really goes to the heart of what liberation is all about. Marx addressed the same question way back in 1843 in his essay “On the Jewish Question” (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/): for me to have freedom and equality, everyone must have freedom and equality.
Lonnie
6 Aug 11 at 11:18 pm
I have a question that I know will cause me to be called a hater and other horrible things, but I think it deserves to be asked.
Where are my rights as a cisgender woman? Everyone deserves equal rights, I believe that firmly. -BUT-, there comes a point where people’s rights are at odds. The Trans community is big about seeking “equal rights”, but many times it seems they are saying that THEIR rights must be given priority over the rights of others.
Why are MY rights, as a cisgender woman, less important than the rights of a TG person?
edited to replace a meaningless phrase with a meaningful phrase
Marta
16 Aug 12 at 3:06 am
You seem to be under the impression that trans people are saying that our rights are more important than everyone else’s, you’re reading too much into things that have been said. Since this is essentially a straw man, you have nothing to worry about.
The issue does frequently come up, however, where some fairly transphobic cisgender women seem to believe that trans people actually having rights impinges upon their rights in much the same way that the National Organization for Marriage seems to think that same sex marriage is somehow impinging upon their rights as potentially married heterosexual people. In other words, it’s people who are privileged in a particular way viewing “rights” as a zero sum game where those whom they perceive to be in opposition must be held down so that they can maintain their (oppressive) power over them.
There’s nothing to be worried about. Trans people having rights isn’t going to hurt you in any way. Unless, that is, some element of your identity is dependent upon the idea of being “better” or “more worthy” of rights then trans people. But I really couldn’t possibly care less what people like that think, and I am not interested in sacrificing trans people’s needs to make bigots feel better.
Lisa Harney
16 Aug 12 at 3:21 am
To Lisa:
IN point of fact, you’re making assumptions. It certainly DOES affect my rights. Why is my right to feel comfortable in a bathroom have less validity than a TG/Cis person’s right to use the bathroom of the gender they identify with? Do I not have the right to feel comfortable in a women’s bathroom if feeling comfortable for me means that the women’s bathroom is a “penis free zone”?
It has nothing to do with privileged, it has to do with my right to feel comfortable in a ladies room versus the TG/Cis person’s right to use the room THEY feel comfortable in.
Marta
16 Aug 12 at 3:32 am
By the way, my post was incorrectly edited and changed into something I didn’t write. I do not consider myself “cisgender”, I am a genetic woman and would appreciate that not being changed to a term I do not agree with.
Marta
16 Aug 12 at 3:35 am
Lisa wrote “The issue does frequently come up, however, where some fairly transphobic cisgender women seem to believe that trans people actually having rights impinges upon their rights”
Aren’t you doing exactly what you feel the non-TG community is doing to you here? You’re making an assumption based on nothing but misplaced angst. Just because genetic women don’t want to share their restrooms/locker rooms/changing rooms with a Transgendered person doesn’t mean they don’t want the TG to have rights. BUT, it DOES “impinge” on the genetic women’s right NOT to have anyone with a penis in their gender specific areas. Also, there is a BIG difference between the idiots who think allowing the gay/lesbian community to marry because they think it will somehow affect the “sanctity of marriage” and a group of women who have a legitimate problem with sharing their gender specific areas.
Sharing gender specific areas doesn’t somehow affect any “sanctity” of anything…it simply makes genetic women uncomfortable and impinges on their rights to have certain areas “penis free”.
Lisa wrote ” I am not interested in sacrificing trans people’s needs to make bigots feel better”
So you’re willing to sacrifice MY rights to make certain members of the TG community feel better? How is that any better than what you’re accusing the non-TG community of doing?
Marta
16 Aug 12 at 7:43 am
Marta, you said, ” Just because genetic women don’t want to share their restrooms/locker rooms/changing rooms with a Transgendered person doesn’t mean they don’t want the TG to have rights.” No, of course not, not any more than the fact that white women didn’t want to share restrooms, restaurants, stores or any place else with black women didn’t mean they didn’t want African-Americans to have rights; they just didn’t want to have to feel uncomfortable being in the same spaces with people that are different than they are, right? Comparing your personal discomfort with the issue of equal rights for all people, cis- or transgender, to be free from discrimination based on gender stereotypes is specious at best. In fact, you DON’T have a right to be free of discomfort, when that can only come at the cost of sacrificing the right to freedom from discrimination based on gender stereotypes.
Exactly how does the presence of a penis in a restroom, something you will never know is there unless *you’re* doing something you shouldn’t be, harm you? You are simply making assumptions based on outmoded stereotypes that (1) people who you read as masculine may have penises, and (2) every person who has a penis is a threat to you. Neither assumption is true.
ArizonaAbby
16 Aug 12 at 8:09 am
“Also, there is a BIG difference between the idiots who think allowing the gay/lesbian community to marry because they think it will somehow affect the ‘sanctity of marriage’ and a group of women who have a legitimate problem with sharing their gender specific areas.”
No, Marta, there really isn’t. It’s still an issue of comfort.
Sure, the anti-marriage-equality crowd drops a lot of noise about “sanctity of marriage,” but they’ve never shown exactly how or why extending marriage rights threatens their own marriages. So why the opposition? Because they are grossed out by the idea of two men or two women making love with each other. They find the mechanics of such lovemaking *icky*. Yikes, what if those icky people end up getting married and buying houses in their neighborhood and joining the PTA? What if they walk around the neighborhood holding hands? It’s like they’re flaunting their sex life! How am I supposed to explain this to my kids?
These are all manifestations of discomfort, and, as ArizonaAbby states so brilliantly and succinctly, you don’t have a right to be free from discomfort when your comfort is based upon discriminating against other people. What you want, essentially, is for trans women to be erased from your environment so that you can ignore what makes you uncomfortable. Whereas trans women don’t want to erase *you* from their environment. They want to use the bathroom without being harassed or abused by people squicked out about a lack of “penis-free spaces.”*
That, Marta, is the difference, and why what Lisa is doing is both different from and better than what you’re doing.
*Disclaimer: Cisgender, white, heterosexual, able-bodied, slightly neuroatypical woman speaking. I am not trans, and do not presume to speak for trans people, who can speak just fine without my help. I just think that when a trans woman enters a public restroom, it’s reasonable to infer that she just wants to use the toilet, wash her hands, and leave, without having to justify her presence. You know, the same thing that we cis women take for granted.
Bakerina
21 Aug 12 at 3:18 pm