Category: Philosophy

The ACLU, the National Center for Transgender Equality, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, The Transgender Law Center, and Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund have joined in the drafting of a letter (pdf) in support of the national standards for the prevention, detection, response, and monitoring of sexual abuse as recommended (pdf) by the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission.  Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex people are at heightened risk of being abused when in detention, both at the hands of other inmates and at the hands of facility staff.

Twelve days ago, I encountered the following comment by a well-known member of Daily Kos.

What exactly is the medical condition that is treated by transgender surgery? Is it vanity? Something is not right about drastic alteration of a healthy body. I feel the same way about plastic surgery, by the way.

Transgender is an acquired condition, a choice, unlike homosexuality, and I don’t think it deserves the same protections.

I’ve let it steep and marinate, trying to come up with a way to address the comment.  And during that time, I’ve wondered how many people of like mind inhabit DK.  Given the number of anti-trans bigots that respond to general news story blogs in regards to stories about people who are trans, I’m willing to bet the commenter who made that comment is not flying solo.

So how should I approach it?  I decided that a trip back in time might fit the bill.

Have you ever worried that you might be fired if you gave any inclination that you might be straight?  You can be…with impunity…in any state which does not give equal employment protection based on sexual orientation.

It’s true that it rarely happens that someone would be fired for being straight, but it has happened.

To my knowledge, nobody has every been fired for being cisgender (i.e non-transgender).  But there is no reason, in most states, why it couldn’t happen.

The examples of people being fired for being transgender are too numerous to include.

That’s the thing about laws protecting gender-identity or sexual orientation.  They are for the protection of everybody, not just GLBT people.

What causes transsexuality?  How do people know they are transsexual?  These are two very different questions…and quite difficult to answer, but I am willing to take them on today.

We humans seem to want either a scientific or religious answer to everything.  Especially when it comes to anything involving sex or gender-related behavior, if their is no known scientific cause, then there must be something morally wrong.

Why is that?  Scientific curiosity I can understand.  But it certainly should be disentangled from moral essentialism.

Do people really think that if there is no known scientific cause to a phenomenon, then it must be the work of…or evidence of…dark forces?

A man on his Harley was riding along a California beach when suddenly the sky clouded above his head and, in a booming voice, God said to him: ‘Because you have tried to be faithful to me in all ways, I will grant you one wish.’

The biker pulled over and said: ‘Build me a bridge to Hawaii so I can ride over anytime I want.’

God replied: ‘Your request is materialistic. Think of the enormous challenges for that kind of undertaking. The supports required reaching the bottom of the Pacific and the concrete and steel it would take!’

‘I can do it, but it is hard for me to justify your desire for worldly things. Take a little more time and think of something that could possibly help mankind.’

The biker thought about it for a long time. Finally, he said: ‘God, I wish that I, and all men, could understand women.’

‘I want to know how she feels inside, what she’s thinking when she gives me the silent treatment, why she cries, what she means when she says nothing’s wrong, why she snaps and complains when I try to help, and how I can make a woman truly happy.’

I’ve been observing some of the commentary, not just in the blogs, but also in the world at large, and have been debating with myself about whether it is time to start over, with a brand new education campaign, rather than just continuing the old one.

Some people just aren’t up to speed…like the right-wingers who keep referring to us transpeople as being “gender confused”.  Nobody here is confused, except the people who can’t grasp the concept of the separation between sex and gender…or the fact that DNA is not a life sentence, but rather a suggestion.

The thing is that we transpeople have done the deep digging into who we are and have come up with an answer that some people don’t like.  And those people think we deserve to be punished for acting on what we discovered about ourselves.

Sprinkled amongst the words in my essay is music supplied by some talented transfolk.  I apologize in advance for finding nothing actually by Wendy Carlos at Youtube (but a lot of stuff “in the style of”).

Dr. Jennifer Potter, Director of the Women’s Health Program at Fenway Health announced a health fair for LBT women on May 11 in  this morning’s edition of Bay Windows.  That will be in the midst of National Women’s Health Week.

She acknowledges that LGBT people all experience health disparities because of continued discrimination and ignorance on the part of of health professionals.  But she also notes that the majority of research and funding for LGBT people is directed at gay men’s health, primarily at gay men infected with HIV.  LBT people are often left out in the cold.

Aside:  I’ve had a lot of personal experience with that, having had to train my own medical practitioners how to treat me.  Too often, medical schools don’t provide training in how to interact with transpeople, let alone how to treat us.  Back in the early 90s I participated in a video interview with a doctor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (Karen Young:  her son was a student at the university where I taught) to be used in its ethics courses, hoping to address the issue.  I do not know if it is still being used…and I never received a copy.

For years, student activists have fought to combat the disturbing numbers of rapes and sexual assaults which routinely occur on college campuses.  Actual statistics are tough to come by because many victims are too intimidated and scared to report them, which is often compounded by apathetic university administrators who grant only cursory attention to the matter or try to sweep things under the rug.  Colleges and Universities are unfortunately run like businesses these days, and none of them wants to entertain even the faintest hint of scandal.  Fighting for tuition money, grants, and endowments trump keeping female students safe and protected. The amount of administrative staff in higher education is staggering, and no one wants to stop piling on layer after layer of middle management, even when most of it is entirely unnecessary.

In any case, props to the students at American University in Washington, DC, who have recently fought back against an offensive column (or two) in their campus paper by mobilizing to stand united against rape apologists.

Much of the protest centers around this particular passage, written by columnist Alex Knepper in the AU student newspaper, The Eagle.

   Let’s get this straight: any woman who heads to an EI party as an anonymous onlooker, drinks five cups of the jungle juice, and walks back to a boy’s room with him is indicating that she wants sex, OK? To cry “date rape” after you sober up the next morning and regret the incident is the equivalent of pulling a gun to someone’s head and then later claiming that you didn’t ever actually intend to pull the trigger.

“Date rape” is an incoherent concept. There’s rape and there’s not-rape, and we need a line of demarcation. It’s not clear enough to merely speak of consent, because the lines of consent in sex – especially anonymous sex – can become very blurry. If that bothers you, then stick with Pat Robertson and his brigade of anti-sex cavemen! Don’t jump into the sexual arena if you can’t handle the volatility of its practice!

A previous passage noted, as well, that

Feminist religious dogma, long ago disposed of by neuroscientists and psychologists, states that men are essentially born as eunuchs, only to have wicked masculinity imposed on them by an evil society. This is usually presented as “social construction theory”.

I am understandably pleased to observe such an outpouring of righteous indignation and with it a desire to push back and push back hard.  Still, I am also struck that it takes a college flush full of money, privilege, and students already inclined to activism to set up such an elaborate response in the first place.  Offensive as the passages are, I can at least follow the author’s “logic”, even though I disagree with it strongly.  As someone who is not a native of Planet Progressive, I reflect back on my own upbringing in a solidly conservative state, where, to refer back to Knepper’s column, no one talks about social construction theory, even in conversation with fellow students, nor does anyone acknowledge or have even the faintest notion of why it is offensive to use the term hermaphrodite in place of intersex.

As for me, when I was in college, I was not privy to these sorts of dialogues.  And, for that matter, most students now enrolled in schools across the country are not, either.  I attended a state school which gave perfunctory and short-lived attention to topics like educating men about precisely what constituted consent, and never spoke as any unified voice.  LGBT students were greeted usually with a shrug, and it took years of effort to even establish same-sex partner benefits for university employees.  I do recall that a scandal broke during my time there involving an early enrollment student who began her freshman year at age fifteen.  She was then later revealed to have been frequenting the beds of athletes.  Though the sexual contact was consensual, it was still statutory rape due to the female student nonetheless being under the age of consent.  As is typical, the matter was dealt with internally and invisibly until the parents filed suit.  Even then, once the matter became public, there were no protests, raised fists, or plans among the student body to go to the news media and raise hell.  Most people were ambivalent to the matter.  The lawsuit stalled and was eventually thrown out of court.  Among many it has been forgotten altogether.

But to draw a contrast, I would expect nothing less than this sort of coordinated protest from a place like American, but again, I can’t help but wish I’d see it in areas of the country not quite so blue and not quite so well off.  This is not to say that women in predominantly liberal, highly competitive, and affluent schools don’t face the chance of being date raped or assaulted on campus.  That risk, unfortunately, never goes away completely, but the odds do increase dramatically when the framework meant to counter sexual assault and rape simply does not exist or exists so weakly as to become ineffectual.  A program designed to accomplish this need not be as detailed and exacting as what American University is now doing, and indeed, a school with a much more modest budget could not begin to mimic that of a wealthier institution.

Being that I live in Washington, DC, and associate with several American students and employees, I know for a fact that the student who wrote the columns in the first place purely meant to provoke a response, not necessarily out of some inward conviction in his supposed cause.  Taken this way, he was little more than a troll, and we all know how trolls love to needle us just to see us roar in response.  Even though the writer might not have meant what he said in totality, I still think it’s important that the students have adopted an important cause and are fighting to advance it.  Again, I think it is imperative of them to spread the message to other schools across the country if they wish to fulfill their idealistic ambitions.  It honestly breaks my heart to see just how much of that which is proposed and adopted in blue circles stays there and never leaves.  Being that I grew up in a red state, I always feel somehow slighted when I see clear-cut evidence of all the things that money can provide with a snap of the fingers.  This is bold evidence of classism and one of the deepest ironies of all is that it is on full display even in efforts designed to improve conditions for marginalized people whose voices have been ignored or silenced.

Every month or so, I like to do a summary of the recent news of interest to the trans-community.  Welcome to our world.

My continuing readers may be interested in hearing that we had some success since last week.  Israel Luna has decided to withdraw the offensive trailer for Ticked-off Trannies with Knives.

“After listening to some of the voices in the trans community,” Mr. Luna said, “I’ve decided to remove those references from the trailer.”

Meanwhile, for a better portrayal of transwomen, I hear James Rasin’s Beautiful Darling: The Life and Times of Candy Darling, Andy Warhol Superstar is worthwhile.  Here’s a preview by Jillian Weiss, which includes the trailer.  Candy apparently dreamed of being Kim Novak.  Personally, I dreamed of being Shirley MacLaine.

Back in the early 1970s, there was a new genre of film, called Blaxploitation.  Remember it?  The movie would be set in the ghetto and all the characters would be hit men, drug dealers, pimps or narcs.  One may recall the films Foxy Brown and Blacula.  And who could forget Blackenstein?  Try as we might.

In the late 70s, there was a film called I spit on Your Grave, in the Rape and Revenge genre, trying to situate women’s rights the same way Blaxploitation did for African-American rights.  I Spit on your Grave is apparently being remade, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised about Ticked Off Trannies with Knives.

Synopsis of I Spit on your Grave 2010:

The story of a woman who is brutally attacked, raped, and left for dead in the wilderness.  She survives to hunt down her assailants and methodically, graphically takes her vengeance.  Based on the 1978 film.

What do you want? [from life]

A great job?

A fulfilling relationship?

Go sailing around the Pacific for a few years in your very own luxurious boat?

Or just to get along better with yourself?

Perhaps you want one of more of those things. But beneath those many common wishes, if you take it a step further, often lies a wish to find happiness.

[…]

Here are seven such ideas about how you can find happiness.

How to Find Happiness: 7 Timeless Tips from the Last 2500 Years

by Henrik Edberg

I spent the morning reading a 97-page pdf so that you don’t have to. It’s a Motion in Aid of Litigants’ Rights.

Yesterday, Lambda Legal went back to court here in New Jersey, filing a motion seeking marriage equality.  The New Jersey Supreme Court ordered equality on October 25, 2006, in a case referred to as Lewis v Harris, but made the mistake of telling the legislature to implement that equality, which it has failed to do.’

Civil unions are a failed legislative experiment in providing equality in New Jersey–marriage equality is the only solution. –Hayley Gorenberg, Lambda Legal Deputy Legal Director