March 27, 2009

N.H. House rejects transgender rights bill

  admin   5 Comments

I’m disappointed to see ignorance win over equality, but I think two things are clear:

  • The opposition to anti-discrimination laws (who are the same as those who oppose gay marriage, and any other gay rights-type legislation) has no interest in allowing ANY legislation that would seem to give any protection to GLBTQ people.
  • As fewer people know a transperson, the lies and exaggerations are easier for the general public to accept.

Consider this:

Peyton Hinkle, a Merrimack Republican said the bill would provide an invitation for predators to enter bathrooms and, when confronted, say they were “just having a transgender experience.”

This displays a number of things. First is a total lack of understanding about transgendered people. If I put on a dress and went into a women’s room, I wouldn’t be having a “trans experience.” I’d be a guy in a dress who is someplace he doesn’t belong. Hinkle’s comment was challenged:

“A sexual predator in a dress is a sexual predator and subject to prosecution just as any other sexual predator is subject to prosecution,” said Walpole Democrat Lucy Weber.

But fear is a strong motivator!

So I have a few thoughts or questions?

What do we  (not even sure who we is) do to educate the public about transgendered people?  Will that make any difference?

Our opponents always  seem to focus on MTF transpeople. Do they even realize there are FTM transfolk?

And what about public restrooms? As a kid I don’t remember stores and other public spaces having public access restrooms, yet today, they seem to be everywhere. Although the trend seems to be at having unixsex restrooms, where only one person can enter, and lock the door at a time. What is the social and political responsibility to the average person in terms of restrooms? Sometimes these changes seem to accompany changes to restrooms to make them handicap accessible. Will this type of issue become irrelevant as restrooms continue to change?

The issue of transgender is complex. I have been working to understand transpeople for over 10 years. I can totally grasp and accept that some people experience themselves as born into the wrong gender. Sometimes these are folks who were gender ambivalant at birth and the doctor or parents made a choice (that turned out to be the wrong one). but for the average straight person, who thinks in terms of male or female- to get their head around transgender takes some work.

Anti-discrimination laws tend to be worded to protect people in employment, housing, and public accommodations. Would we get further if we stopped seeking this broad protection, and sought only housing and employment? My gut says, it wouldn’t matter. The bigots will still be against it, but what do you think. No matter, the ease at which fear wins out when it is an issue of transpeople, demonstrates we have a lot of education to do for us to begin to make more headway.

N.H. House rejects transgender rights bill.

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  • http://www.unspace.net/ Rob

    I understand alien-ness and disconnection all too well.

    Early in my career as a paramedic, I found myself in an ambulance trying to figure out if I should circle the M or the F on the tripsheet. “I’m sorry that I have to ask this, but I don’t know if you’re male or female.” I must have sounded as sincere and as compassionate as I tried to. For the rest of the drive, the patient described what it was like to be physically male and what was needed to go through sex reassignment surgery. He had to be “female” for an entire year. He was so sick that he wasn’t able to make himself look fully female–and he said that restarted the clock all over for him. I was angry that they wouldn’t cut him slack because he was sick, although he explained the why of that requirement.

    He thanked me for treating him like a human being and I thanked him for helping me learn to take better care of people I might encounter.

    • http://thomascwaters.com admin

      Thanks so much for adding to this dialogue!

  • http://www.unspace.net/ Rob

    Public restrooms were around when I was a kid, and I suspect I’m older than you.

    As a biochemist, I know that the categories we divide things into are human conventions that the universe sees no point in respecting. Why should male and female be any different? From a scientific viewpoint, the topic is fascinating. I’m sure I just p.o.ed all the transgender people, but between merger of two separate embryos, biochemical defects, cells dropping chromosomes during embryological development, males with two X chromosomes (the male-activating section of the Y chromosome was transferred onto an X chromosome), etc., the topic is one that teaches us a lot about who we are.

    There’s no definition of “male” or “female” that I couldn’t find major exceptions to. So how do you say that marriage is between one man and one woman when you can’t tell who’s what?

    • http://thomascwaters.com admin

      No, let’s fight about who is older! Haha!

      Great point about human conventions! The fight being expressed in the Marriage Equality battle is very much about this. The desire of some to maintain the traditional roles and rules of what constitutes maleness and femaleness. Because the social structure of “family” is the space within which these roles are most played out. The issue of transgendered men and women, is less about roles I think. Or at least those transfolk I have spoken to seem to think it is. For them, gender and the awareness of gender is less about roles, and more central to their connection, or lack of it, with their body. I don’t profess to really get this, only that I have spoken to enough people that I grasp the realness of it for them.

      Labels and social constructs are always the place from which we begin to work at describing our world and all that is in it. so it is no wonder that this sense of connection to body, we also employ social constructs to describe. When, as you point out, it is far more variable than that- or far more simple, depending upon one’s perspective.