What Degree of Accommodation is Reasonable for Transgender Individuals to Expect?
I don't place neatly anywhere on the political spectrum being that for politics to be relevant, humans must continue to exist and I anticipate our replacement by AI in the coming centuries. Nevertheless because I run in mostly left leaning circles, I encounter a great deal of angry, hurt pushback on the matter of transsexuals.
I grew up during the heyday of gay rights activism in the 80s and 90s. So that was always normal to me. I think that's how it is for most people, we absorb and accept whatever the cultural moores are during our upbringing. So gay people are totally fine by me and the gay men and women I count among my friends and family know that.
The trans issue caught me by surprise, because during the push for gay rights it was insisted by the likes of John Stewart, Stephen Colbert and other popular television personalities that to even suggest there would come anything "after" the success of the gay rights movement was absurd and a fallacy.
But now, here we are. Gay couples can marry in most states and will win the fight in the remaining few without much trouble. This was supposed to be the end of it, an ideal state of equality achieved forever. So why is there in fact another movement hot on the heels of the last one, this time requiring everybody on the planet change how they conceive of gender for the comfort and happiness of 0.0001% of the population?
I am perfectly content that they have every right to dress as they please, and engage in body modification. Those are personal liberties they are entitled to. However it doesn't stop there. They then require me to humor them when they say that they are absolutely, in all ways equivalent to the biological sex opposite their actual one.
This crosses a line in that it requires my participation, and worse, requires me to affirm beliefs contrary to science. Many of them are under the wrong impression that science backs them up, because public figures like Bill Nye have made statements supportive of transsexuals on television.
Bill Nye is an engineer, not a scientist. There was in fact an episode of Bill Nye the Science Guy in the 1990s where it was plainly stated that chromosomes determine whether one is a man or a woman. That part of the episode was censored when it made it to Netflix:
Moreover, what scientists in the public spotlight say on television about controversial issues like gender is very different from what it says in the literature for the relevant fields. Because there is no penalty for lying to the public on television, but scientists generally do not get away with lying in research papers for very long.
I hold truth in very high esteem. The fact that truth sometimes hurts peoples' feelings is not a good reason to bury, compromise or destroy it. If we're going to require everybody to humor the wrong beliefs that trans people hold about gender, why not also require everybody to humor the wrong beliefs of creationists?
After all, creationists are every bit as hurt when people contradict and ridicule their worldview. Creationists are also vastly more numerous than trans people, at about 45% of the US population. By comparison, trans people account for 0.3%. Once again, not even a single full percent, but a third of that.
Yet this vanishingly small number of people and their hobby to larp as the opposite sex is apparently of such incredible global importance that it is increasingly becoming required by every employer that their employees affirm the transsexual perspective of gender as factual...or lose their job.
Imagine if creationists, or even garden variety Christians commanded the same! Imagine if every workplace required employees to affirm the truth of Christianity or be fired. Why is it legally required for conventional employment that we humor one wrong belief, but not another? Why not require everybody to humor all wrong beliefs?
What about flat Earthers? It hurts their feelings to be told that their beliefs concerning the shape of the Earth are wrong. Are we going to therefore require all employees of any business, or the government, to affirm that the Earth is flat? Or remain neutral on the matter...?
A big reason of why I'm sensitive to this is that I attended a fundamentalist Christian middle school where evolution was scorned and mocked, while creationism was taught as fact. I protested this and was ridiculed for my trouble by both other students and teachers as well.
I eventually learned I'd just have to zip my lips and pretend to agree in order to make it through, but I absolutely hated it. It made my skin crawl having to answer tests in a way I knew was false. Once I graduated, I swore I would never again compromise like that.
But that is exactly what is now required of any business or government employee. I've escaped that fate only because of this site, where speech is not yet subject to such draconian, politically motivated control.
Why freedom for them, but not for me? They have the freedom to dress as they please, to get implants that simulate the secondary sexual characteristics of the sex they identify as, to take drugs that diminish the expression of the secondary sexual characteristics of their actual sex...but I am not allowed to openly express my opinion that none of that actually makes them the sex they identify as?
Freedom for me, but not for thee. Is that really how it's going to be from now on? Why not freedom for both of us? The trans person's freedom to dress as they wish and modify their body, and my freedom to express how I feel about it?
That's not to say I am oppressed. That would of course be a rich joke indeed. But common protestations to the effect that the scientific perspective of sex and gender is secondary to the suffering of trans individuals is an appeal to emotion. Christians were also tortured for their beliefs. That does not make Christianity true.
It is also frequently said that the existence of a miniscule, tiny, vanishingly small fraction of a percent of people who are legitimately intersex means that humans are not sexually binary and dimorphic. This is an absurdity. Trans people are overwhelmingly not intersex by birth.
On top of this, the incredibly tiny number of intersex people is more consistent with what we should expect to see from a birth defect than if it were a third gender or something. Is every birth defect now an equally valid way to be? What about harlequin babies? Should we pour taxpayer money into researching ways for them to survive to adulthood?
Should we then fire anybody who gags at the sight of them shambling around as patches of skin slough off their bodies, or who holds their nose at the smell of exposed muscle tissue and weeping sores? If there was a subculture of people who voluntarily underwent surgery and took drugs to replicate these symptoms, should we be required to approve under penalty of homelessness?
An extreme analogy perhaps. Apologies, sincerely, to anybody offended by it. But your offense should not be reason enough to curtail my freedom of speech. And if simply stating in a calm tone and polite language that HRT, breast implants and women's clothing do not actually make a man into a woman is offensive, then the definition of what constitutes offensive speech has become unreasonable.
There are people so deeply wedded to their beliefs that even simple disagreement, no matter how diplomatic, is egregiously offensive. But whose fault is that? Which person is being unreasonable? The one that expects to be humored by everybody they'll ever meet, or the one who expects the right to give an opinion about somebody else's belief without being professionally ruined by it?
The opinions presented here do not reflect those of Steemit nor any of it's partners. They are purely my own and intended to provoke thought and discussion.
So gay people are totally fine by me and the gay men and women I count among my friends and family know that.
I also don't see anything wrong in them, they haven't choose it by themselves, its all about Nature, so who are we to judge.
Indeed. But being surgically altered to resemble a woman, taking drugs to change your body and wearing women's clothing is indeed a choice and to my knowledge is not seen anywhere else in the animal kingdom.
Hmmm. Fish often change there sex in situations where there are to less females or males. Not quite sure if this counts towards this conversation but that would be an example of it happening in nature.
Since in that kind of scenario not all fish change there sex I guess we can say it was the fishes choice, maybe?
I really agree with your sayings
The act of gay of transgender is a taboo in my country and Africa at large. Religion and beliefs shouldn’t affect the way we interact with each other. There shouldn’t be descrimination but truth be told . I feel irritated by the act
Same, but that's why there should be a line drawn: An individual can live how they want, but they cannot require other people to participate. The old saying goes "One man's right to swing his fist around ends at the tip of the next man's nose".
Gay men and transgender are almost like a crime in Africa. It totally goes against the culture, no one speaks of such.
That's sort of a shame. People should be able to live how they want. But here, it's the other way around. If you say anything remotely critical of it, you lose your job and many other places will not hire you if they find out.
According people live according to the culture of the people. You don't get to lose your job. Some may say it is a spiritual problem and the person needs total deliverance. Its not in line with the African
Its even in the constitution in my country and a 14 years jail term attached when caught in the act
You know the world is a funny place. I was discussing with @joyce-okpobo on this subject some days ago, that freedom is always one sided. For example if a church is free to wed a woman and a man only, it's the choice belief and anyone who join the church did actually accept that. Then why do we have to force that same church to do things contrary to their belief simply because of the freedom of a small group. Does that not mean robbing Peter of his freedom to pay Paul.
You've clearly stated it there. People are free to do as they wish with their body. But no one should be forced to accept someone's else thinking. You say you are a woman, fine you are a woman to yourself. I see you as a man, then it should be fine to me that you are a man. I mustn't be forced to belief or accept anyone's views.
That's fair. I have not heard of any cases of churches forced to marry gay couples, and I don't see why it would be done when there are plenty of gay friendly churches willing to do it, or they could get married at the government office where the marriage license is issued. But I have also not paid close attention to the news for stories about this for a while, so idk.
My vote is not high enough to adequatelly express appreciation for this post... I'm sure you've heard of professor Jordan Peterson of the University of Toronto, and his incredible brave battle against social-justice warriors - if you haven't, please check him out... Basically, IMO, this society is destroying itself at the speed of light.
I don't know if I would go that far. It's changing in ways I don't like, but that tends to happen as we age. I think there will be a lot of stuff about the future I like as well, though. The focus of this article was more narrow than that, specifically where one person's rights end and another's begin.
What I meant was - if we become obliged by the law to use certain way of acting/speaking, that could have detrimental consequences to our society.
Indeed, not to mention on the accuracy of science where gender is concerned
There are two types of people, those who obey the law and those who don't. Most of us who read this are in the first category.
The worst thing that could be experienced by any "discriminated individual" from the members of the group 1 (decent law obeying people) is to get some nodding, gossips and laughs. It will hurt their feelings, and it's bad.
The worst thing that could be experienced by any "discriminated individual" from the members of the group 2 (those who don't respect any law) is to get bitten, raped or murdered.
Imposing the law which is very complicated to use will protect them only from (some) of the members of the Group 1. They will be protected from some gossips and that's great.
But... The price will be paid by hundreds of millions of decent people. And the courts will be flooded with ridiculous cases.
Step into the ghetto and try to explain that young mobsters should say "beat him/her/some of the 50 genders" instead of "beat him!".
Imposing the laws will not solve any real problems.
It will only artificially invent the problems that are easy to "solve".
I never cared if the person is gay or not. Or if he wants to change his gender. We are free people, so...
Agreed fully, but at the same time I do not want to be required to view gender the same way they do.
This is a good analysis of the situation I think, I enjoyed reading it. Do what you want but don't compel me to express your belief about it. Clearly a freedom of speech issue.
Here's the root of the issue, and I'm not sure that you quite get it actually:
What do we mean by "valid" here? You don't really mention it, but there has also in the same time as transexual rights movements the disability rights movements. Obviously "rights" is much broader than actual rights, it's also about affecting what speech is okay (AKA political correctness), anti-discrimination laws, popular media and huge public events (e.g. rallies and Special Olympics), etc.
So it might get closer to the point to ask, is having Down Syndrome a valid way to be?
You can probably lump all these critiques in (obviously most by the left) as a rejection of privileging normalcy, or probably better termed "typicalness". And that's why statistically insignificant populations have a disproportionate voice in the discourse.
In the sense that they have a right to exist once born, but not in the sense that we should put taxpayer money into cultivating the condition and legally requiring people to use special terms to describe it.
My opinion on transgender people is not much different from the definition of someone who is transgender in that they are people who identify as a different gender than the the one the hospital (or medical professional/deliverer) labeled them as at birth.
My opinion (and also fact) is that people who are transgender on the whole don’t receive the same basic human rights, and privleges that cisgender people do, and that is sad, and frustrating. It must change.
I agree, but while that happens, they should also respect that not everybody will view gender the way they do.
Alex - This type of marriages are forbidden in my culture... Atleast we are not talking about them...
+W+