Transgender Rights

Comment by Vicki L. Hafer on December 28, 2010 at 6:12pm

Joanne,  Thank you for your feedback. The ENDA bill that was quashed is a double edged sword. In one manner it "protects" our right to work, and the other it outs us as not being genetic born female. Once you have your marker changed to validate your idenity then employment becomes based on E.O.E.  It is unlawful for a company to fire you for being a man or a woman. And for those out there that say they are one gender sometimes and another at other times, for them it's past time to grow up and make a decision. It comes down to them being like spoiled little children, they want to say they are male/female when it suits them. The fact that we have gender markers is to keep society fluid. Even the true hermaphrodites have been asked to choose a gender and stick with it. And they're not crying to their congressman about not being allowed to use a certain changing room or about who they can marry. If you want to dress like a man and be called sir, no problem, but if you dress like a man and want to be called m'am, oh f'ing well.

Comment by Sophia Smith on December 28, 2010 at 8:42pm

I'm moving to Aberdeen Maryland cause it must be a different world there.

 

Comment by Kahana on December 29, 2010 at 8:22pm

hello, Vicki

thank you for your post.  i respectfully wish to express a dissenting view.

 

Transgender rights are about protection from oppression, regardless of how one defines and expresses one's gender, free of a binary gender definition bias.  

 

For those who choose to ascribe to a binary gender identity system, current laws work, if and only if you fit the arbitrary binary definitions of gender;  of course, attaining binary gender congruence erases any need for aforementioned protections.  However, If you are gender-incongruent, then for whatever time you do not fit those arbitrary definitions, current law fail.  For those who choose to ascribe to a fluid gender identity system, current laws fail, miserably.  aside from last years federal law creating the status of a hate crime if it can be proven to be on basis of gender identity and/or expression, there are no federal, and only a patchwork of local and state laws that provide such protections against systemic oppression in education, employment, marriage rights, housing, medical services and insurance, and parental rights and child custody, just to name some of the domains that are areas of discriminatory practice based on failure to comply with binary gender identity.  

 

Advocating for the protections of those who do not have protections is not about seeking preferential treatment, but rather, equal treatment.  in my opinion, those who do not fit the binary gender model, for whatever reason, do not deserve to be treated as anything less than equal to those who do.  Such equality does absolutely nothing to interfere with the anonymity of one's gender, binary, or not, and in fact, seeks to protect it.  Such equality does nothing to hold anyone back from any goal (except, perhaps, from discriminating against anyone who doesn't fit the "gender binary").

 

Comment by Tammyrae Barr on January 2, 2011 at 10:27am

Once again I see the world basing itself on misconceived preconceptions. Our entire existence has been manipulated by those of power. Marriage is a commitment from one person to another. A marriage
certificate or license is a legal document that must be displayed for joint
health benefits, rights of ownership and other legal issues, all of which are
judged/acknowledged by an established set of rules set by someone else's
opinion and desire.

 

My thoughts are two-fold:

 

First - a marriage need not be sanctified by anyone other than the two making the commitment, unless you seek legally-based benefits (all of which are control points granted to us by years of structure designed to
help protect and serve/control us)

 

Second - Orientation does not matter but if the L&G portions of the world can break the barrier of control that states only straight (may I dare say normal) people can marry or have joint health benefits,
then the barrier shall cease to exist as a point of control for trans and
non-trans people alike.

Comment by Linda Lee on January 3, 2011 at 2:01am

I want to second all the thoughts about the need for better laws. Even if we had laws that treated us equally, that is a far cry from real equal treatment. Ask any minority who has fought for decades to get equal treatment. Laws slowly change people's behavior. People may still be bigots, but eventually stronger laws force them to treat others respectfully. And this has nothing to do with you living in stealth!

Comment by Vicki L. Hafer on January 3, 2011 at 5:17pm

To Julia and others, when I said it is looked upon by men that women continue in their domestic role, I do not specifically mean every man and every woman. After reading your posts I did ask most of the gg that I know that are involved in either marriage or living together and where both of them work, and they ALL said that they do take care of the housework and children where children were involved. They also stated that does not mean that the men won't occasionally "help out". Ok, moving on, again I will not speak for individual states laws, but have a basic knowledge of a few of the federal laws that always supercede the local level. Once you have petitioned the court for a legal gender change, whether it be just your basic identification or your birth certificate, you are then protected under the law for that specific gender. To ask for even more confusing laws that say people must now accept you as being not only male or female, or straight or gay, but as something in between is just one law too many. For petes sake people make a choice so we can all have a fairly simple life. Life is bad enough trying to stay out of poverty, raise our children properly and keeping our day to day lives afloat without troubling your neighbor because you can't pick a gender. We have anti-discrimination laws and people are still discriminated upon. We have safety laws and people still get hurt, watch your evening news. And you can not convince me that laws change a persons attitude or actions. As far as I can tell murder has been illegal since before man first put pen to paper and it still happens. Education changes peoples way of thinking and behaving. Don't pass another law to single me out, teach your neighbor to be accepting and loving as I hope you are. Somewhere along the line someone took the time to explain (teach) to you how and why the differences in us also make us the same.

Comment by Tammyrae Barr on January 3, 2011 at 6:04pm

@ Vicki - I concur - no more laws - make it simple - respect everyone as they are and leave it alone. Abolish the use of gender and sex on all documents and in all roles. Either a person can do the task or not - that is all that matters. no ore men's room and women's room - they are all toilet rooms or restrooms and no more the man's role or the woman's role - just allow people to be as they were born to be. The binary concept is not required not desired yet most everything we do perpetuates it.

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