By Gwendolyn Ann Smith
Being transgender means having to hurdle over challenges that few others face, all for the sake of being one's true self.
Perhaps the obvious one is having to negotiate and get medical care to transition, including having to have therapists declare you sane enough to be diagnosed with a gender identity disorder to seek surgical intervention. Then again, the fact that your entire identity is reduced to your medical choices by the non-transgendered should be just as obvious.
While all disenfranchised groups face name-calling, harassment and systemic discrimination both overt and otherwise, there are elements unique to being transgender. We face similar forms of misogyny and sexual harassment, with the added assumption that our bodies are somehow questioned and mocked by anyone who views us as less than a perfect example of our assumed genders.
Oh, and yes, all transpersons may face misogyny, whether it is male to females facing "traditional" assaults upon their gender identity, female to males being assaulted for not being "feminine" or any number of other examples of anti-woman sentiment. Ours is a culture that often subjugates women as soon as we take our first breath.
Yet some of our biggest hurdles are those of our own legitimacy. When we come out as transgender, we have to fight to have our very identities accepted as "truth." All around us become judge and jury over the realities of our lives, determining for themselves if the actuality of our existence is one they can choose to bear or not.
As transgender people have gained a voice in public discourse, and as we have seen rights involving gender identity and expression included more and more, another angle on this has emerged. Not only is our existence brought into question, but also the assumption that "allowing" us to be treated fairly could lead to greater risks of harm to non-transgender people. In short, the argument is that "giving into our delusion" would lead to harmless innocents being victimized.
I speak of the mythological sexual predator who will claim to be transgender in order to gain unlawful access to people in restrooms and other public accommodations.
The assumption seems to be that sexual predators will be able to get away with their crimes by simply calling themselves transgender: as if law enforcement would be unable to apprehend a rapist simply because they purchased a dime store frock.
Yet the "bathroom meme" remains a strong hobgoblin in many non-transgender minds. Even though there is no basis to believe that molesters will be flocking to women's restrooms, the notion is put forth again and again as a reason to halt the equal rights of transgender people.
The Kentucky Senate recently approved a bill that will require transgender students to use bathrooms that match their biological sex versus their gender orientation. The bill would also award other students $2,500 every time they discovered a transgender student in a school restroom, a move that would obviously begin a transgender witch hunt.
Republican State Sen. C. B. Embry, Jr., who calls this a "common sense" bill to protect the safety of students, sponsored the bill. Again, the argument is that the rights of transgender people pale in comparison to a threat that simply has not been shown to exist.
Thankfully, the bill has little support in the Kentucky House of Representatives, and will likely die before it has a chance to be taken up.
Florida has opted to take things one step further than Kentucky. House Bill 583, introduced by Republican Rep. Frank Artiles, would criminalize restroom use by transgender people. If a transgender person were caught in a single-sex restroom that did not match their gender assignment at birth, they would be charged with a first-degree misdemeanor and could face a $1,000 fine and up to one year in jail. It would even open the owners of the facility up to civil lawsuits by others who use the same facilities.
Artiles claims that he doesn't mean to punish transgender people, but just wants to protect the safety of the general public. "It's not that the transgender or the gender identity community is dangerous by any means," he told the Miami Herald, "but (the ordinance) creates a giant loophole for criminals, sexual predators to walk into a shower, a woman's locker room under the cover of law."
Texas was not about to be outdone by Florida. House Bill 1748, introduced by Republican Rep. Debbie Riddle, would make restroom use by transgender people a Class-A misdemeanor, subject to up to a $4,000 fine and up to a year in jail. The owner of the restroom could face up to two years in jail and a fine of up to $10,000. Riddle further proposes that DNA tests be used to assure that the "actual" gender of the perpetrator be determined. Because apparently Riddle feels that costly DNA testing is a rational and simple response to the complicated issue of gender. The bill even spells out what gender is based on simple X and Y chromosomes in a way that would further affect intersexed individuals.
Civil rights battles seem to always face issues with bathroom accommodations, and the transgender fight seems to be no different. Yet transgender people face an extra wrinkle on the whole affair: facing the assumption that our very basic biological needs must be criminalized for the "public's safety" in the face of fairy tales.
It is time for this nonsense to end, and for sanity to prevail in the face of fear and panic.
