Interesting bit on the transgendered and their quest for civil rights, from Jonathan Last at the Weekly Standard:
It is impossible not to acknowledge the difficulty of the transgender life. The sheer lengths to which some of them go in order to change their bodies are staggering and — in the truest sense of the word — pitiable. Transsexuals who are born male often go through an agonizing process to reassign their sex. It begins with hormone therapy and then electrolysis. A tracheal shave helps raise the pitch of the voice. Breast implants are common, as are cheek implants and rhinoplasty. Often the transformation process is completed with radical surgeries — vaginoplasty and labiaplasty, where the penis and testicles are removed and a simulacrum of female genitalia is created. Transsexuals who are born women will frequently take high doses of testosterone, which lowers the voice, adds facial and body hair, and muscle bulk, particularly to the shoulders and arms. Some female-to-male transsexuals will undergo double mastectomies. In the end, some opt for the surgical creation of a penis while others spend vast sums of money in the search for a realistic prosthesis.
All of which suggests that at least for some transgenders, the compulsion to be the opposite sex is not merely a cry for attention or a political statement — these people endure too much. Whatever they feel must be real. Not to be sympathetic to their suffering, both internal and physical, would be inhuman.
That said, we shouldn’t allow an evaluation of the transgender-rights argument to be ruled by sympathy. What, politically speaking, do transgenders want? For starters, not to be assaulted by prison guards and barroom toughs, the way Christina Madrazo and Brandon Teena were. Also, they want not to be discriminated against when competing for jobs or housing. All of which are philosophical no-brainers: America would be a poorer place if it didn’t provide these rights for transgenders.
But as you look further down the transgender grievance list, the demands become less and less compelling. Transgender advocacy groups want unfettered license to alter birth certificates, so that, for example, a transgender born male could become legally female. Correspondingly, they want the courts to recognize their marriages, and hence their interests in child custody cases and inheritance. In San Francisco, transgenders have already persuaded the city to provide sex-change benefits for city workers and separate jail space for prison inmates, two perks they would like to see expanded nationwide. And, in a small but telling detail, they want to dictate the way people use pronouns in reference to them. A Transgender Nation primer explains, ‘To refer to transgendered persons using pronouns and possessive adjectives appropriate to their birth sex (i.e., “he” or “his” for male-to-female persons, “she” or “her” for female-to-male persons) is equivalent to calling a gay man “faggot” or a lesbian “dyke.” It is extremely offensive.’
Interesting questions raised here: First, should transgendered persons be allowed, by legal fiat, to change their birth sex, or are whatever alterations they make to themselves (descriptively or physically) merely cosmetic changes (this, regardless of the extent of the surgery, should the transgendered person in question go the surgical route)? Secondly, what rights should transgendered persons obtain / retain in marriage and custody contracts? Should marriages mimicking traditional unions be legally binding, or do they fall under gay marriage prohibitions? Should there be a protocol for deciding child custody in cases involving a transgendered partner? And finally, should transgendered persons be given legal status as a class? If so, intentional pronoun misusage as a way to refer to (and debase) a transgendered person (you’ll recall that the Transgender Nation primer explains that such misusage is equivalent to using “faggot” or “dyke” to refer to a gay or lesbian) may take on the legal consequences of other forms of “hate speech.”
I’ll admit, I’m as skeptical and critical about the use of “gender” as a category as I am about “race” as a social category — particularly as “gender” decisions gain legal footing. If gender is a social construct (and so can be differentiated from “sex”), what, ultimately, prevents gender from becoming a completely fluid category? And what might such fluidity signify? For instance, what would the move away from the essential category “sex” to the fluid category “gender” mean for discrimination cases? For “special dispensation” grants? Etc?
Anyone care to take a shot at any of these? Hello…?
>”Anyone care to take a shot at any of these? Hello…?”
Sure. What the hell. Why not.
I think we should do away with all such questions and the problems they address by dumping all those freaks into the Big Pond as soon as discovered.
Fast, neat, inexpensive, and final.
How’s that?
Well, OK. It was just a thought (or masquerading as one).
ACD
When the doctors can get in and change the Y chromosome to an X, then the transgendered can alter their birth certificates. Until then, it would be a biological/physiological/ legal fiction to say that the man is a woman.
Actually, the X/Y chromosome is a smokescreen – sex differences are more complex than that. But I agree that surgery and even hormone treatments are all superficial. The real question is, “Is gender optional?”
It seems ot me that the transgendered have serious problems, and their perceived sex might just be a manifestation. If crossdressing solves those problems, fine, but one person’s preferred reality doesn’t have to be accepted by everyone else, does it? What appalls me is the self loathing these people must have to be compelled to so drastically recreate themselves. Is it really tied to sex and gender, or is it something else?
Steve–If you woke up tomorrow (literally) in a woman’s body (and not in the normal, fun sense–I mean that when you look in the mirror, a female is staring back at you), would you be OK with that?
Or would you (if you could afford it) undergo medical procedures to restore your manhood?
I think that the notion of gender as a social construct was put to bed by the case of the boy whose penis was cut off as a baby, and raised as a girl. It never took.
Rand, in your example I’d have the memory of a life, up to that point, spent as a man. I would know that I had been male. My personality would have been formed by a lifetime of experiences. Having lived my life as a male, I would definitely be a male personality in a female body. But is that really the case with the transgendered? Does a male personality sometimes end up in a female body? I really have no idea, and rather doubt anyone else does either. To a large degree I think this uncertainty may be because many theorists have maintained that gender was a social construct, and I am not as certain as you that these theories are gone.
A transgendered person’s feelings about his or her sex being wrong may actually be valid, but is it possible that there is another source of the person’s discomfort? Or is it possible that there might be different “reasons” for being transgendered, even perhaps biochemical ones? There are certainly different responses these people have, or at least different degrees of dealing with it, ranging from crossdressing to sex reassignment surgery. That suggests to me that being transgendered is not a one size fits all situation.
Mind you, if surgical measures can allow such a person to live with some peace they’re valid. I am just wondering what the real nature of the problem is. Sometimes the issue of sex and gender strikes me as being akin to that of obesity – no fat person in America is that way because of overeating and underexercising, it’s always genes or glands or some medical condition. We know that very few people are unavoidably obese, yet maintaining otherwise removes any personal responsibility.
This is obviously an imperfect analogy, and risks trivializing the issue of the transgendered. Further, I’m not suggesting that their problems are self inflicted and could be overcome through self discipline. But I do suspect that “a man’s personality in a woman’s body” is a shallow, even wrong description of what is going on.
A transgendered person is obviously extremely unhappy. My question is, is the unhappiness really because of the wrong gender or sex, or is that just the only handle the person can get on it? We know what makes the physical body male or female, have we really determined what makes the personality within that body one or the other, aside from experience?
I didn’t say the theories are gone–just that they should be. I do believe that “gender” (whatever it is) is innate, either genetically or from the womb environment, or both.
Hi folks, just wanted to chime in here with my thoughts. Of course its more than a year since anyone wrote on this so we’ll see whether or not it gets a response, at the very least let this be a good post script.
The one thing your discussion has lacked is the input from an actual Transgendered person. In that capacity, I add my two cents.
As a transgender (male to female) I can definitely attest that the condition is definitely based in biology and in environment. Its both nature and nurture. At least in my case, I know who I am, and I’m female. In thought, and in being, and with the proper surgeries to correct and enhance what I feel to be design flaws, then the outside of the body will reflect what and who I am on the inside.
Who cares if my intestines are “female” … they work and that’s great. Its not like anyone really wants to see em, need em or use em, but me. Conversely, Yeah, I don’t have ovaries, but lest we forget that the difference between ovary and testicle is location.. recall that these are the same units in both sexes, though because of chemistry, they now have diverging functions. Its not my fault that my father’s sperm decided to tell my mother’s egg to make a male. It just happened. And y’know, considering that we’re all female until we’re about halfway constructed in the womb, who’s to say that I’m not female, just underdeveloped?
Point of the matter is, none of us TG’s are trying to make you think what you’re seeing is a real Male or Female. What we’re trying to do is allow us to see ourselves on the outside as who we are on the inside. To correct body discrepancy. You are not looking on a male or female facade, you’re looking into the outer expression of who someone is…
Never forget, that our bodies are tools, carries for our minds… it is they who make the rules, they who determine who we are and knowing that, why would we not try and be all we knew ourselves to be. Would you not try to correct a broken nose, or set a broken leg? Same thing here. We’re correcting. Enhancing our lives by choosing no longer to try and fly with clipped wings.
And that’s pretty much that. Comments?