Do we have a responsibility to accept transgendered individuals?

Great Debates
201

I am very sympathetic to mswas’ point of view, because it’s how I used to approach the issue of same-sex marriage. My belief was that “marriage,” the word, referred to the legal union of a man and a woman, and those wishing to appropriate the word to refer to same-sex couples were out of luck. Let them pick some other word, said I; that one’s taken.

I came to see, however, that my insistance on the traditional use of the word was misplaced. The word “marriage” involves a concept of teaming, of merging; it describes a model that is fairly applied to same-sex couples as well as opposite-sex couples. And I reversed my stance on the issue.

Here, the word “woman” is being held to similar immutability. mswas suggests that the burden is on those who wish to advance a change in the word’s meaning, and I agree with that. But I would argue that the burden has been met. “Woman” refers to how you are viewed by the social group. I assume you, mswas, would have no problems in referring to a CAIS person as a woman – after all, she grew up thinking she was a woman, socialized as a woman, and only in her teen years does she discover she has XY chromosones and testes instead of ovaries. But unless you’re somehow peering inside her abdominal cavity, the evidence is overwhelming that she’s a woman.

Right?

If this proposition is agreeable, then let us consider why it is so. The vast majority of women you meet are not going to present their genitals to you for inspection, unless your name is Hugh Hefner. The vast majority of women are acceptable to you as “women” on purely external clues.

Question: is the mere fact that a particular person, now presenting as a woman, used to have male genitals either useful or relevant in your acceptance of her as a woman?

If it is, please distinguish the case between such a person and a CAIS person.

If it is not, then do you not agree that it’s wiser, and more useful, to use the word “woman” to describe the person presenting the outward characteristics we associate with “woman,” and leaving the rest as a private matter for her?

202

[QUOTE=mswas]
To what degree do we as a society owe it to individuals to be tolerant of their aberrations? Should we accept every genetic abnormality and try to stuff it into an established category then pretend like it fits even though it is clearly outside of that norm? Sure the transgender issue doesn’t really affect people, but what if say the person contracted some kind of illness that caused them to stink horribly. Would it be ok to fire them then? Does tolerance have a limit? If so, what is that limit?
[/QUOTE]

In terms of civil rights, no, there is no limit. Society is theoretically blind to anything that one person or most people would call an abnormality. There are physical limitations, of course; Steven Hawking shouldn’t expect to be seriously considered for a job as a UPS driver any more than I should expect to be seriously considered for the job of world’s premier theoretical physicist. But insofar as a person has the talents, skills, education and physical ability to do something, they must be allowed to do it, whether it’s brain surgery or professional tennis. But beyond a person’s capabilities and skills, there is no such thing as a limit. I’m sure there are lawyer types on the Dope who can point to specific case law for this.

I would temper my previous statement about people I spend my private life with; you can pick your friends but you can’t always pick your family. There are members of my family who have abnormalities I find utterly repugnant (they are registered Republicans and NRA members :smiley: ) but I tolerate them for holiday dinners and birthday gift exchanges. It can’t be helped.

203

Actually, we’ve been addressing that question repeatedly since page 1 of the thread. The more-or-less-consensus answer:

We as a society owe it to individuals to tolerate, in public and professional contexts, whatever legally valid choices they make about their personal sexual identities, no matter how “aberrant” we consider them, as long as those choices do not adversely affect their job performance.

In fact, we as a society are obligated not only to tolerate those choices, but as far as possible to ignore them. Because in personal and professional contexts, the choices that individuals make about their personal sexual identities are none of our goddamned business.

204

[QUOTE=mswas]
That people are given their cross to bear so to speak. They are who they are, and we should work on understanding who and what that is, rather than pretending that things can be altered with surgery. Who they were before the surgery is just as much a part of who they are after the surgery, just as any other big life change. Who I was before I had a baby is relevant, it’s part of who I am, part of my identity, that doesn’t change just because I change the paradigm. The way people are identifying it here, we should ignore that.
[/quote]

By your logic, right now, you are not a parent. Sure, you have a kid, but ten years ago, you didn’t have a kid. You were “not a parent” then, and nothing you can do can ever change that. Any attempt to present yourself as a parent now should, of course, be rebuffed, because who you were ten years ago is always more important than who you are right now.

The world you live in is an astonishingly depressing place, mswas. I’m glad I have no part of it.

I cannot perceive anyway to read these two sentences that are not entirely contradictory. You say that identity is more than biology, and then you immediately turn around and say that biology is all that matters in their identity.

Of course gender is relevant to identity. No one in this thread would dispute that with you. The importance of gender in forming ones sense of identity is the foundation of the entire transgender movement. Absent that concept, there is no reason at all to support transgender rights. If gender is irrelevant to identity, there is no reason for anyone to ever attempt to change genders, and no reason to get upset when someone is prevented from (or punished for) crossing the gender line.

The problem people are having with you is your insistence that only those part of gender that you deem personally important (child-bearing) has any bearing on a person’s gender identification.

Generally speaking, when someone asks you to explicate some piece of gibberish that you have posted, responding with further gibberish does not help to illuminate your meaning.

205

[QUOTE=Kalhoun]
And how do you know? There are innumerable things about the people in your life that you know nothing about, including, I’ll bet, whether or not they are transgendered. Why are you so against something that will most likely never make itself apparent to you? (directed at mswas)
[/QUOTE]

I’m not against transgendered people. I am against redefining the meaning of gender nouns.

206

[QUOTE=Sunrazor]
If I discovered that a male colleague had been born female it would not affect acceptance of his work; if, however, I had been playing poker with him for two years and he then told me he had had gender reassignment surgery (I think that’s the politically correct terminology nowadays) we would not play poker again.

The difference? In my public life I care nothing for a person’s politics, religion, beliefs, biases or sexual proclivities. Colleagues and casual acquaintances can be or do anything they want to. But when I begin to develop a friendship with someone, an emotional attachment becomes part of the friendship, and the person’s sense of identity, history and beliefs are important to me. When I am with friends I let my guard down and I have to be comfortable with those friends. Men who were once women and vice versa are simply outside my confort level, just like temperatures that are too low or sofas that are too hard or clothes that are too tight. It’s possible something could happen to change that, but I’m not going to actively pursue it.
[/QUOTE]
So let’s talk about this, because this is actually an interesting question to me. Certainly you can select your friends by any means you choose, no argument there. (And obviously I agree that such criteria have no place in public spaces such as the workplace.)

But where does an “acquaintance” become a “friend”? At what point is this historical information required, before it’s “too late” and “betrayal”?

And if you never found out that someone was transgender, then you’d never quit playing poker with them. If you enjoy their company and enjoy the time spent playing poker, wouldn’t that be a better situation, to just never know?

Do you feel the same way about finding out that someone is gay or bisexual?

I certainly agree that a transgender person has some obligations for “revealment”, depending on the situation. For instance, I’d definitely expect a pre-op transgender to let me know the situation before we reached the point of actually having sex; it would certainly be disconcerting otherwise, to say the least. But is it required on a first “sizing each other up” date? I don’t think so. I’m not sure where that line lies, but it’s not “initial meeting” information. Post-op? I’m not so clear - there are many post-ops that are physically indistinguishable. If I’m not doing anything but having sex (i.e., no deep emotional involvement, no intent of permanent relationship, etc.), then I’m not sure I have any reason to know at all.

(Just to be clear: I’m not trying to set rules for transgendered people - what information any individual gives another about themself is their own business. It’s just something I’ve thought about - at what point would information about gender history cross from “none of my business” to “something I’d feel a need to know”.)

207

Miller The difference is that by the definition of the word Father, I became a Father. I disagree that a prosthetic vagina and hormone pills make a person a woman. If she’s a woman shouldn’t she be producing estrogen the old fashion way? I mean that’s not terribly difficult for most women.

You can’t understand because you want it to be an either/or proposition, both biology and and history matter. It’s not nature OR nurture but nature AND nurture. When referring to the abstract a woman is defined by particular biological attributes. When referring to a real person the identity comes into play.

Explanation: You want me to call her something she is not, just because she wants me to. I would treat her like a woman if I met her, but if pressed about how I felt about the issue, I would tell her that I do not perceive her as a woman. That’s simply being honest.

Bricker I am polite to transgendered people. I would refer to her with the pronouns she prefers.

208

[QUOTE=mswas]
I am against redefining the meaning of gender nouns.
[/QUOTE]

You’ll be happy to know that we have been using the word “woman” to describe some XY-chromosome persons for centuries and it never caused a problem before, because on a superficial level, they acted like women, looked like women, and for all intents and purposes they were women.

But suddenly you want to narrowly proscribe who can and cannot be considered under that definition? Who is changing the definition, here?

209

As an aside Bricker Ironically, I have no problem whatsoever with gay marriage. If I had my way with it, I would just eliminate the government’s involvement with marriage, make it a purely spiritual/personal thing. We use the word marriage in gender neutral contexts all the time. ‘The Chrysler acquisition by Cerberus is a marriage made in Hell.’ It’s just a notion of the joining of two entities. I think it respects the establishment of particular religions by limiting the sort of legel union that people would like to engage in. I also support polygamy.

210

[QUOTE=Fish]
You’ll be happy to know that we have been using the word “woman” to describe some XY-chromosome persons for centuries and it never caused a problem before, because on a superficial level, they acted like women, looked like women, and for all intents and purposes they were women.

But suddenly you want to narrowly proscribe who can and cannot be considered under that definition? Who is changing the definition, here?
[/QUOTE]

:rolleyes:

I am telling you how I am using the word. If you can’t grasp that or accept it, I am sorry for your predicament, you were probably born that way, I’m sure it’s chromosomal.

You are free to use the word any way you like. On this issue we’ll be on different sides of the meme wars, and you can fight to make that particular word more malleable, and I will keep using it the way I’ve always used it, and we’ll see what happens.

Though, I love the attention. It’s nice to know that people think my personal opinion carries so much weight that me stating it is some sort of proscription.

I think I’m a King trapped in a peasant’s body. It’s a genetic fluke, I was born to the wrong bloodline. There’s probably some Merovingian administrative assistant out there. ;p

211

[QUOTE=Kimstu]
Actually, we’ve been addressing that question repeatedly since page 1 of the thread. The more-or-less-consensus answer:

We as a society owe it to individuals to tolerate, in public and professional contexts, whatever legally valid choices they make about their personal sexual identities, no matter how “aberrant” we consider them, as long as those choices do not adversely affect their job performance.

In fact, we as a society are obligated not only to tolerate those choices, but as far as possible to ignore them. Because in personal and professional contexts, the choices that individuals make about their personal sexual identities are none of our goddamned business.
[/QUOTE]
I fully agree with the “owe it to tolerate” paragraph, both with regard to its sentiment, and the fact that it’s been presented repeatedly throughout the thread. Unless I missed something (which is possible) I don’t think there’s a single dissenting perspective, including from mswas.

I’m not as certain about this “ignore” business. Of course a person shouldn’t abuse the transgendered person, but what does does “ignoring” entail? Do I pretend not to notice the new look? Do I pretend not to have noticed the old one? Do I have to pretend that this person now presenting as a woman hadn’t previously been presenting as a man?

Do I have to pretend not to be weirded out by this demonstration that truly, nothing in the universe is a reliable constant, to the degree of still chatting gaily with them as my brain reels? Or can I just avoid them? (Besides the minimum necessary contact for everyone to get the jobs done, of course.)

Yes, it would be hunky-dory if everyone were as acclimatized to the reality of transgendered people as you. Not not everyone is. And if you’re not so acclimatized, does that automatically make you a bigot? How much non-chummy-pally-pal behavior are you allowed before you become one?

212

[QUOTE=mswas]
MillerIf she’s a woman shouldn’t she be producing estrogen the old fashion way? I mean that’s not terribly difficult for most women.
[/quote]

Doesn’t that phrase open itself up for abuse? If he’s a human shouldn’t he be producing insulin the old fashion way? I mean that’s not terribly difficult for most humans.
It’s like when mental illness was realized to be a physical problem and not the work of the Devil.

Just to her or would you continue to refer to her in the third person as a female?

213

Good. And that’s all anybody is entitled to expect from you. Nobody has a right to monitor how we privately think about gender, as long as we are appropriately respectful of other individuals’ gender-identity choices in public and professional contexts.

So why the hell are you trying to defend the behavior of the anti-transgender folks on the Largo City Commission, who stubbornly refused to be appropriately respectful of other individuals’ gender-identity choices in public and professional contexts?

Could you tell us, as Bricker has now twice requested, how you use the word “woman” in the context of a person with CAIS (Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome)?

I.e., a person with XY chromosomes, undescended testes, and no uterus, but otherwise a typically and naturally developed female body including breasts and a vagina, who self-identifies as a woman and presents as a woman.

Is such a person a man, a woman, or something else? I’m not asking about whether you would treat such a person as a woman if you met her personally, because you’ve already explained that you would. I’m asking for your opinion about what that person “REALLY IS”, in terms of gender categories.

And if you aver that that person is neither a man nor a woman, then how should the person’s non-male-non-female gender category be classified in our society? Should people with CAIS use the men’s restroom, the women’s restroom, or a separate restroom of their own? Should they be referred to with masculine pronouns, feminine pronouns, or a different set of pronouns altogether?

Please clarify for us how your use of the word “woman” relates to this context.

214

[QUOTE=mswas]
I am telling you how I am using the word.
[/quote]

Thanks. Next I’ll consult Humpty Dumpty.

215

[QUOTE=mswas]
Miller The difference is that by the definition of the word Father, I became a Father. I disagree that a prosthetic vagina and hormone pills make a person a woman. If she’s a woman shouldn’t she be producing estrogen the old fashion way? I mean that’s not terribly difficult for most women.
[/quote]

But for a lot of women, it is difficult, which is why they have to take estrogen pills. Does their inability to generate their own estrogen make them less of a woman? Then why should it make a transgendered woman less of a woman?

You keep claiming that you’re not a materialist, but your only arguments are materialist arguments. Your defence of the current definition of the word “woman” is base purely on materialist assumptions. A transgendered person can never be a woman, because they do not have the right body parts, and that’s it. The position against which you argue, by contrast, is almost entirely non-materialist: that if a person feels that they are a woman, even in a purely spiritual/emotional/intellectual capacity, than that is sufficient for the label of “woman.” If you are, as you have claimed, only using materialist arguments because you are trying to convince materialists of your views, you can stop now, as no one against whom you are arguing is basing their position on materialist presumptions.

Which goes back to my post several pages ago about objections in the feminist movement to including transexuals: the experiences of any individual woman can be so radically different from the experiences of any other individual woman that worrying over what sort of genitals they were born with is trivial. Certainly, a woman’s past history with transgendered issues is important to their current identity. But then, so is a woman’s past history with sexual assault. But we do not insist on making sexual assault a part of the definition of womanhood.

Yes, you’ve made that much perfectly clear. Now try harder on working up a defence for that attitude that neither excludes a significant portion of bio-women, nor blatantly contradict one of your earlier defences of that attitude.

216

Why would you need to do anything that indicated you “noticed the new look”? If Steve Stanton left your office three weeks ago and Susan Stanton came back today, why would you need to do anything more than smile in a friendly fashion and say “Hi Susan, good to see you back”?

No, you don’t have to go through any elaborate pretense that Steve Stanton never existed. If, say, you’re working with a document from the files with the signature “Steve Stanton” on it, it’s perfectly all right to say “Hey Susan, can you explain to me what this document is about, because you signed it?”

However, if your interactions with colleagues routinely involve your explicitly “noticing” their gender identity in any significant way, I think the problem is not with their transgender status, but with your workplace behavior.

If you are chatting with this person, then you absofuckinglutely DO have to pretend not to be weirded out by their gender identity. Likewise, if you were chatting with a person with an obvious physical birth defect or an amputation or something, you would be obligated to pretend not to be weirded out by the abnormal look of that body part.

It is the absolute nadir of rudeness to act as though the usual physical appearance of somebody you’re conversing with shocks you, disgusts you, or freaks you out in any way.

Yes. As long as you’re doing your job properly and not creating a hostile work environment for others, there’s no rule that you have to continue acting all spontaneously sociable and friendly with a colleague whom you no longer feel personally comfortable with. (See advice to mswas upthread about nobody having the right to monitor how you privately think about gender.) But when you do have to talk to them, you must treat them in a normal and polite way.

217

[QUOTE=Kimstu]
Why would you need to do anything that indicated you “noticed the new look”? If Steve Stanton left your office three weeks ago and Susan Stanton came back today, why would you need to do anything more than smile in a friendly fashion and say “Hi Susan, good to see you back”?

No, you don’t have to go through any elaborate pretense that Steve Stanton never existed. If, say, you’re working with a document from the files with the signature “Steve Stanton” on it, it’s perfectly all right to say “Hey Susan, can you explain to me what this document is about, because you signed it?”

However, if your interactions with colleagues routinely involve your explicitly “noticing” their gender identity in any significant way, I think the problem is not with their transgender status, but with your workplace behavior.
[/QUOTE]
I would think that merely referring to them by their new feminine name would be explicitly noticing their gender change. And I personally (with my current lack of acclimatization) would find it difficult to refer to them by either the new name or either gender-specific pronoun after they made the change. Y’see, I, like mswas don’t classify “was (apparently) a man but has been surgically altered to resemble a woman” as “woman”; unlike him, I have a greater hangup with referring to persons by pronouns not belonging to them.

Barring avoiding them entirely, it’d be dang hard not to "notice"the change, since you can’t even speak about them without bringing it up; either by explicitly accepting and agreeing with the change, or by overtly denying it. (Or by toggling back and forth like a twit.)

Thank god last names are gender inspecific; one can refer to Stanton that way. Of course some people view exclusively referencing someone by their last name as being impolite; one can’t win for losing.

[QUOTE=Kimstu]
If you are chatting with this person, then you absofuckinglutely DO have to pretend not to be weirded out by their gender identity. Likewise, if you were chatting with a person with an obvious physical birth defect or an amputation or something, you would be obligated to pretend not to be weirded out by the abnormal look of that body part.

It is the absolute nadir of rudeness to act as though the usual physical appearance of somebody you’re conversing with shocks you, disgusts you, or freaks you out in any way.
Yes. As long as you’re doing your job properly and not creating a hostile work environment for others, there’s no rule that you have to continue acting all spontaneously sociable and friendly with a colleague whom you no longer feel personally comfortable with. (See advice to mswas upthread about nobody having the right to monitor how you privately think about gender.) But when you do have to talk to them, you must treat them in a normal and polite way.
[/QUOTE]
I’m not sure that being all weirded out isn’t the normal way to react to someone who’s just swapped genders on you. Can I just be all mute, cold, and distant? Impersonal-like? Perpetually treating them like a stranger? Is that acceptable?

And, seriously now, isn’t it just a teeny bit disingenuous of you to compare a sex change to an involuntary condition like a birth defect or an amputation? All talk of suicide rates aside, it’s is still an elective surgery for a non-fatal condition, right? I’d hate to think that you’re shifting the goalposts in the process of waxing hyperbolic.

Personally I see gender reassignment surgery the same way I see tattoos, piercings, and men wearing women’s clothes. They’re elective choices people make because they want to; because they feel comfortable with the identity they see that change as representing. It’s perfectly fine for them to present themselves that way.

However, I don’t have to ignore tattoos, nose rings, or transvestite behavior. I may comment on them at will; I can be disturbed and unimpressed by them; I can even require and enforce dress codes that prohibit these things if I’m in a position of authority. This would be allowable because they’re neither unavoidable nor necessary.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but even if there’s a biological basis to it, I still don’t see why having the mental perception of being the other gender requires one to shunt gender roles in a physical, behavior, or appearance-related way when in a public setting, and I don’t see how doing so is any less a choice than a man choosing to wear a dress to work. I mean, most of our behaviors as, and reactions to the specific gender roles are mere societal constructions. (Excepting of course lust and reproductive urges, in which role you’ve already said I needn’t recognize transgendered persons at all.)

So: if the remaining relevant gender issues are mere social constructions, why is changing your clothes or your body necessary at all? You can have a masculine mind without using the men’s bathroom. If you want to adjust your behavior in a more masculine or feminine way, fine. You don’t want to play sports? Don’t play sports. You don’t want to play with dolls? Then don’t play with dolls. You do want to play with dolls? Then play with dolls. But why should anyone else give your doll-playing, or your desire to surgically modify yourself, any special consideration?

Me, I’m a thirty year old man who collects and plays with children’s toys. That’s one of the things I do. I don’t generally parade that around, because I expect most people to react negatively to that behavior of mine. If I do decide to announce my hobby (like I just did here), then I recognize that people have a right to react to that fact about me however they will, within the limits of legal behavior.

How would the decision to get an extensive and basically cosmetic surgery be any less comment-worthy than if I wore transformers T-shirts in public? How would it be a ‘protected’ subject? If I got my teeth filed into fangs because I was a career goth, is that a protected subject too? What if I have a chemical predisposition to being depressed?

Again, I’m not saying that you magically gain the right to fire* or attack somebody just because they decide to wear a shirt, or a dress, or they get a tattoo or a sex change; however is even reacting to it taboo? Why?

Is there something I’m missing here?

  • (Unless of course a dress code or appearance requirement is pre-specified as a condition of employment, which apparently wasn’t a factor in Stanton’s case. Hell, s/he didn’t even get a change to get the operation before being canned!)
218

Sorry, but I’m afraid you’re kind of stuck with that. You already agreed with me a few posts back that society is obligated to tolerate, in personal and professional contexts, whatever legally valid choices individuals make about their personal sexual identities, as long as those choices do not adversely affect their job performance.

And I’d have to say that even the absolute bare minimum of “tolerance” for other individuals’ choices about sexual identity would have to include being willing to call them by the name they have chosen and refer to them by the gender pronouns that they identify with.

I mean, geezlouise, dude, nobody’s expecting you to form a Transgender Support Group at your workplace and lead discussion groups about phalloplasties or anything like that. But referring to your colleague by his or her chosen name and pronouns is pretty much the least you can do, and you should be prepared to do it.

I don’t think so. But if you consider it an invalid comparison, then by all means change it to involve another type of voluntary modification, such as a nose job or a hair transplant, instead. Thus:

Oh, now I think I understand. You weren’t asking for advice on the polite way to deal with a colleague’s getting a sex change, or how to gracefully avoid the subject (and/or the colleague) so as to minimize the discomfort you inadvertently feel in dealing with the situation.

Rather, you were trying to find out how far you could get away with deliberately expressing negative reactions to your colleague’s sex change, in order to make him/her feel uncomfortable about the situation too.

Sorry to disappoint you, but the answer is still the same. It is rude to express unsolicited negative opinions about any aspect of a colleague’s personal appearance, whether it be a dress, a tattoo, a nose job, filed teeth, or a sex change.

If you feel that your colleague’s individual choices about personal appearance are degrading his/her job performance, then by all means complain to a supervisor about it. Otherwise, you should mind your manners and keep your negative reactions to yourself.

219

Oops, missed the edit window. The second sentence of the above post should read:

You already agreed with me a few posts back that society is obligated to tolerate, in public and professional contexts, whatever legally valid choices individuals make about their personal sexual identities, as long as those choices do not adversely affect their job performance.

220

[QUOTE=redtail23]
Certainly you can select your friends by any means you choose, no argument there. (…) But where does an “acquaintance” become a “friend”? At what point is this historical information required, before it’s “too late” and “betrayal”? (…)
[/QUOTE]

I have no idea how or at what point my emotional (and, I will concede, utterly illogical) reaction would kick in. I’ve never had it happen to me. I honestly don’t know what I would do or say. I can say that I find male-to-female change less tolerable to me personally than female-to-male, but that’s probably to be expected. I think I’d know a guy pretty darn well before I sat down to take his money at the poker table.

I actually do have one dear friend who is gay. He doesn’t play poker, so that’s not an issue. He is a professor emeritus at the local college and he ignited my passion for early American Modernist fiction when I took his lit class almost 40 years ago. We have spent many, many hours sipping wine and bourbon and talking about why Faulkner’s sentences were so damn long and why Michener wasn’t a more literary novelist. We’ve never actually talked about the issue of homosexuality simply because we’ve never talked about the issue of heterosexuality, either. When we talk about sex at all, it’s understod that he’s gay, I’m straight, and we simply share that frame of reference. When I hear a really funny sexual joke that I think he’ll enjoy, I sometimes change the characters’ genders – he laughs a little harder because the joke is funny and so is the idea that I’d deliberately tell a sex joke about two gay guys just for him.

Bottom line: We don’t really know what we’d do when confronted with a situation that is purely hypothetical now.