Setting the Stage for Transgender Awareness

What's a Cis to do?

In the decade since the Brandon Teena biopic “Boys Don’t Cry” hit the big screen and garnered Hillary Swank an Oscar, matters of gender have become fodder for daily consumption. Four years ago, “Desperate Housewives” darling Felicity Huffman played a man transitioning to a woman in “TransAmerica.” Actress Alexis Arquette completed her male-to-female transition in 2007. Even beauty pageants are taking notice and offering tiaras for Miss Transgender.

It doesn’t end there. Just three months ago, a Hollywood concert spawned the most viral pop culture rumor about status since our cousin’s best friend’s nephew’s neighbor was in the emergency room with Richard Gere and the gerbil by questioning whether Lady Gaga was intersex.

Will the real Lady Gaga sex organs please stand up?

This week marks the 11th Transgender Awareness Week, and as a recent “Seventeen” article shows, the general social awareness towards individuals that defy the conventional understanding of sex and gender still has a long way to go.

The article, entitled “My Boyfriend Turned Out to be a Girl,” chronicles the experience of all-American every teen Sheri, who experiences heartbreak and deceit when, during a police scuffle, it comes out that her boyfriend “Derek” had been born “Dana.”

While props can be given to both the subject and author of the story for using masculine pronouns when referring to Derek, “Seventeen” wasn’t so diplomatic; the page introducing the story proclaims “He was really a SHE!”

In their transphobic portrayal of Derek’s actions and motivations, “Seventeen” promotes the idea that all transgendered individuals are lying. It’s the oldest transphobic assumption: sex, as determined by birth, holds more clout than gender identity.

Yet the “Seventeen” article is only one of the latest events that, despite coinciding with Transgender Awareness Week, typify that we have a long way to go in both our awareness and executed understanding of transgender issues. In other words, while some progress has been made (tiaras, anyone?) there still leaves a lot to be desired.

Language is the most obvious gateway to reform, as well as being the most obvious source of current attitudes. Before change can be accomplished in any real arena such as the legal, political, or social, the discourse of the general populous must be challenged and, if necessary, changed. There are very few cases in the status quo that demand this radical re-thinking of our language than issues pertaining to gender identity.

Much like the execution of the “Seventeen” article, too often stories of transgendered individuals is lost in the infinitely regressive rhetoric of “he-shes,” “boy-girls,” and depicting external expression as teenage rebellion.

Commenting on the New York public school who was sent home for violating the dress code by appearing in drag (anyone else notice that author chose to identify subjects by both their birth sex and gender identity?) Jessica of Feministig reminds readers that trans rights are about more than dress codes permissions. She correctly cites that dress codes have become a tool to use against trans students in the vain hope of continuing to promote traditional gender norms.

And it isn’t strictly limited to the United States, either. In a critical turning point for trans rights, the United Nations released a revamped policy on human rights last month, recognizing that “gender is a non-static, non-biological construct and essential to one’s identity.” The report calls for a rethinking of present understanding of gender norms and measures to counteract the “terrorism” aimed at transgendered people.

Responding to the report, Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the Center for Security Policy, called the report “…a parody of the U.N. Political correctness and sexual universality.” He further dismissed the notion that the recognition and protection of transgendered individuals ought to “trump security concerns…the people who are trying to blow us up have absolutely no use for any of these sexual proclivities.”

Well, there you have it. Addressing and recognizing the rights of millions of individuals across the world simply has no place when we’re engaging in the rhetoric of terror-talk. And, by the way, you don’t deserve protection if your identity can be reduced down to a “sexual proclivity.”

Gaffney’s troubling response highlights the continued, willful ignorance that there is a very real and present danger against the transgendered populous. As recent studies have reported, the violence against them is increasing (an issue that “Seventeen,” despite including Derek’s physical assault again Sheri, didn’t feel the need to include in any of their spot-color boxes) in spite of a more prominent appearance of transgendered individuals The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN’s) report, “Harsh Realities: The Experience of Transgender Youth in Our Nation’s Public Schools,” found that more than a quarter of students identifying as transgendered had suffered physical assault due to their sexual orientation and gender identity.

Advocates for change who had looked to passage of the Matthew Sheppard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act after nearly a decade of languishing in the legislature have been sorely disappointed by the impact so far.

Just days after President Barack Obama signed it into law, three Long Island men were arrested for beating two men in drag and shouting gay slurs. On Nov. 3, Gary Cass of the “Christian Anti-Defamation Commission” called for a stress-test of the new law with wonton acts of violence against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered individuals, planning to weigh the explicit protection for religious freedom against the law’s inherent opposition to felony violence.

Still, some hope looms on the horizon.

Last month, a New York court took the first steps towards dismantling the oppressive hurdles that often block transgendered individuals from securing legal name changes and reissued birth certificates. Like most other states, the Big Apple previously required medical documentation demonstrating a need for a name change and gender reassignment. The ruling set a precedent and yesterday, Illinois decided to follow suit.

The message is a simple, but powerful one for strict gender binary defenders. Transgendered individuals are not simply men in dresses, or women trying to get back at their fathers. With all of the danger presented to individuals that dare to break traditional gender norms, one can only wonder how in the world they can simply be called fads. These are real individuals who deserve equal expression, equal respect, and equal protection under the same law that previously neglected them. As the law now recognizes their right to inhabit their gender, however much it may contradict with their birth sex, so must we. It no longer is a space permitting a discussion of differing ideas of moral parameters, but the parametric of legal recognition.

Today is International Transgender Remembrance Day, and this blog entry is dedicated to Gwen Araujo, Victoria Arellano, Kate Bornstein, Lynda Cash, Stasha Goliaszweski, Alan Hart, Nireah Johnson, Christine Jorgensen, Amanda Lepore, Amanda Milan, Pauline Park, Stu Rasmussen, Sylvia Rivera, Sandy Stone, Brandon Teena, Karen Ulane and Stephen Whittle.