Why are some people afraid and repulsed by Transgenders?

 

Why are some people afraid and repulsed by Transgender folk?

 

The above question is something that has been on my mind as of late.  Could it be religion?  Could it be a lack of a strong definition of self identity?  Could it be fear of what others might think of us and do to us?  There are so many reasons, but I think it goes back to the urge to reproduce.

Reproduction is a major effort for most species.  In primate species, the male has it easy - impregnate the female and the absolute need for his existence has ended.  However for the female, her body undergoes changes to accommodate the dependent life within her and eventually expels that life.  But the female's role is not over, as she usually has to take care of her offspring until they are ready to reproduce themselves. In our species, we have evolved to have our males contribute to the effort of raising our offspring, providing an evolutionary protection the premature loss of a parent. (This will vary between cultures.)  I'll admit that this is an oversimplification of something all of us know all too well.  But I think it's the fear of wasting our chances to reproduce that is the root of the fear of transgender people.

The fear of transgenders comes from something people fear: we can break out of virtually all socially assigned roles if we want.  Gender is the first thing people ask about when a baby is born.  A humorous example of this is a joke from the movie Addams Family Values:

Family Members: "What is it?"

Gomez Addams: "It's an Addams!"

The beauty of this line is that the answer is perfectly correct.  But it is not what the questioner wanted to know.  

I believe that sexual preference, sexual identity, and external sexual characteristics are all forms of intersex conditions that are baked into the person while in the womb.  "Normally," the vast majority of people are born as, identify as, and prefer the genders which society would assign at birth.  Statistics show that the lesbian and gay population may be somewhere between 3%-5% of the population. Transgender adults are about 0.5% of the population, and the rest of intersex people are about 0.05% of the population.  Given that most people never have their genes analyzed, they never know whether they are among those who have male external genitalia but have XX chromosomes, or among those who have female genitalia but have XY chromosomes.  Let's not get into all of the potential intersex conditions here.  Simply put, science conflicts with cultural norms, and we're in the middle of a culture war against our will.

The recent edict from the Orange Snowflake looks to deny our existence.  Hopefully, most of my transgender readers have been able to file paperwork for federal government IDs long before the snowflake shut things down for most of us. But this is not just a problem that affects transgender people.  For example, I knew a cisgender female who was mistakenly identified as a male on a Tennessee driver's license.  If she had to fix this problem today, the snowflake's edict would make this impossible.

But what should one do if one is young and pre-op transgender?  My first recommendation would only work if one lived in a state which allows gender markers to be changed AND allows for amended birth certificates.  DO NOT GET FEDERAL ID UNTIL YOU HAVE CHANGED GENDER MARKERS ON ALL STATE IDS ON FILE.  For example, If you live in California, do not travel on aircraft, or travel outside the US until you have your gender marker updated on all documents you may need to file with the Feds.  If this can't be done in your state, get your name changed to one acceptable for males and females, then dress and present androgynously when applying for federal id. This way, you will likely be ignored (as you would want) when going through TSA checkpoints. But most important of all - don't be flashy.  Just blend in as much as possible until this reign of terror is over.

There is too much information on me that is available to the public.  Therefore, I can't go into hiding.  Instead, I can go stealth on my way out of the country.  Others don't have it this lucky, and might as well lead protests as long is prudent.  Remember, our borders will be protected against intrusions, and not against people leaving - for now.   

What happens when you can't leave for whatever reason?  What can you do?  As I see it, one will need to migrate to areas of the country where one can blend in with a crowd.  People in Northeastern and West Coast large cities tend to be more tolerant of people of different styles, as these regions have been hot spots for immigration for generations.  They have attracted the risk takers, people who are willing to live completely different lives than their pasts would ordain for them.  Yet, one will always need to be on the lookout for others who would cause them harm.  

I can't understand the hatred of transgenders anymore, as I have learned to accept people who are very different than I am as long as we both interact with each other respectfully and with compassion.  The other day, I heard Warren Buffett tell a story about people who survived the Holocaust.  He noted that his judgement of people is based on whether they would hide someone from being scooped up in a pogrom and be sent to their deaths.  A truly wealthy person would have many friends who would help him/her hide from danger.  Build up those friendships now, as you may need them in the future.

 

Misconceptions and Anomalies

 

When I first started coming "out", I also started learning about my own misconceptions of what being transgender means.  Now that I've been out for a while, I can say that this ignorance was common to the larger cisgender society we live in.  And I've come to believe that being transgender is being on a spectrum of gender development issues that involve gender identity, gender preference, gender presentation, and gender manifestation.

To start, for most people, gender identity is a simple concept: you are either male or female.  But what happens when the mind develops in a way that this concept doesn't fit?  Like many transgender people, one can reject the genitalia that one is born with and look to have both surgeries and hormone treatments to correct this physical anomaly. However, many transgender people do not suffer severe gender dysphoria and choose paths which may only involve hormone therapy and other, less radical body modifications. To some cisgender people, this is beyond comprehension, and it is an abomination.  But why?  A baby's gender is the first thing people want to know when a child is born, as if defines much of the path that person's life will follow from birth to death. Anyone who challenges that basic path might be a threat to social unity, and that has to be stamped out before the threat becomes a reality.

Next comes gender preference, a concept with which people are only now starting become comfortable. Like gender identity, this is considered a threat to society by many cisgender people. However, many cisgender people have grown to understand this concept and accept that people with non-traditional gender preferences should be treated with respect and accepted by society.

However, gender expression (presentation) is not as understood by the general populace.  Why do some lesbians present with a more "masculine" appearance?  Why do some "straight" (in gender preference only) prefer to present as females? Many in cisgender society have problems processing who and what a person is when a person has an androgynous (or non-conforming) gender image that resists categorization.  This may trigger cisgender society's deepest fears, as people tend to fear most what resists categorization and being understood.  

Lastly, gender manifestation (or, I should say, being intersex) is something that is either hidden or "corrected" at an early age.  For example, many babies born with ambiguous genitalia have been "fixed" to look like "normal" females.  But this potentially creates a problem for these children as they grow up into adults, as their gender identity may be in conflict with their "corrected" gender manifestation. As a result, many intersex people are demanding that no "corrective" surgeries be performed until the child knows enough about its own gender identity and can provide input into the process of gender identification.

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With all of the above being said, I have to focus on the misconceptions people have about transgender people.  For example, not all of us want to have surgeries to convert our genitals to that of the sex of which we identify.  One person I know has had hormone therapy, but chooses to retain her masculine sex organs.  (Who wants to live a life without being able to have an orgasm again?  This person needs to preserve her ability to self-pleasure.)  Others need to have genitalia which resembles that of their gender identities.  And then, there are issues related to how many gender related physical traits that transgender people feel they need to fix before they feel they are of their identified sex.  (Hair transplants, Voice Adjustments, etc.)  As they used to say in old commercials, your mileage may vary.

Another misconception is that many cisgender people have about us transgender people is that we want different genitalia, so that we can have sex with our "former" sex.  (I knew a LCSW who believed this, and I am glad she is not in my life.)  For the most part, one's gender preference does not change after one has gender corrective surgery (GCS).

What I found surprising is how many cisgender people react when they interact with non-op transgender people (like me) who travel with legal IDs which conflict with their gender presentation. Some, like my Texas friends, are amazed that I will often travel in female mode while holding male ID. Others will (in bad taste) wonder aloud whether a transgender person is a male or female.  If I had heard that while boarding a ship on one cruise, I'd have asked the couple: "Why don't we go back to your room, and the three of us find out?  It could be some great fun."  That would have thrown them for a loop.  

Yet, when it comes to sports, more of the general population doesn't want transgender people to compete against people not belonging to their natal sex.  But what happens when a person's natal sex is ambiguous, or when hormone levels are that of the opposite sex?  There is a female runner who has been disqualified from running against other females because her naturally occurring levels of testosterone are that of a male.  How should we accommodate people like her?  There is a transgender female swimmer who is now disqualified from being in competitions against other females - even though many of her peers support her inclusion in these competitions.  I feel that if a transgender person's body has not undergone the puberty of their (at birth) assigned sex, and has only gone through the puberty of their identified sex, they should be allowed to compete against others of their identified sex as they will have no advantage from the wrong puberty. And even this is an issue that perplexes many in society.

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I feel that we have a long way to go before society understands and accepts transgender people.  At best, we are considered anomalies whose identities are not fully accepted because they are ambiguous.  At worse, they trigger irrational fears in others that will trigger them to cause us harm.  Hopefully, things will change for the better for us soon.

We are under attack!

 

Now that the GOP has lost its war against Homosexuals and "Gay Marriage", they have turned their sights directly onto us, the Transgender Community.  If one looks carefully at the bills that have been passed which ban gender related treatment, we see an underlying hatred for things "Conservatives" don't understand, are fearful of, and want to rid the world of because of that fear.

I see homosexuality and being transgender as part of a greater intersex spectrum, something that happens when one part of a fetus's development (brain and body) does not happen according to typical gender lines. This is different from many people see intersex, as I include the wiring of the brain as part of the definition of intersex.

When people are not able to classify something into something they can understand and manage, their fears go out of control.  Rationality is lost, as primeval instincts kick in.  When people live under constant threat due to their inability to escape poverty, they turn to bombastic populist leaders. When people remember "the good old days" without seeing how bad they were for others, they want simple answers to complicated problems.  We now see all of these issues and more in the people who support the radicals in today's GOP.

We are under attack.  There are a large number of places in this country where I am afraid to travel as Marian because of being transgender.  My rights to be treated with dignity and respect are being taken away by the likes of the governors of Florida and Texas, all for political gain.  The people of their states (and other "Red States" as well) need scapegoats to punish for their misfortune.  Even though I blend in well with cisgender women, I would not feel safe in entering a public washroom in these states.  If I were to enter a place of public accommodation, I could be discriminated against without reason.  And, if I were to deal with law enforcement authorities, I could be treated in a way that puts my life at risk.  Is this right?

There is a culture war going on right now, and large swaths of the population who have retreated into political tribalism. There are large areas of this nation which are one party states.  In the past, even the dominant party in these states could reasonably be expected to be voted out if it didn't do a good enough job for their states.  This is not the case anymore.  People such as Florida's governor are trying to ban the opposition political party for actions many of its leaders took over 160 years ago. This is not democracy in action.  This is an authoritarian government in waiting that is trying to do this.

I'm not sure of what we can do next.  Strangely enough, I would take (the lunatic) Marjorie Taylor Greene's suggestion that we have a Red and Blue State divorce, and run with it a little. I'd suggest something a little bit more dangerous to the Red States: a requirement that the US Federal Government spend no more than 5% more or less in every state than it collects in tax revenue.  Since the Blue States contribute more to the government in tax revenues than they receive, this would be a net benefit to these states.  We could also set a federal minimum level for social spending in every state as a requirement for new federal projects to be placed in the Red States.  This would slow down the "Brain Drain" from Blue to Red states, caused by the poor education standards (as a whole) in those states. 

In my opinion, what we're seeing are the things that happen when there is a great difference in living standards between the rich and poor in a society.  Like the people of Brazil, America's people fell out of love with democracy and elected a bombastic and ineffective leader as it moved to the right, and then moved to the left as a backlash against the right.  Until we can force government to do its job, people at the margins of society are at great risk, as we are the pawns in a larger game of power.  

So what can we do to change things?  As a species, we do not like rapid or radical change. Progress can only come slowly.  In the case of politics, our leaders are in a continual battle to be reelected, so that they can gain power.  Not solving  problems is their best way to have things to rally against, and get votes.  As the parties become more extreme, the more likely one will pick a minority group (Jews, Muslims, Homosexuals, Transgenders, Political Opponents, etc.) as demons to obliterate.  But the question remains: How do we enact simple, long term changes to fix this?  To me, the answer is amazingly simple - term limits for all politicians.  Years ago, a friend told me that death gives meaning to life.  Without death, we'd have no reason to finish anything.  The same goes for elected leadership.  If a leader knows that s/he has only a limited amount of time to achieve anything, they will focus on getting important things done.  By that subtle change alone, there will be no need for scapegoats, as politicians would only be judged by what they supported, and not what they opposed.

Yes, I am proposing a subtle change to nudge the system in a way that benefits us.  This prevents the opposition from labeling this in a derogatory fashion.  And, if we were to "grandfather" all currently serving officeholders from these same term limits, we might get the support needed to make an important change in the system whose effect could be seen in a single generation.

What do you think?