Page 12 - AVN April 2016

WE’VE GOT ISSUES | | By Mark Kernes
‘So This Trans Woman Walks Into a Bathroom...’
APRIL 2016
America’s latest sex-related hang-ups
should: She was the very first person to come to worldwide attention
Anybody remember Christine Jorgensen? Students of sexual history
after completing a male-to-female (MTF) transition in 1952 in Denmark,
earning herself a front-page story in the (conservative) New York Daily News
under the headline “Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Bombshell.” That article contained
one of the first public recognitions of the term “sex change.”
But was it, actually? That’s a question that philosophers, physicians, sex
researchers and a horde of others have been trying to come to grips with for more
than 60 years now: What defines a person’s gender?
Certainly, before Jorgensen’s operation, almost no one was asking that
question—at least in the U.S. It was assumed that if you had a cock, you were
a male, and if you had a vagina, a female. Call it a triumph of the physical over
the intellectual/emotional: Biology is gender, it’s binary, and that’s that. It’s the
way most modern conservatives—and, sadly, too many folks who are otherwise
progressive—still look at the subject.
For example, take this “Editor’s Note” that accompanied an article reprinted on
the GOPUSA.com website last May: “Please be aware that this is an Associated
Press news story, and it is their policy to refer to a man who pretends to be a
woman as ‘her.’ This MAN may act like a woman and dress like a woman, but he
is still a HE.”
“A man who pretends to be a woman”—that’s the objection to transgender
rights in a nutshell. To such believers, it doesn’t matter how many trans women
have patiently explained that their genitalia have never spoken for (or to) them—
that since childhood, many of them have felt out of place or at odds with their
so-called peers. Many trans men have felt similar emotions.
To see an example of religio-conservative hatred of transgender people, look no
further than “Dr.” Michael Brown’s article, “Breaking News: Woman Comes Out
as Canine.”
But now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions in U.S. v. Windsor,
which forced the federal government to recognize that same-sex unions deserved
the same rights as hetero marriages, and Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-
sex marriage nationwide, it was only natural that discussions of human sexual
rights would turn to the rights of transgender people—and who better to bring the
issue into national prominence than The New York Times?
“A generation ago, transgender Americans were widely regarded as deviants,
unfit for dignified workplaces, a disgrace for families,” The Times stated in an
editorial titled “The Quest for Transgender Equality” that ran on May 4, 2015.
“Those who confided in relatives were, by and large, pitied and shunned. For most,
transitioning on the job was tantamount to career suicide. Medical procedures
to align a person’s body with that person’s gender identity—an internal sense of
being male, female or something else—were a fringe specialty, available only to a
few who paid out of pocket. Coming out meant going through life as a pariah.”
Part of the inspiration for The Times’ editorial was the then-recent suicide of
17-year-old trans woman Leelah Alcorn, whose last words were, “The only way
I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren’t treated the way I was,
they’re treated like humans. Fix society. Please.”
In the following days, The Times wrote several other editorials dealing with
transgender people and the problems they experience, including one lauding a CIA
intelligence analyst who successfully transitioned at the agency, and even started a
blog where people could share their experiences and comment on the subject. All
of those articles supported the idea that trans people deserve as much respect as
anyone else.
And then there was the other big trans news of 2015: The transition of Bruce
Jenner into Caitlyn, which made the news worldwide and inspired even more
invective from conservatives, such as this screed published on crazy conservative
attorney Matt Barber’s blog BarbWire, which castigated various mainstream media
for “promoting perversion” through their articles and TV shows:
“Satan is the prince of the power of the air (see Eph. 2:2),” stated Jennifer
LeClaire in her BarbWire article. “We’ve long seen all manner of perversion
coming out of Hollywood, including the glamorization of adultery, fornication,
idolatry, thievery, greed, drugs and more. Clearly, though, this devilish prince is
strategically pushing perversion to new heights in the name of equality. ... This
agenda is seducing people into a lifestyle of perversion that ultimately separates
them from God. This agenda is working to mainstream a way of life that leaves
people in bondage. And, ultimately, this agenda is demonizing anyone who won’t
embrace this new ‘civil rights’ issue.”
And there’s the sheer ignorance of preacher/former presidential candidate/
former Gov. Mike Huckabee, who last year made light of the emotional and
physical difficulties faced by trans people, telling the National Religious
Broadcasters Convention that, “I wish that someone told me that when I was in
high school that I could have felt like a woman when it came time to take showers
in PE. I’m pretty sure that I would have found my feminine side and said, ‘Coach, I
think I’d rather shower with the girls today.’”
And then there’s good ol’ Robert Knight, a longtime conservative asshole, who
asked his readers to commiserate, “Still, your heart has to go out to poor Mr.
Jenner, a father of six who may one day wake up and deeply regret what he’s done
after all the publicity dies down.”
Well, the publicity has died down over Caitlyn, and she’s even got her own cable
TV show; now the big conservative worry is over bathrooms.
We’re not exactly sure why last May was such a watershed month for trans
issues, but it was on May 4 that the Federal Occupational Safety & Health
Administration announced that it had formed an alliance with the National Center
for Transgender Equality to look into (and crack down on) discrimination against
transgender people in the workplace—most notably, those who’d lost their jobs
because of anti-trans bias ... and the fact that “Twenty-two percent of transgender
people say they have been denied access to a ‘gender-appropriate’ restroom at
work.”
It didn’t take The Holy long to respond. Restrooms (and locker rooms) have
now become the prime focus of the Religious Right’s ire.
Currently, 10 states—Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Indiana, Illinois,
Wisconsin, Washington, Missouri and Oklahoma—are considering enacting bills
which would prohibit trans persons from using the bathroom that corresponds to
their gender identity, while so far, only South Dakota’s Gov. Dennis Daugaard has
had the courage to veto such a bill from the state legislature.
“Instead of encouraging solutions, this bill broadly regulates in a manner that
invites conflict and litigation, diverting energy and resources from the education of
the children of this state,” the fiscally responsible Republican governor wrote.
This being an election year, of course the Republican National Committee had
to weigh in, trumpeting in February that the RNC “calls on the Department of
Education to rescind its interpretation of Title IX that wrongly includes facility use
issues by transgender students” and furthermore “encourages State Legislatures
to recognize that these Obama gender identity policies are a federal governmental
overreach, a misinterpretation of Title IX policies, and an infringement upon the
majority of students’ Constitutional rights.”
While it might be easy to decry such unenlightened attitudes, it’s also important
to note that the adult industry is not insulated from conflict. Even at the AVN
Awards in January, a trans individual reported a problem using the restrooms
at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino—a situation that garnered attention from
mainstream reporters and will be an important issue to address at the 2017 show.
Even more problematic, however, is the phenomenon of adult performers, male
and female, who refuse to work with trans members of our community, albeit
those individuals have a recent HIV/STI test that meets PASS protocols.
Given the reluctance of many to work with trans partners, it’s not enough
to blame just society for its own transgender insanities. Surely the adult
industry—home to sex-positive individuals who’ve suffered their own share of
discrimination—should be leading the way in acceptance of trans performers.
12 | AVN.com | 4.16