BY NAOMI SCHAEFER RILEY
Deconstructionist professors have been trying for years to convince us
that
gender is a social construct. Now, it seems, politicians and even
employers
are doing their best to put this theory into practice--2007 may go down in
history as the year of the transgendered person.
Take the announcement in October that, under a state law that takes effect
in
January, schools in California not only can't discriminate by *** but also
can't take into account "a person's gender identity and gender related
appearance and behavior whether or not stereotypically associated with the
person's assigned *** at birth." Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm has just
issued a similar order in her state, barring discrimination against state
workers based on their "gender identity or expression." And members of
Congress have been trying for several months to add crimes against the
transgendered to the list of categories punishable under federal
hate-crimes
law.
The idea is that a person, though born with a particular anatomy, may not
feel
that it is the right one. He or she may choose to dress differently, use
hormonal therapy or, at the extreme, adopt a surgical solution. As one
such
individual recently wrote to the San Francisco Bay Times: "My medical
condition was not a matter of nurture and/or a choice but was caused by a
biological error in the womb." It is estimated by the National Center for
Transgendered Equality that between 0.25% and 1% of Americans place
themselves
in this category.
The transgendered are now grouped with gays, lesbians and bi***uals in the
abbreviation GLBT. This makes sense in certain ways, but not in others.
For
one thing, the transgendered part of the acronym makes a claim on public
accommodation that the "GLB" part does not--and thus poses a radically
different challenge to social norms.
John Nemecek, a business professor at Spring Arbor University, an
evangelical
college in Michigan, was demoted earlier this year because he started
wearing
makeup and earrings and calling himself Julie. According to a March story
in
this newspaper, he was diagnosed by a doctor with "gender-identity
disorder"
and started hormone therapy. Prof. Nemecek has filed a complaint against
the
school with the Equal Employment Op****tunity Commission. "Essentially
they're
saying they can define who is a Christian," he has said.
Religious people, it turns out, are among those who do not accept
transgenderism, claiming that it destroys the moral foundations of our
civilization. But they have practical questions that the rest of us may be
wondering about, too. A Christian group called the Advocates for Faith and
Freedom has launched a lawsuit to stop the aforementioned California law
from
going into effect. Robert Tyler, a lawyer for the group, asks: "What will
prevent the 250-pound linebacker from deciding he wants to share the
locker
room with the cheerleaders?"
That sounds like a silly question but isn't really. A couple of years ago,
Pauline Park, a man who feels he is a woman, was stopped by security
officers
coming out of the ladies room of New York City's Manhattan Mall. Mr. Park
filed a complaint with the city. Under the terms of the settlement,
Advantage
Security adopted a policy allowing people to use bathrooms "consistent
with
their gender identity."
So what is the justification for overturning the millennia-old practice of
sorting people into two ***es? Let's start with the science, what little
there
is. One might think that "gender-identity disorder" is a psychological
ailment. But the American Psychiatric Association (APA) notes that "many
transgender people do not experience their transgender feelings and traits
to
be distressing or disabling, which implies that being transgender does not
constitute a mental disorder per se." So transgenderism, it is argued, is
a
physical ailment for which there are medical solutions. In that sense,
too, it
is different from homo***uality, which is no longer considered an ailment
at
all, let alone one that requires a cure.
Not all experts agree with the APA. Paul McHugh, a former director of the
department of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University, notes that the
transgendered patients he has come to know were no happier after
***-change
surgery than before. He writes in "The Mind Has Mountains": "I concluded
that
to provide a surgical alteration to the body of these unfortunate people
was
to collaborate with a mental disorder rather than to treat it."
In certain quarters, the findings of Dr. McHugh and a few like-minded
professionals have been met with outrage. To question the narrative of the
transgendered--all that is wrong, they say, is our society's "social
construct"--is to invite a ferocious response. Michael Bailey, a
psychologist
at Northwestern University, published a book in 2003 suggesting that some
men
who want to change genders are living in a kind of fantasy. They are
motivated
by an *****c idea of themselves as women. He was met with a campaign of
harassment--one critic even posted pictures of Mr. Bailey's children on
the
Internet with ***ually explicit captions under them.
Elites have noticed this ferocity and have begun to accommodate it.
Atlanta
hosted the nation's first transgender career fair in September. According
to a
re****t in the Los Angeles Times, the expo drew representatives from 20
major
cor****ations. But logistical questions came up. Should applicants list
both
their male and female names on résumés? What if a potential employer
called an
old reference who didn't know about an applicant's "change"?
Even elementary schools have had to adjust. An article in the New York
Times
revealed how parents of children with gender confusion are now being
encouraged to dress their children as members of the opposite ***. "At the
Park Day School in Oakland [Calif.], teachers . . . are urged to line up
students by sneaker color rather than by gender."
When officials in ****t Ewen, N.Y., decided to let a school principal stay
on
even after a *** change, most parents didn't protest. But one resident of
a
neighboring town told a re****ter: "God makes things perfect and people
want to
screw it all up." It's a passing remark but it raises an interesting
question.
What does it mean that, once conceived, a person was somehow given the
wrong
body? Should we hold God responsible? And what bathroom does he want us
going
into?
| Ms. Riley is The Wall Street Journal's deputy Taste editor.
--
It is simply breathtaking to watch the glee and abandon with which
the liberal media and the Angry Left have been attempting to turn
our military victory in Iraq into a second Vietnam quagmire. Too bad
for them, it's failing.
|
