Quote from: kyril on June 06, 2011, 05:31:56 AM
But it's not fair to say "this class of employees must follow one set of standards, and that class of employees must follow another set of standards." The courts have held that it's acceptable as long as gendered dress codes don't impose an "unequal burden" - I find that line of reasoning unacceptable. It's far too reminiscent of the "separate but equal" standard of the past. (Imagine if there were different dress codes for black employees and white employees.) The truth is that separate is never equal.
Exactly. The real issue isn't whether or not TS's should get to wear certain clothes and CD's shouldn't. The actual issue is whether or not gendered dresscodes are justified to begin with. But nobody wants to talk about that issue.
QuoteYou say that gender-neutral dress codes are unrealistic. I say they are the only truly ethical solution. They solve transsexual men's and women's problems, while also providing equality to everybody else. Nobody gets special treatment or special protections - not trans people, not cis people. Everybody is equal. That's what I support.
You are forgetting one thing: nobody wants to talk about this issue. Nobody wants to talk about this issue, because nobody feels special in unisex clothing. They need the special treatments and special protections so they can feel special. As long as people still want to feel special, and as long as they let their gender override their pragmatism, there will never be equality among the genders.
Either everybody gets to wear everything, or everybody has to wear the same thing. Any other scenario is discriminatory, regardless of people's sexual appearance or claimed gender.
QuoteYou think of crossdressing men wanting to wear skirts, and you say that's bad for business. I think of butch lesbians forced to wear skirts, and I say that's bad for business too. Ever seen a butch in a skirt? Scarier than most men. Nobody wants to see that. Which is why, as long as dress codes are gendered and gender expression isn't protected, masculine women will suffer employment discrimination - women are only allowed in the professional workplace as long as they're sexy. But nobody wants to confront that fact. Everyone just wants to bury their heads in the sand and keep thinking gendered dress codes are the natural order of things and not hurting anyone but trans people.
Gendered dresscodes are, and always were, discriminatory. It is impossible to separate the facts from the issues. Gender discrimination cannot be eliminated until there is a reasonable solution for why men and women have to wear different outfits in the workplace.
I think we can all talk plainly, here. There is no reason to have three pages of off-topic debate when the issue is actually quite simple. Why is there a transgender LIE, as the original article called it? George Orwell once wrote, "The great enemy of clear language is insincerity." That is exactly what is happening here. The intentional misuse of terms like transgender is very unclear and insincere language. It is insincere, because lying is the only way to achieve justice in a system which is inherently corrupt.
If gendered dresscodes are unjust (which they are) then it is impossible to achieve equality in a system which supports those dresscodes. Anyone who does not conform to gender stereotypes must lie. If I were a crossdresser or a transvestite, you would bet your bottom that I would be trying to hijack legislation designed to protect transsexuals, because that would be the only way I could do it in a world which is inherently discriminatory.
So what happens if transsexuals get the rights to expression at work but not anyone else? Well, we will get our piece of the pie, for sure. But it's not going to be the pie that we thought we were going to get. Instead of being the underdog, we will become the overlord. We will be enforcing the exact same type of discrimination that we thought we were fighting against. The only difference is that we won't be on the receiving end, it will be those crossdressers and genderqueers down on that end.
Nietzsche once wrote, "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster." As I see more of these transsexual "elitists" enumerating the ways in which they have nothing in common with crossdressers, I have to ask myself this question: is it truly possible to fight against gender discrimination while still promoting the same types of discrimination and stereotypes against others? Maybe we have been fighting against monsters for too long. Maybe we should take a long hard look at ourselves, and what we are becoming.
And for anyone thinking that they aren't throwing the transgender community under the bus: stop deluding yourselves. You know that's exactly what it is. You know there are a lot of people who don't like the idea of guys in dresses, or women who act overly-masculine. You are willing to leave all these transgender people behind just to protect your own interests. Shame on you for pretending like you aren't throwing them under the bus. What we need to do is all stand TOGETHER, instead of individually clawing our way to the top by trying to gain popular opinion and political influence. If you are angry at the transgender community for trying to leech your prosperity, then stop throwing them under the freaking bus. If you are going to sacrifice the many to save the one, then stop complaining when they latch onto you as you ascend to greater heights.
The real transgender LIE is the lie that we tell ourselves, not the lie that we tell others. We tell ourselves that gender discrimination damages transsexuals but not crossdressers. We tell ourselves that some of us are more important than others. We tell ourselves that some of us are worthy to be able to live and do as we please, but others are not. Shame on us for our self-destructive behavior. If we keep acting like this, then we deserve all the shame and guilt that society tries to place on us. There is still much of society that thinks we are pretending to be men and pretending to be women. But we are much worse than that. We are pretending to be human beings, when we are really just animals fighting each other over the scraps of meat called social acceptance.
