Lawmakers Seek to Understand Gender Identity and Expression, Some Struggle
by Hugh McQuaid | Mar 21, 2011 4:37pm
(8) Comments | Commenting has expired
So a guy with a handlebar mustache walks in to a bridal store and wants to try on a dress. That was just one of the awkward scenarios discussed at length during a Judiciary Committee public hearing on a measure concerning gender discrimination Monday.
The bill, backed by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, would amend state statutes regarding discrimination to include transgender individuals. The language of the bill attempts to do this by protecting someone’s “gender identity or expression.” But the deceptively simple idea had some lawmakers struggling to understand just what the ramifications of such an amendment would be.
The added section defines gender identity or expression as “a person’s gender-related identity, appearance or behavior, whether or not that gender-related identity, appearance or behavior is different from that traditionally associated with the person’s physiology or assigned sex at birth.”
That led to a lot of theoretical questions, most revolving around hypothetical scenarios playing out in bathrooms and changing rooms. That’s where the mustached bride trying on wedding gowns came in. Just what are his or her rights? What are the rights of the shop owner who may wish to kick him or her out?
These are some the questions the committee pondered but Rep. Gary Holder-Winfield, the bill’s author, said the measure comes down to a far simpler question: do you or do you not want to discriminate against these people?
Holder-Winfield found himself at odds with Family Institute of Connecticut President Peter Wolfgang, who opposed the measure on the grounds that, among other things, the measure would force public schools to accept transgender teachers.
“This would mean that a person’s son or daughter could be exposed to teachers in their schools who one day will be a man and the next day could decide to be a woman and that would be protected,” he said in written testimony. “Under this bill your child could be forced to learn that their teacher, say Mr. Jones, has now become Mrs. Jones—and that this is perfectly normal.”
But according to Gay and Lesbian Alliance Transgender Rights Director Jennifer L. Levi, who’s also a lawyer, protecting the jobs of transgender people is one of the reasons the bill is needed. She cited the story of Dana Rivers, an award-winning teacher in California whose job was terminated for being transgender.
Failing to protect transgender people from discrimination could also lead to some severe consequences, she said. As an example she referenced a case in Washington D.C. where EMS personnel stopped treating a transgender person when they found she had male genitalia.
She also cited the case of Brandon Teena, who was the subject of the 1999 movie “Boys Don’t Cry.” Teena was assaulted and raped when a group of men learned he was biologically female. Police in the Nebraska town where he lived delayed prosecuting the attackers, who later murdered Teena, Levi said.
But Levi was also asked to weigh in on the touchy bathroom scenario and she said that as a transgender person it’s something she deals with on a daily basis.
“My presence in a women’s bathroom has been questioned,” she said. “It already happens all the time.”
So while she could be ejected from using a men’s bathroom if someone raised an objection, she also faces questions walking into a women’s restroom.
As lawmakers finished questioning Levi, many took the opportunity to make statements rather than ask anything. Sen. Edwin Gomes, D-Bridgeport, likened the bill to an extension of the same civil rights battle blacks have been fighting for decades. He noted that discrimination is a matter of preference, which is allowed, until it impedes the rights of someone else.
“All these people want to do is have other people recognize them as they see themselves,” he said. “If other people don’t see it that way then I don’t know when the hell we’re going to cure discrimination as a whole.”
However, during his testimony, Wolfgang also expressed concerns that the law would make stalking victims easier for sexual offenders.
“Nothing would prevent a male sexual predator from pretending he is confused about his sex to gain access to a women’s bathroom or join a female-only fitness club,” he said.
But when asked about the scenario, Stamford attorney Rachel Goldberg said lawmakers seem to be looking for situations that don’t happen.
“What you’re doing is trying to find a rule for something that doesn’t happen,” Goldberg said.
-Click here to read written testimony from the hearing
Tags: transgender, Discrimination, Judiciary
(8) Comments
posted by: ... | March 22, 2011 3:29am
Sometimes I think the FIC watches Comedy Central too much (South Parks ‘Mr/Ms’ Garrison). That is a huge if, and there are millions of huge ifs in the world. And the ifs have evolved over time. No-one would dare say today, “What if a black boy or girl is allowed to sit right next to my daughter, or play on the same football team as my son” or, “You can’t allow women in the same school as men”.
It is a tough social issue, as trans-gender (those born that way, or otherwise) issues have taken a back seat to Gay/Lesbian rights.
posted by: Dimitar Naydenov | March 22, 2011 10:49am
I am pro-same-sex marriage but I sometimes have a hard time treating a transgender as a male or a female. Transgender actually doesn’t mean either male or female. It means… transgender. Then there comes the question of what sports team - male or female - a transgender would fit in, what locker room a transgender is supposed to use, what restroom a transgender is supposed to use, do we call them Ms., Mrs., Mr., Sir, Madam. This is a really controversial issue from this respect. Other than that, I understand not discriminating against them when they are looking for a job other than physical sports (chess, for example, is not a physical sport), and I absolutely support it.
posted by: enness | March 22, 2011 11:04am
I cannot understand why all the issues they brought up have to be viewed through such a fractionated prism. The EMS example seems a bit of a non-sequitur. When the EMS are called in, it is usually quite literally a matter of life and death, is it not? Without knowing all the details, I would say that the one who behaved so unprofessionally should have at a minimum been fired on the spot. It doesn’t follow that there is going to be some kind of epidemic of transgenders abandoned for dead by trained medical personnel if this bill doesn’t pass. With Teena’s case, if the laws already on the books (rape is a crime, is a crime, is a crime no matter who it happens to) were so easily ignored, what makes them think there is a legislative solution that won’t also be ignored? Don’t construe this to mean I do not want to see all people treated according to their human dignity—this line of reasoning simply doesn’t make sense.
The other thing is that if transgenderedness is separated from physiology, as the proposed bill’s language does, it is fantasy. Physiology includes the brain. There are valid explanations for the phenomenon (caused by the flux of hormones in the womb, NOT genetics as jonessAC12 thinks—misinformation does not help anybody). However, I think every person suspecting this of himself should be evaluated by neurologists and psychologists as appropriate, given a concrete diagnosis, and have other mental illness ruled out before they take on “corrective” treatment like surgery or hormone therapy, and indeed before it becomes the basis for certain rights and privileges. In other words, claims should be verified, not just given blanket credibility because doing so is more politically correct. There are conditions in which a person believes they would be happier as an amputee, too, and has a desire to amputate healthy limbs for no apparent good reason. While it may be impossible to legally prevent everyone from mutilating themselves, for society as a whole to shrug and say “Who cares what they do to themselves? Not my problem” shows an appalling callousness.
posted by: Susan Jane Bigelow | March 22, 2011 1:48pm
@Dimitar - Transgender can, in fact, mean male or female, depending on how the person in question identifies. I personally am female, and you can call me ma’am. 
Basically the term means that a person does not identify with his/her birth gender in some way. There are many, many ways to be trans.
@enness - The EMS issue frankly terrifies me, but it’s more a matter of training and understanding on the part of EMS programs that’s needed.
We don’t actually know what causes people to be trans. There are lots of theories, but none of them have a universal explanation.
As for evaluation, most people wanting to begin hormone replacement therapy or get surgeries need at least one letter from a therapist. There is a certain amount of gatekeeping that happens, though it’s a controversial thing among trans people. I think in part that this is a difficult concept for non-transgender people to grasp because they can’t imagine changing their bodies in such fundamental ways. But for people like me, it’s vital.
As for the law’s worth, there are many instances where trans people aren’t protected by other laws. Employment is one of those areas.
posted by: ... | March 22, 2011 7:52pm
ennes, my apologies for my poor use of genetics. I was certainly not trying to misinform anyone with that post (just ignorance on my part). I could have gotten away with just born that way, but for some reason placed ‘genetically’ there improperly.
I’m not an expert on the issue and I’m very glad you put that post up to refute my slip up. I did mean to say only birth defects.
posted by: enness | March 23, 2011 12:53am
Hi jonessAC12, sorry, I didn’t mean it as a personal jab. The real culprits are certain influential people who ought to know better, but keep breathing life into these rumors so that the general public can’t remember a time when they weren’t treated as established fact, and it’s more that situation that I speak to…
Susan, that is the only explanation I have seen to date that has actually seems to have compelling proof behind it. In one study it was true of every single one of the transgender subjects. Granted, they do have to deal with the small sample size, but when the demographic is a small part of the population that’s going to happen. It’s also something that can been seen on brain scans with the naked eye (are the therapists doing those?)
You’re right, I cannot really understand how it is vital; it seems draconian to me and I hope we will someday find a better way. Surgery is always a risky proposition. I have been remembering a story about a Brazilian woman who died having plastic surgery, to make her rear end shapelier, and it seemed to me that there was a time when a good mainstream plastic surgeon would have told her there was nothing wrong with it and sent her home (maybe the glasses are rosy). I’m not implying that it’s a vanity thing, but it makes one wonder if the gatekeepers don’t get lax over time.
