Jul 18, 2003  |  By: Gwen Smith  | COMMENTS     

EARLY LAST MONTH, President Bush hosted his Yale class reunion at the White House. According to media reports, a woman approached Bush and said, “You might remember me as Peter when we left Yale.” Bush did not pause, but took her hand, reportedly saying, “Now you’ve come back as yourself.”

In the same week, it was announced that yet again, “gender identity” would not be included in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which bans anti-gay discrimination in the workplace.

The supposed reason was due to worries about losing sponsorships. Seems as if some are still not comfortable affording rights to transgendered people because they are seen as simply too “out there.”

To me, this is a fine example of what it is to be a transgendered person in America. Let me explain.

Over the last several decades, the issue of transgenderism — or, more specifically, transsexuality — has been reduced to a handful of names.
In the 1940s it was Barbara Richards, followed by Christine Jorgensen in the 1960s, Jan Morris and Reneé Richards in the 1970s, and Carolyn “Tula” Cossey in the 1980s. Each pushed our issues into the mainstream, by simply being something more than just a word in a scientific journal.

THIS HAS CHANGED in the last decade. With the transgender movement gaining visibility — and the religious right clamoring to protect the country from a perceived threat — it has become impossible for “transgender” to be seen through only one or two people.

In particular, religious conservatives would prefer you did not see too much of the individuals involved. A recent debate on MSNBC’s “Hardball” used a canned loop of old Pride parade footage while discussing a proposed bill to provide employment and housing rights to transgendered people in California. Of course, the same tactics were used for decades in gay rights battles.

You see, the religious right and other such opponents know that when the public sees a transgendered person as an individual, they tend to treat said person a lot better than when they see him or her as a faceless “thing.”

There is no issue where this is more noticeable than in anti-transgender violence. In many cases where a transgendered person has been murdered, their killers — or those who have shown casual disregard for said victim — have routinely reduced the deceased to an “it.”

Gwen Araujo, the 17-year-old transgender girl killed in Newark, Calif., last October, was killed shortly after a third party called out “It’s a fucking man.”

In Falls City, Neb., after Brandon Teena, a 21-year-old transgendered man, was brutally murdered, the local sheriff, who could have prevented this death, said, “You can call it ‘it’ as far as I’m concerned.” There are plenty more where those came from.

It is that dehumanization that allows for callous behavior, even murder.

WE ALL KNOW, deep down, what discrimination feels like. You are reading this column in a publication that is not strictly transgendered, but you are likely no stranger to some of the same struggles I may have as a transgendered person.

I can tell plenty of stories of going to job interviews and facing rejection that has little or nothing to do with my skills. I can also tell you what it means to be verbally — even physically — assaulted for nothing more than what I happen to look like, or even just the way I happen to walk or talk.

Further still, I can tell you how I’ve dealt with those issues, and what I’ve done to overcome much of the prejudice I’ve faced.

Chances are good that you’ve faced troubles in a job interview, or have been assaulted over similar dumb reasons. You can relate to my experience, and see how the way I was treated was probably just as unjust as anything you’ve faced.

When Dubya took the hand of his old Yale alumnus, he was not taking the hand of some unseen menace called “transgender.” He was seeing an old classmate, and reacted as such. Like many other Americans, he reacted with sympathy to this individual, and shared compassion with their experience.

At the same time, his compatriots in Congress were still seeing transgendered people as a whole as too odd to deserve equal rights, while his supporters amongst the Traditional Values Coalition were ranting about the “transgendered agenda.”

It’s the two faces of the struggle for rights in America. It’s perfectly fine to treat a transgendered person you know with respect, but strip the identity away from same person, and all bets are off.

It’s time to get personal!

Gwen Smith is a San Francisco-based transgender activist and can be reached at gwen@gwensmith.com.