Are Transgender People Fighting a Good Fight?

By Trevor Durham on February 12, 2016

UPDATE: I have been told Judith Butler is a good place to find answers to some of these questions, but not all. Some of the accusatory language has been edited, this article doesn’t seek to accuse anybody of criminal action, but to raise a discussion about possible conflicts. I’ve been getting some great discussions started, but some people have simply attacked me for asking questions. Feel free to talk with me!

Trans rights are a big issue on people’s minds right now. To be transgender is to be on the front-lines of social war and the demand for equality. Being transgender is something I could never come close to comprehending, I cannot fathom the pain or difficulty, I cannot begin to understand my mind not matching my body. I am not transgender. I do not understand the struggles of being transgender. But I am a human being in a shared society, and I can definitely point out the tragedy of the commons when I see it. And, tragically, small parts of the transgender community may be hurting their community in the quest to help.

First things first: Transgender people are finally in the public eye for the first time in centuries, and it is very evident that the transgender community has been oppressed, attacked, and mutilated. In 2015, over twenty transgender women were killed, a record. In the last decade, almost one hundred trans men and women have been murdered. Let alone the suicide count. Why? The Western World (what some call ‘civilized’, the same people who call Ayn Rand ‘progressive’) is intolerant, it is not understanding, and it is inhumane.

Now, why am I accusing a community struggling for its life of wrong-doing?

I am not arguing against transgender rights. I am not arguing against their right to live or be happy. Au contraire.

This is a personal thing I’ve noticed over the last five years, in my transgender friends and community interactions, on the news, in publications, all over the Internet, almost universally in the first hand experiences. Transgender men and women seek to identify with a gender they have internally, which does not match their biological hardware. I can understand this. It just seems strange that a community so affected by and obsessed with gender would end up supporting and strengthening gender roles.

There, now I’ve gone and pissed off a community who doesn’t need any more on their plate than they already have. I’m sorry. But let’s talk about this.

A transgender male will, nine times out of ten, seek to cut their hair short, abstain from low cut tops, and many seek binding/top surgery. A transgender woman will follow the footsteps of Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner- high fashion, long flowing hair, dresses, elegant frame.

It seems as if the gender identification falls in line with gender role identification. And it’s almost insulting to see, really. Not to me, but to the people who spend every day trying to let others know that being a woman does not mean you dress, look, act, or speak in a certain way.

This article does not seek to discuss the role of pronouns (which is a completely separate issue, one that finds root primarily in English, where only pronouns have gender- in another language, you’d be breaking down so much more for almost no reason), the role that acceptance is needed across the world in regards to people’s rights to choose, or anything that stands to prevent transgender people from achieving equal status in our world.

I am honestly seeking answers to my questions. Why does gender identity have to be followed by an aesthetic change? Why is gender attached to visual qualities? Should we wish to eradicate gender roles, would we eradicate transgender discrimination, or hurt it more? I do not have answers for these questions. And while it may be simple to yell at me, I ask that you consider the problems at hand, and consider how transgender activism could potentially be butting heads with feminist activists, or other fights for the eradication of gender roles.

I mean no offense to anybody, especially my transgender readers who are going through pain that history has not yet written, not yet understood, not yet acknowledged. You have support all around. And you are free to be who you wish to be.

Transgender rights should not come with expectations.

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