The Forgotten “T”
The following was written by Andie Moore, Regional Vice-Chairperson for Australia & New Zealand.
When we talk “LGBT rights,” we often consider it a synonym for “gay rights.” This discourse on human rights and tolerance starts with talk about being able to love who you love, and ends once marriage equality is achieved, forgetting transgender and intersex people along the way. Only in recent years, with Caitlyn Jenner’s coming out and the rise of Laverne Cox, has the issue of trans rights actually become a mainstream discussion.
We are told that much progress has been made for LGBTIQA people now that (in many countries, at least) people of all sexual orientations are equal under the law. Yet, a plethora of problems still plague the transgender community. In societies which claim to champion liberalism and tolerance, a transgender person is murdered every 29 hours, one in five trans people are homeless, and over 50% of trans people will have attempted suicide by the age of 20. Trans people’s over-representation in all three of these statistics shows that, even in the most tolerant areas, transgender people are still neglected, isolated, and marginalized.
Whilst I am quite privileged to have grown up in a more liberal household in what is a relatively progressive country, my experience as someone who identifies as genderqueer and trans has given me some perspective on this issue.
It all starts with attitudes.
Trans people are constantly dehumanized and misrepresented. Popular culture has tried to sexualize being trans, and in popular media, trans women are usually portrayed as the objects of fetishes, as “chicks with dicks,” and even as scammers and liars, trying to “trick” others into believing they are cisgender for sex. Jokes like this are all over television, and extend beyond shock-value comedy routines, journeying into the bona fide defamation of trans people as a group. This transmisogynistic trope not only strips away and ignores the legitimate gender identities of trans people, but also devalues them as sexual objects. The revolting result of this stereotype is that 50% of trans folk experience some sort of sexual violence during their lifetimes.
The first step that we can take as a society is simply to accept and respect the identities of trans people, rather than treating them as inherently sexual or as a joke. Coming to terms with a new gender identity is a difficult step to make, and society should not further burden people with questions of whether their gender identity is legitimate or not, but instead should be tolerant of individuals’ self-determination and chosen gender expression.
As individuals, this means using people’s preferred pronouns, treating them equally to cisgender people, and understanding that a person is not defined by the sex they are assigned at birth, but by their chosen gender identity.
As a society, it means changing our conceptions of gender and challenging cisnormativity. In order to create an inclusive society, we need to recognize our diversity. Not all women are born with vaginas and breasts, and not all men are born with penises. Not everyone is explicitly one sex or the other, and even those who are may not identify as a “guy” or a “girl.” It means educating people about gender, and about the importance of not making assumptions which exclude people. By doing this, we raise awareness about the diversity of sex and gender and make it easier for people to come out without facing violence and ridicule.
On the governmental side, there is a lot to be done. As many trans people are disowned by family and friends and therefore cut off from the formal economy, they often end up in street markets, such as sex work or drug dealing, in order to make ends meet – furthering the cycle of marginalization. What’s worse is that in many areas of the world, these acts are criminalized – and so trans people are pushed out of their communities onto the street, and then swept off the street into prison. To make matters worse still, almost every justice system places trans people in binarist prisons that do not correspond with their gender identities. They are classified by sex through strip searches (a perverse invasion of individual freedom) and, once behind bars, they are at extremely high risk of rape and violence from both fellow inmates and correctional officers.
Furthermore, there is so much red tape involved in transitioning legally and medically, that it becomes inaccessible to most trans people. In order to get a legal name change, you often have to pay a fee, get a justice of the peace to grant time for a hearing, seek parental permission if you’re underage, and sometimes even go to court over it. Because legally verified names are required so often by state programs, trans people who have not legally transitioned are often forced to come out when they might not be comfortable doing so.
People who wish to transition medically, by undergoing hormone replacement therapy or having top or bottom surgery, have to first surpass masses of medical regulation. In many cases, there are age restrictions, a required number of counseling sessions (without guarantee that the counselor will be understanding), psychological evaluations, and restrictive sets of criteria – if the hormone or surgery is even available in your country, and is accessible and affordable (which it often is not).
These problems facing the transgender community are rarely highlighted in the media, but are integral to the struggle for equal rights for all. As libertarians, we have the ability to change that. By becoming more tolerant of others, and expecting tolerance in our own communities, we can prevent discrimination and isolation. By pushing for smaller government, we can allow trans people to be more autonomous, freer, and less likely to become victims of violence when interacting with agents of the state. As we focus today on fighting the scourge of gender based violence, let’s keep trans and intersex people in mind as well.
This piece solely expresses the opinion of the author and not necessarily the organization as a whole. Students For Liberty is committed to facilitating a broad dialogue for liberty, representing a variety of opinions. If you’re a student interested in presenting your perspective on this blog, visit our guest submissions page.