TheSpec - Trans people trying to be just ordinary

This is a really good article!

Trans people trying to be just ordinary

When I was in my early teens, I read an article that changed me. It was a Street Beat column by Paul Wilson. Paul was writing an obituary for Christine Mackie, a transsexual woman who ran a used bike shop. The article was about her life and business. The woman was just … normal. That was Paul’s point. Though I am not trans myself, I took the idea to heart.

Trans women, to be clear, are people born biologically male who identify as female. Trans men are born biologically female and identify as male. “Transsexuals” undergo hormone therapy, surgery, and counselling to change their physical sex features and to adjust to life as their real gender, female or male. “Transgender” — a more common word — refers to all people with unconventional gender behaviour, particularly including transsexuals. But the words “trans,” “transgender” and “transsexual” are often used interchangeably — like “black” and “African-American” in the United States.

Interestingly, very few trans people are gay. That is, only a minority are born male, transition, and live as lesbians, or are born female, transition, and live as gay men.

Science has recognized for years that being trans is no way a medical or mental problem. This is why doctors prescribe sex change. Rather, transgenderism is only a problem in that it is hard to be trans in our society, and the process of sex change is literally painful. The “problem” is with people who treat trans men and trans women as freaks.

On Tuesday, June 14, an event will take place at the Downtown YWCA that will attempt to address that injustice: The YWCA will be hosting a transgender-only swim, from 7 to 8 p.m. The swim is put on by The Well, the Hamilton area’s “LGBTQ” Community Wellness Centre. (The Hamilton area’s “unofficial” LGBT Pride Week runs June 9 to 19.) The swim is a good idea because trans people face violence and harassment in public places all the time.

Community pools and change rooms are a troublesome area. Many non-trans people are uncomfortable with the idea of a person of the “wrong” sex changing near them. Violence often ensues. It is a pattern that keeps many trans people from swimming.

In many ways, a segregated swim is not ideal. We can hope for a time when private, individual changing areas are available at pools for anyone who wants them. Certainly, trans women need to keep in mind that most women have a justified fear of being nude with strangers (also nude!) who seem to be men. This is one reason why individual changing spaces are good. At the same time, non-transsexuals have to know that the vast majority of trans people are not threats in any way. Moreover, they have an equal right to swim.

The legal question of transgender rights is a thorny one in Canada right now. It splits the Conservative Party. This year, Parliament voted on whether to add the terms “gender identity” and “gender expression” to the Human Rights Code. Unfortunately, Parliament dissolved before the debate was completed. But the debate that did take place was interesting.

Most Conservative MPs, including Hamilton area MP David Sweet, voted against the addition. Some said it was unnecessary because trans people are already protected in law. But this is only partly true. (And even if it was true, what’s the harm in making a symbolic statement of equality?) Others suggested that the words would lead to a trans invasion of public bathrooms.

Lisa Raitt, Conservative MP for Halton, had a different view. She voted to add the terms. Explaining why, Raitt spoke about how a transsexual cousin who she loves had led her to see trans people as equal. In her thinking, trans people are just more evidence of human diversity. Needless to say, trans people and their supporters hope that Raitt’s argument, and not Sweet’s, wins out.

Meantime, the YWCA will host the swim. Some perfectly ordinary women and men will splash. We will be a very small bit closer to the day when we will judge people by the content of their character, and not by whether they are trans.

The spirit of this was summed up by Dolly Parton. She wrote Travelling Through, a hymn in the voice of a transsexual. The speaker is compared to a journeying pilgrim from the Bible: “Questions I have many, answers but a few/But we’re here to learn, the spirit burns, to know the greater truth …/As I’m stumbling, tumbling, wondering, as I’m travelling through.”

The trans person’s search for “home” is like everyone’s.

Aidan Johnson is a Hamilton community activist working in constitutional law and poverty law.

TheSpec - Trans people trying to be just ordinary