THE DANGERS OF TRANSPHOBIA: Lessons from Julie Berman

A NEW EPILOGUE:

Full disclosure, I had originally written this article over three years ago. When I re-launched my website and was considering what articles to re-post, I had, on first pass, decided to leave this article off of my site. In all honesty, it read a little preachy, even for me. Now that I have had some time to reflect upon the reasons why I had originally written this, and in light of recent events, I thought it important to once again share my message.

During the last Canadian election, gay marriage ate up a lot of the news cycle, despite it being a decided issue (and it being the 21st century). In the U.S., the Trump administration has set aside the business of running the government to take up arms against soldiers, sailors, and marines serving the country – and who also happen to be transgender. And then tragically, just a few moments ago, I read of the murder of a transgender activist in my hometown of Toronto.

On the afternoon of December 20th, 2019, the body of Julie Berman, an LGBTQ advocate – was discovered by police. While the details are still largely unknown at the time of this publication, what is known is that she was brutally beaten to death. This both saddens and angers me in equal measure.

Since moving back to Canada just over a year ago, I myself have experienced systemic indifference by employers or potential employers, intolerance, microaggressions, and artless acts of overt bigotry. Residency in Canada by no means assures a trans person safety, security, or prosperity. I want to be clear, there is no equality of opportunity!

Our society, both in Canada and the United States, has engineered it so that transgender men and women are chronically under- or unemployed, are homeless or have precarious housing situations, and have little or no access to mental healthcare and adequate pharmacare necessary to have a safe, successful transition. I myself have faced many of these problems here in Ontario. I have had employers, most notably a public university here in St. Catharines deadname me. I have had clients drop me because of my gender status, and I have had medical professionals fail to maintain minimal standards of care in my treatment here.

This is what Julie spent much of her life trying to tell us. This is what I was trying to communicate in 2016 when I originally wrote what you are about to read. I think I was wrong for initially excluding this article from my website.

This article is dedicated to the vibrant, active life of Julie Berman. She will be missed.

For over a year now, various municipalities and states in the U.S. have been discreetly passing a sundry of bylaws and state-wide ordinances restricting access to public and private spaces by transgendered men and women. These laws either create, or enforce pre-existing laws, that allow private business, and government services, from being selective in whom they serve, or allow use of their facilities. The range of these laws cover the denial of tenancy, refusal of service, among others, but what has been making the headlines recently is the bathroom usage. Those in favour of this neo-segregation have argued that it is a means to prevent men from wandering in to female restrooms and assaulting vulnerable women.

“A child molester doesn’t need to put on a dress to go into a bathroom. You can Google ‘sexually assaulted in a restroom’ and you get thousands of examples of cisgendered straight men.” Dan Savage

With no evidence of such, they have argued that this type of ‘stranger crime’ is plaguing America, and acts like HB2 (of North Carolina, among others) will create a barrier of entry for straight, male-identifying men to walk into bathrooms. Putting aside the fact that the Bureau of Justice Statistics fails to identify a single case of this happening, ever, the arguments presented by the usual band of conservative characters are littered with other obvious logical fallacies.

The Dress-Shield Protection

After carefully reviewing reports and statistics of assaults on strangers (called ‘stranger crimes‘), an obvious pattern emerges. Violent acts against strangers, sexual in nature, are often crimes of opportunity and are rarely premeditated. The idea that a heterosexual male will put on a dress in an effort to exculpate himself from, and to get into a public restroom, besieges anyone of intellect and whom is capable of rational thought.

The idea that a ‘genius-level‘ rapist will premeditate a rape and attempt to safeguard himself from, the already wide scope and breadth of the law simply because he “adorns a dress” is both pathetic and unimaginable. The argument that a crossdressing male will use transgender equality protection as a means of authorization to get through the considerable barrier of entry of a bathroom, otherwise known as ‘a door,’ is at best an anecdotal fallacy.

It’s Those You Know that Should Scare You

A predator determined to commit an assault is more likely to just walk into any room, a home, a park, and engage in that horrific act, if or when the opportunity presents itself. According to a number of studies, the vast majority of attacks on women and children, the rapist was known to the victim and it happened in the home or within a mile of the victim’s home.

“It’s that once you say men can go into women’s bathrooms — men who are out shopping with their little daughters and don’t have mommy to bring her in there. It’s not that the trans are going to molest them, it’s that a child molester now has the right to go into that bathroom.” Ann Coulter

They’re Just Creepy and I Don’t Like Them

To associate those crimes with a marginalized gender minority group is puerile as it is transparent. It’s pseudo-intellectual. It’s factless. Much of this directed hate come from loud, lonely cis-males in a creepy little corner of the web known as  the “Intellectual Dark Web.” They might not be the genesis behind this hatred and fear, but they are the intellectual bagmen for these enraged, panicked constituency of fanatics. And their despicable arguments go a long way to legitimize this new wave of transphobia.

“Beck asked Cruz how he’d argue that his position isn’t aimed at targeting transgender people but rather at “the heterosexual pervert” who would try to flout gender-specific bathroom laws.” article by Jesse Byrnes

Conservatives seem to be talking out of both sides of their mouth, as often they do. Initially, conservatives in favour of this ridiculous HB2 (and other acts in various states) argued this is really just meant to prevent heterosexual males from putting on a dress and walking into a bathroom, when pressed, even gently, their true bigotry shines through and they begin to suggest a link between transgender individuals and sex offenders.

“When you deal with people who are repulsive perverts and criminals — there are some bad people in the world and we shouldn’t be facilitating putting little girls alone in a bathroom with grown, adult men. That is just a bad, bad, bad idea,” Ted Cruz

As many conservatives in favour of this legislation see it, they are really protecting their ‘wives, sisters, and daughters’ from both, straight male rapists and from the lurking transgender individuals who secretly ‘own Hollywood and rule Washington.’ The victimhood of the Christian conservative right is on full display again on this issue. They are the victims. The world is changing, and they are not happy that their right to discriminate is quickly being dismantled.

Victimhood and Their Right to Hate

The hypocrisy of the right abounds when they criticize performers like Bruce Springsteen and Paypal for pulling out of North Carolina after the passage of these offensive laws, saying that boycotting a state is both ineffective and immoral, yet right-wing reactionary groups like The American Family Association call for a ban on companies like Target who have been supportive of the LGBT movement. There’s a certain uneasy irony in the fact that groups like the Family Research Council and AFA employs a number of people that have been accused of, charged with, or convicted of pedophilia, rape, incest and possession of child pornography (Josh Duggar, et al). Statistically speaking, if conservatives want to ‘protect their sisters, wives, and daughters,’ they should do so from their own family, from college fraternity parties, and from those that often seem to protest the loudest.

Originally Published: May 2016

• I DIDN’T PLAN TO BECOME A TEACHER: The Students Who Made Me Stay
• JUSTICE ENDS WHERE POLICING BEGINS: The Shameful History of Policing The Gay and Trans Community in Canada
• RAISED BY PLACES UNSEEN: The Quiet Way Borneo Found Me
• ALONE AGAINST THE SYSTEM: Fighting Police Misconduct in Ontario Means Surviving It
• PART 3 – NO PERMISSION NEEDED: What Was Once Shame Has Become Pride