That's not funny
The Chicago Tribune's Steve Chapman explains the problem with jokes about being transgender.
When I was a lad, I often heard jokes about blacks, Latinos and gays, who were regarded as amusing because of their supposed inferiority and defectiveness. Today most people would be embarrassed and offended by such humor. But, at least in some places, there is one group that is still a safe source of yuks: transgender people.
--Chapman
It is great to be in the largest Republican convention on the planet, and not one man wants to use the ladies' room." When you go to the restroom, the M does not stand for 'make up your mind,' and the W does not stand for 'whatever.'--Dan Patrick at Republican state convention
But assuredly, Patrick's lawsuit against the Obama administration because of the guidance on transgender students was not filed out of animus.
Even if Donald Trump dresses up as Hillary Clinton, he shouldn't be using the girls' restroom.
--Ted Cruz, in the final days of his candidacy
That brought belly laughs from Cruz supporters.
This jocularity relies on the belief that anyone who is transgender is bizarre, dangerous and mentally ill. The comedy expresses contempt. These conservatives firmly believe that anyone born with male genitalia is a male and anyone born with female genitalia is a female. End of story.
If only humans were so simple. Right-wing culture warriors have long tried to depict gays and lesbians in similar terms. If you have a penis, you should not be attracted to men. If you do, you're a deviate — akin to someone who engages in bestiality.
--Chapman
But heterosexuality is not universal...and neither is being cisgendered.
The Justice Department offered a more rational understanding in the lawsuit it filed against North Carolina for a law requiring people to use public restrooms corresponding to the sex on their birth certificate.
The state's mandate makes sense if you assume that gender is a straightforward matter of plumbing equipment. For most people, it may be. But for a small segment of the population, it isn't.
An individual's 'sex' consists of multiple factors, which may not always be in alignment. Among those factors are hormones, external genitalia, internal reproductive organs, chromosomes, and gender identity, which is an individual's internal sense of being male or female.
--Justice Department's lawsuit against HB2
Suppose a heterosexual male were captured by a James Bond villain and subjected to surgery to replace his penis with a vagina. Would he then be a woman even though his mind tells him he's a man? Would he embrace being female? Wouldn't he want the change reversed to make his body match his gender identity?
That is how transgender [women] feel. When someone who lives, identifies and presents as a woman is required to use the men's restroom, it humiliates her. And it does no good. It's not as though men will be comfortable having someone who appears to be female in the next stall.
--University of Chicago law professor David Weisbach
But to understand what it's like to be transgender, you have to want to understand. People like Patrick and Cruz don't. They would rather depict this group as perverted and predatory — and therefore undeserving of any accommodation from normal folks.
It's an old tactic used against despised minorities. Southern whites once recoiled at the idea of sharing water fountains with African-Americans. Straight men blanched at having to shower alongside gays. Nazis perceived Jews as parasitic vermin.
--Chapman
For a long time, our society, like many others, has confronted same-sex orientations and acts with a politics of disgust, as many people react to the uncomfortable presence of gays and lesbians with a deep aversion akin to that inspired by bodily wastes, slimy insects and spoiled food.
Their habits are said to contaminate and defile society, producing decay and degeneration. And that perception is used to justify their mistreatment. The same language is now aimed at transgender people.
--Martha Nussbaum, University of Chicago law professor
They, like those other minorities, merely want to be treated with ordinary respect rather than baseless hostility. Isn't that hilarious?
--Chapman
Comments
I've always liked Steve Chapman. He always gets it.
He's the best sort of committed libertarian, a guy who truly believes to his core that it's nobody else's bloody business what an adult does to or with their own body; not sex, not drugs, presumably not rock and roll either.
Hillary Clinton 2016: I'm a proud progmoderate!
I was raised to be a racist
and heard a lot of racist jokes. It wasn't until I was about 9 or 10 that I saw a cartoon depicting one of these jokes that I realized the animosity and hate in them. Being a child, it took me a couple of months to figure out that not only were the jokesters factually wrong but also morally wrong.
As I'm not transgender, I feel that the jokes you mention are stupid and boring as they are all pretty much the same. And morally wrong. But if I were the butt of the jokes, I would feel that they were painful and stupid and repetitious.
I cannot actually understand your pain but I can see that it is there and I am truly sorry for the anguish.
[[hug]]
Life is strong. I'm weak, but Life is strong.
There's A Disconnect Here
Homosexuality remained invisible to a larger portion of the populace in the 20th (and to a lesser extent the 21st). The stereo types allowed many to believe that there was no WAY the guy showering after the game or the woman in the dressing room was gay, despite the odds being that, if there were more than 10 people there, one of them was very probably gay... and likely more.
This is why it was referred to as a love that "dare not speak it's name"; When it was, the stereotype was forced onto people as a protection against reality. A cop/fireman/soldier/politician CAN'T be gay, therefore gay people could not BE any of those things. Circular logic designed to protect the prejudice and bigotry of the so-called majority.
I remember the first time I heard that being gay was considered a reason for revoking security clearance, because you could be blackmailed for being gay. I naively asked (this being the early 70's, with Stonewall being a "current event" and I absurdly precocious) that if that was the case, then why wouldn't someone being "out" as gay prevent the blackmail from being an issue in the first place? As was often the case, the answer completely avoided the gist of my questions. But, I digress!
Though maybe not by very much. It was drag queens that rioted that night at Stonewall in 1969... men in dresses, about the "faggiest" thing a man could do at the time (unless it was for a laugh, from what I saw of Monty Python on WNET on Sunday nights). It was the logical conclusion of series of events that, arguably, started in 1966 with the Compton's Cafeteria riot in SF, also directly related to "men in dresses", one of the stupidest reasons to arrest someone that I've ever heard... and this was when I was *8*.
I don't think I ever really internalized how fast things moved in hindsight. Stonewall was 69, the first gay pride parades were 1970, and in 1981 I walked into a cafeteria for orientation for my freshman class to be greeted by a banner for the "Gay and Lesbian Union". My oldest sister (two years younger than I) made a crass comment about going to fetch a shotgun.
A year later I would meet the very first transgendered person I could say I KNEW. A MTF, she was almost grateful when, instead of tap dancing around like many, I just asked. Not a strength on my part per se, but a natural side effect of ADHD and intelligence -- I had questions, this person could answer them, why not ask? I got lucky that the reaction was good, and she told me pretty much everything that people are slowly explaining to the gender dense today, almost 35 years later.
There's where I get a little lost in the sudden vehemence around the issue, as I have to remember what happened in my own life during that period. I knew, without doubt, that the transgendered were everywhere. I have dated pre and post op MTF, and many FTM's (the operation there is STILL horrific... though I have to admit when I first heard about penis transplants recently feeling excitement that so many men who WOULD go for the surgery might one day get that chance!), and several of them would visual inspection minus the genitalia with ease. One post-op FTM the work was so good, that if I hadn't already known, I would have sworn she was born with it.
With the contracting social conservatism in this country, certain demographics are desperate to find SOMETHING to use a line in the sand for their dwindling causes. If you dig through their propaganda, the bathroom issue was always there, lurking. They just didn't go after it very strenuously because they thought gay marriage and adoption would ALWAYS be rallying cry.
And then it wasn't.
Just like all those gay guys they didn't know they served with, played football or wrestled, or all those gay women they didn't realize were serving them coffee or teaching kindergarten, suddenly people realized it COULD happen that they would also need to use the facilities. The "think of the children!" excuse in hand (again), they make it impossible for someone who is transgendered to pee in public in peace... and if that's not abuse, what is?
Just another refugee from the Daily Chaos.