Here’s a really ugly bit of transphobia currently being promoted by a Maryland conservative group:
The lawmakers of Montgomery County, a wealthy and generally liberal enclave outside Washington, D.C., responded to such stories by enacting a measure earlier this year that forbids discrimination based on gender identity. Thirteen states and about 90 municipalities have similar protections, including Illinois, which passed its law in 2005. Chicago has had a similar policy in place since 2002.
What was different in Montgomery County was what happened next. A group called Maryland Citizens for Responsible Government launched a campaign called “Not in My Shower” to repeal the measure through a voter referendum. Last month, a judge ruled that the county must put the question on the ballot in November.
Proponents of the bill have promised to appeal. If they fail, this will be the first time voters decide the fate of gender-identity legislation.
This potential precedent has groups on both sides of the issue watching closely. Transgender rights advocates say it is dangerous to allow the majority to decide which minorities deserve rights. Conservative activists view the Maryland fight as a test case for overturning transgender protection laws nationwide.
Clearly, this is dangerous on multiple levels. I’m happy that the argument from trans rights activists made it into the article, because it’s one that you rarely hear in the mainstream media over yells of “let the people decide!” Letting the majority decide which minorities deserve rights is dangerous, and is hardly democratic in spirit, even if it is technically democratic in process.
But the “Not in my Shower” campaign? They’re seriously calling it that? The argument they’re using, though you may have heard it before, is still quite repulsive:
The Not in My Shower campaign is not focusing on whether gender change is immoral but asserts that cross-dressing men could use women’s restrooms and locker rooms, and possibly assault the women. “Our concern is this would leave the door wide open for an individual to dress as a woman, giving him access to private areas,” said Michelle Turner, a spokeswoman for Not in My Shower.
The ordinance’s supporters say transgender individuals have never been accused of harassing anyone this way. But that has not dissuaded opponents from making their case, sometimes vividly.
One of the group’s fliers shows a gaggle of happy kids and a mom in a pool. “It’s pool time!” the flier says. “But who will you and your children see in the showers? … Your fines could actually be as high as $5,000 for failing to accept a man in a dress as a female or for complaining about indecent exposure when the male undresses right next to a young girl in the female locker room.”
The law allows people to use the bathroom that matches the gender they identify with.
So what is happening here? Well, a number of things. Firstly, they’re using false but established stereotypes that transgender people are sexual predators. It’s the same argument often used against gay men, even though the vast majority of men who sexually assault men or male children identify as straight. And it’s a lie. Though I’m sure that some transgender people have indeed turned out to be sexual predators, that would simply be because anyone can be a sexual predator. Teenagers, elderly people, gay men, straight women, lesbians, disabled people, rich people, poor people, people of all races, religions, genders and so on have been and will be sexual predators. But no one is trying to stop straight cis women from entering female bathrooms because at some point in history, a straight cis woman has undoubtedly sexually assaulted another woman.
The fact is that in the end, most sexual predators are straight men. And I note this not because it’s being ignored, but because I actually think it’s being used. To many people who think that gender is all a construction and therefore a transgender identity is somehow less legitimate than a cisgender identity, or who think that your gender it determined by your genitals, or who thinks that surgically changing one’s genitals is somehow morally wrong, or that being transgender is just plain icky, transgender women are not women — they’re “really men.” Because so many people still view women who are women as “really men” due to the gender identification they were given at birth, this perception is undoubtedly being used. You see, while we can’t blame men for rape, the reason that we can’t blame them is because they can’t be trusted! Penises, testosterone . . . they just make men unable to help themselves. So if we can’t trust men to not rape a woman just because she’s naked or wearing that or existing at all, we can’t trust these women either because they’re really men. It’s ugly, but it’s the logic.
They might also try to use the “no, I’m not bigoted against trans people, I’m just really worried about actual men using the law to rape women!” defense. Lisa Harney takes that one down beautifully.
And lastly, they’re piggybacking off of the stereotype that transgender women (I’ve rarely heard this stereotype used against transgender men, though correct me if I’m wrong) are actually sexual fetishists who “dress like women” even though they’re “really men” in order to get off (notice the constant focus, even in the linked article, on how transgender people dress). This is of course false, and using prejudice against people who have sexual proclivities deemed to be out of the norm, in addition to using prejudice against transgender identity. The theory is that if this lie were true, of course a “man” who “dresses like a woman” for sexual pleasure is going to be a pervert in other ways, exposing themselves to strangers, jerking off in public, sexually assaulting little girls, and so on. Indeed, because transgender identity is falsely believed to be a sexual fetish (and because of mistaken views about people with fetishes), transgender women especially are often perceived to be sexually insatiable — hence all of the excuses about how they just can’t be raped, and they’re all prostitutes (because no prostitute ever did her job because of financial necessity, they’re all in it for the hot sex), and of course they’d try to “trick” men into having sex with them. So hey, why not add “they rape little girls” to the package of stereotypical lies about the sexuality of transgender women?
Ugly, ugly, ugly.
I also want to address the argument that a person could be fined up to $5,000 for making a complaint about “the man in the dress.” Though without name or number of the law I was unable to find a copy of the text, I’ve never seen anti-discrimination legislation that punishes individual, non-violent prejudice. I’d be outrageously surprised if this legislation actually did that — no, what it most likely says is that an establishment can’t act on your prejudiced complaint without being fined, not that you can’t make it. Further, if someone was actually behaving suspiciously in the bathroom or locker room, there are already laws to protect you against that. If someone is truly leering, or masturbating, etc. and there is therefore a valid complain, rather than just a person saying “I think transgender women are actually men,” action can be taken, and that applies to a person of either trans or cis gender identity.
The good news is that these tactics have been tried elsewhere and have failed, and polling shows that people generally support legislation to protect against discrimination based on gender identity. Hopefully, the trend will continue. After all, these particular activists haven’t been so successful in the past — interestingly enough, they’re the same asshats who tried to change Montgomery County sex education curriculum to remove material about how homosexuality is natural just like heterosexuality. Clearly, these folks have got nothing better to do than protect the children by sniffing around in other people’s underwear drawers.
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Any other Montgomery County residents can volunteer with or donate to:
http://basicrightsmontgomery.org/
To fight this bullshit.
This beautifully written. Thank you!
polling shows that people generally support legislation to protect against discrimination based on gender identity
I don’t really trust polls. There’s too much evidence that people often give the answers that they think are “politically correct” to poll takers, rather than saying what they actually believe. Also, no one asks how *important* these issues are to people who are privileged enough to not have to think about it — how many cis people, upon hearing of Angie Zapata’s murder, have an attitude of “Yeah, ain’t that horrible? Now, let’s put more burgers on the barbie!!”
Agreed, GallingGalla, and there’s no doubt in the world that this is a problem. But history also tells us that people are a lot more reluctant to take away rights once they’ve been granted than they are to vote against rights before they’re instated. My guess is that it’s a psychological thing — voting against rights that a person doesn’t already have can just seem like maintaining the status quo and privilege makes them feel like there won’t really be an impact. But it seems a lot harder for them to take rights back, because it’s easier for them to see that there will be an impact, and I think it’s probably because it’s more difficult to not see yourself as an oppressor in those circumstances.
Excellent post. I don’t have anything more cogent to say other than props though.
I agree with GallingGalla re: people hiding their true bigoted feelings
in the Islamophobic incident in Camden NSW most people basically said that they agreed with the main anti-Islam campaigner but were too scared of racial vilification laws to say it explicitly
I don’t understand why it’s so hard to see “person who is different from me” as “person, period.”
I suspect I never will.
Great post, Cara.
Firstly, they’re using false but established stereotypes that transgender people are sexual predators.
I think the primary fear is of sexual predators pretending to be transgendered and exploiting the law. I agree that true transgendered wouldn’t be a threat, and sexual assaults by them aren’t an issue, but unless carefully written and enforced this could open the door for truly ruthless predators pretending to be transgendered, putting innocents at risk and reinforcing negative stereotypes, however undeserved.
B Moe, you do realize that many transgender women “pass” as cisgender, don’t you? And that there are plenty of more feminine men who actually could put on a dress and probably pass for a cisgender woman if they really wanted to be a ruthless predator and come rape me in a public bathroom? How about the fact that transgender women both who do and don’t “pass” particularly well still use women’s bathrooms, and therefore a sexual predator could currently be exploiting that already? Or that, as Lisa said, a man doesn’t have to put on a dress to go rape a woman in a public bathroom, because it has happened already, and there’s no evidence that unisex bathrooms — of which there are many in the world — are more likely to be the site of violence.
I said in the post that Lisa Harney addressed your argument. Please read that and actually address what she had to say before commenting again.
I used to work at a bar and would often close.
The rules for closing the bar were that one of the regular male customers had to basically be second to last to leave, and he’d check the restrooms (plural – men and women) to make sure that a predator wasn’t hiding in either one before I could actually lock the doors.
The law shouldn’t put the burden of protecting women’s restrooms from rapists and other predators on trans women – we have enough shit to deal with without also being held responsible for acts by people who aren’t us. In fact, I’m pretty sure that the law doesn’t actually allow would-be rapists to enter the women’s restroom in the first place, that there is no community that has instituted laws protecting trans rights (including the right to use the proper restroom) where there’s been a plague of men in dresses committing rape in the restrooms, and some cities and states have had these laws on the books for years.
No law will stop a man who wants to rape a woman from raping a woman. It just won’t happen. The laws against rape now don’t stop men, and why is a rapist who is prepared to violently violate a woman’s body somehow going to respect a law that explicitly forbids him from entering a restroom in the first place? It’s not like the iconic figure-in-a-dress symbol on the women’s restroom is now or has ever been a magical talisman that stops men from entering.
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