| | William, I was merely in temporary retreat to construct my moon-laser with which I will force upon the world my diabolical communist ideals and place hairy-legged lesbians in power. The tiniest minority is the individual, yes, but even the most ardent and rugged individualists coalesce into groups of individualists (usually to battle other groups of individualists). Each individualist individual does not lose hir identity, just as a member of a social group retains hir individual identity. So if a group is made up of individuals, why does "group right" not mean "individual right for people in this group"? We do, after all, reserve the right to vote to individuals in the group "18+ years old", but the right to vote isn't considered a group right. Thoughts?
On a completely unrelated matter addressed to everyone, I'm confused about this "victim mentality" thing. When one suffers an injustice (we'll keep it easy and say your neighbor stole your stereo), one is a victim of this injustice. But this is different from the "victim mentality", yes? Am I correct in thinking that a victim of injustice goes about correcting said injustice (by, say, going to the police in the stereo-theft case), but someone suffering from the victim mentality would…
This is where I get confused. If you have suffered an injustice and seek to correct it, are you not acknowledging your victimhood yet fighting against the injustice? Is the implication, then, that one holding a victim mentality does not seek to correct the injustice, but only proclaims their victimhood and does nothing? If I have that much right, why is someone fighting for oppressed people embracing a victim mentality?
So we have some people acknowledging that racism and sexism and homophobia (tools of oppression) exist, but noting that the situation is much better than it was a generation ago – which is true. But those who don't consider the situation good enough are just stuck in a victim mentality?
Let's consider an atheist running for US Presidency. There are no laws forbidding an atheist from holding the office, but a vocal atheist who supported secular government wouldn't make it in the 2008 race. Is the victim mentality in this case to whine until someone grants an atheist the office? But if a candidate fights for the position while pointing out that keeping a person out of office because of religious affiliation (or lack thereof) is mind-bogglingly counter to the spirit and letter of the US Constitution, would you label hir as suffering from the victim mentality or a righteous defender of justice and freedom and such things. If you'll allow me to assume the latter, I take it having Oprah point out that racism exists and is, yes, still a significant problem would not qualify as victim mentality – because she's rich?
If this post sounds confused, it's with good reason. Is anyone willing to explain this or point me to some reference for clarification?
Steve,is being transgender right? Does a transgender person have a right to choose what sex they will be? And finally, what the hell is a transgender person? A transgender person is someone who identifies as a gender differing from hir sex. Asking, "Is being transgender right," is akin to asking, "Is being male or female right?" A is A, as you folks like to say. And of course a transgender person has the right to and should be free to alter hir body in any way that does not encroach upon others' rights.
As for "special rights", I have a little anecdote from my travels among the genderqueer: There once was a woman named A—. She had a temp job that she did marvelously, which she completed in a tenth of the time expected. She was also legally male – which, when you think about it, is a rather pointless distinction to have, legally. To get the job, she pretended to be male, despite living as female everywhere else. After impressing her bosses and being offered jobs in several nontrivial departments like advertising and management, she told her bosses that she was, in fact, female and would start working as her chosen sex, the sex in which she functioned most efficiently – more efficient than before, even. Her boss' reply: no. No? "Your options are to not come out or to quit."
She chose to quit. For others, the choice is to not quit or starve.* For all the talk of "special treatment" from anti-discrimination opponents, the only thing we (AD proponents) are fighting for is equal treatment, to prevent the "special" situation where excellent employees are ousted for their gender nonconformity. There was a recent case in the news of a transsexual city manager who was fired for being transsexual – rather, the city commissioners "lost confidence in Stanton's ability to lead" after sie (that's another gender-neutral pronoun replacing "he" or "she", since I don't know how Stanton wishes to be identified) announced hir plans to undergo sex reassignment surgery. These anecdotes are not so rare, and I'm fighting against this kind of special treatment of these and all oppressed people.
* For the life of me I can't find the statistic, but the USDOL reported that ~46% (I think) of out transgender individuals suffer from chronic unemployment due to explicit discrimination. Since only a handful of states (five or six, about) protect against gender identity discrimination, there aren't always places to go. And if you can't get money to move to one of the states that does protect you, then you have even fewer choices.
Kurt,Well, if you are still here, can I ask you why you cannot get health care as a transgender? Why would I turn down your money? I would not do so if I were selling anything at all, let me tell you that! One of the most prominent reasons a transgender person has difficulty receiving health care is a lack of education in the medical community. The idea of someone changing their sex or not being the gender everyone thought they were is just as foreign to most of them as to you. Having little information, their concern is often being sued. The US medical community has acknowledged and has been treating transsexuality for about half a century now, yet there remains no physician education on the subject. I often hear of transsexuals educating their doctors on what needs to be done.
Another factor is health insurance. With most health insurance companies, transsexuality (which I pick out because it often comes with the highest medical bills) is simultaneously a previous medical condition and not a medical condition at all. By that I mean that if you happen to care about whether your health insurance covers medical procedures related to transsexuality, the condition will likely be deemed preexisting. If you do manage to get coverage for any transsexuality related medical items, the procedures are labeled experimental, despite them having been used for 50+ years.
The answer if you're a health insurance agency is: you aren't turning down their money. You just aren't providing the services for which you were paid. And if you're a physician, you're protecting yourself from an unknown that could result in a lawsuit, a risk not worth a small percentage of clients.
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