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Transphobia

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Transphobia refers to various kinds of aversions towards transsexuality and transsexual or transgendered people, often taking the form of refusal to accept a person's expression of their internal gender identity. Whether intentional or not, transphobia can have severe consequences for the targeted person. Many transpeople also experience homophobia from people who incorrectly associate the medically recognised condition of gender identity disorder as a form of homosexuality (see Homosexuality and Transgender).

Like other forms of discrimination such as homophobia, the discriminatory or intolerant behaviour can be direct (such as harassment, assault, or murder) or indirect (such as refusing to take steps to ensure that transgender people are treated in the same way as non-transgendered people.)

However, direct forms of transphobia can manifest themselves in ways that are not related to violence. One example of this is the case of Tyra Hunter. Ms. Hunter was involved in an automobile accident, and when rescue workers discovered she was transgender, they backed away and stopped administering treatment. She later died in hospital. Two other well-noted transsexual victims were Brandon Teena and Gwen Araujo.

Sometimes homeless shelters have been guilty of discriminating against transwomen, refusing, for example, admission to women's areas and forcing them to sleep and bathe in the presence of men. This situation has been improving in some areas, however. For example, on February 8, 2006, New York City's Department of Homeless Services announced an overhaul of its housing policy with the goal of specifically ending discrimination against transgendered people in its shelters.

Transgender people depend largely on the medical profession to receive not only hormone replacement therapy and sex reassignment surgery, but also other vital care. Often it can be difficult for gender patients to receive proper health care and treatment, because medical gatekeepers who are transphobic (or who misunderstand the nature of gender identity disorder) will refuse to administer necessary treatment; in at least one case that included the refusal to treat Robert Eads, a transman, for ovarian cancer, of which he subsequently died.

Transphobia can also manifest itself in the workplace. Sometimes transexuals lose their jobs when they begin the transition. Some say discrimination is so rife it's virtually impossible to find a job at all to begin with.

News stories from the San Francisco Chronicle and Associated Press have cited a 1999 study by the San Francisco Department of Public Health finding a 70 percent unemployment rate amongst the city's transgendered. On February 18, 1999, the San Francisco Department of Public Health issued the results of a 1997 survey of 392 MTF (male-to-female) and 123 FTM (female-to-male) transgendered people, showing amongst other things that only 40 percent of those MTF transgendered people surveyed had earned money from full or part-time employment over the preceding six months' period. For FTMs, the equivalent statistic was 81 percent. The survey also found that 46 percent of MTFs and 57 percent of FTMs reported employment discrimination.

In the hiring process, discrimination may be either open or covert, with employers finding other ostensible reasons not to hire a candidate or just not informing prospective employees at all as to why they are not being hired. Additionally, when an employer fires or otherwise discriminates against a transgendered employee, it may be a "mixed motive" case, with the employer openly citing obvious wrongdoing, job performance issues or the like (such as excessive tardiness, for example) while keeping silent in regards to transphobia (which nevertheless may be all too real).

Employment discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression, or the like, is illegal in a growing number of U.S. cities, towns and states. Such discrimination might be outlawed by specific legislation (as it is in the states of California, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico and Washington state) or city ordinances; additionally, it is covered by case law in some other states. (For example, Massachusetts is covered by cases such as Lie vs. Sky Publishing Co. and Jette vs. Honey Farms.) Several other states and cities prohibit such discrimination in public employment.

Sometimes, however, employers discriminate against the transgendered in spite of such legal protections.

There is at least one high-profile employment-related court case unfavorable to the transgendered. In 2000, the Southern U.S. grocery chain Winn-Dixie fired longtime employee Peter Oiler, despite a history of repeatedly earning raises and promotions, after management learned that the married, heterosexual truck driver occasionally cross-dressed off-the-job. Management argued that this hurt Winn-Dixie's corporate image. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against Winn-Dixie on behalf of Oiler but a judge dismissed it. The case, however, led to a picket of the company's Jacksonville, Fla., headquarters and a boycott against the company. One now-defunct website, www.shameonwinndixie.org, claimed it was "the largest-ever public demonstration against gender-based bigotry."

Sometimes transgendered people facing employment discrimination turn to sex work to survive, arguably placing them at additional risk of such things as contracting sexually-transmitted-diseases such as HIV; enduring workplace violence; and encountering troubles with the law, including arrest and criminal prosecution.

Transphobia in the Gay and Lesbian Community

Some in the gay community are uncomfortable with transgender individuals. For example, transwomen (male-to-female transgender and transsexual people) are sometimes denied entry to women's spaces, and the explanations given for such denials betray a degree of transphobia. (The Michigan Women's Music Festival, for instance, has caused much debate for limiting its attendance to "womyn-born womyn".) Kay Brown of Transhistory.org (“Transsexual, Transgender and Intersex History”) has set forth a long chronology of the ejection of those whom we now know as “transgendered” from gay organizations starting in the 1970s. See "GL vs. BT: The Archaeology of Biphobia and Transphobia in the U.S. Gay and Lesbian Community," listed below.

While many gays and lesbians feel that “transgender” is simply a name for a part of their own community, others actively reject the idea that transgenders are part of their community, seeing them as entirely separate and distinct. Some feel that bisexuality and transgenderism are detrimental to the social and political acceptance of gays and lesbians. This curious phenomenon has been called “internalized homophobia” by some, meaning an irrational fear and dislike of other homosexuals. See Fone, B.R.S. (2000). Homophobia. New York: Metropolital Books; Sears, J.T., and Williams, W.L. (1997). Overcoming Heterosexism and Homophobia. New York: Columbia University Press) This presumes that transgender people are, in fact, “homosexuals,” an equation which is hotly debated.


See also

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