Let's Get the 'Trans' and 'Sex' Out of it and Free Us All
Journal of Gender, Race and Justice, Vol. 16, 2013
58 Pages Posted: 23 Jul 2013
Date Written: July 22, 2013
Abstract
This article, published in 16 The Journal of Gender Race & Justice, 101 (2013) and divided into four steps, broadly advocates jettisoning our fixation with defining sex and gender and assigning them to each individual. In Part I, I propose that we promote a new era in which individuals can either decline to name their sex and gender altogether or name them in any way they themselves deem appropriate.
Part II embarks with a fresh look at the celebrated decision, Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228 (1989), in which the Supreme Court concluded that gender stereotyping is sex discrimination under Title VII. Here I suggest that the Price Waterhouse decision, by implicitly recognizing that all individuals have their own personality, mannerisms, preferences, and tastes, which are not yoked to a particular biological container, begins to liberate us.
Part III turns to the plight of transsexuals, who seek to live as themselves. Ironically, the very despots that the Price Waterhouse Court started to topple -- stereotypes and "the intolerable and impermissible catch 22" -- tend to rule their lives. Implicit in the Price Waterhouse decision is the maxim that we, as human beings, flourish when we are neither forced to conform to stereotypes nor commanded to pay homage to contradictory mandates. The transsexual road is typically cobbled with these very things -- stereotypes and double binds. The article explores how they manifest themselves not just in the protocol for sex reassignment surgery, but also in family law cases and those dealing with discrimination in the work place.
Part IV concludes with a disclosure of what can be and often is the ultimate tragedy in the life of a transsexual. Here, in lieu of a traditional conclusion, I write my own original short play. In this play, I give you a glimpse of my imagined future, the Twenty Third Century, in which all beings enjoy a self-identification or non-identification process, one which may or may not have anything to do with chromosomes, body parts, sexual functionality, attire, or modes of deportment.
Keywords: transsexual, sex, gender, family law, sex reassignment surgery, the real life experience, chromosomes, body parts, sexual functionality, Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, transgendered, Title VII, discrimination, stereotypes, double binds, DSM, Therapeutic Jurisprudence
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