re: Calling Me Out on Anti-Discrimination Laws

This is my response from someone who thinks my previous blog is dead wrong. Here's what they had to say

*sigh*...Jasmine, hon...I applaud your "standing up" for what you see as right. But *I* have to disagree with you on several points.

First off, legal or political grandstanding aside, I would guess that, in fact, Danielle *was* fired for being transgendered. Does this company employ women? (...As the columnist pointed out; yes, they do.) Are any women employed in the position that Danielle held? We don't know that; and it is cogent to the legal ramifications. However, if they have *ever* employed a female (GG, TG, or Martian Amazon) in such a position (or one of a similar pay grade, or level of responsibility), the case falls apart. It's *very* difficult to assess the ramifications of this court decision, without the facts; yet you (*and* Mr. Harsanyi both) make blithe assumptions based simply on the verdict. We don't know what evidence was presented, or the levels of competence of the Counsels for the Defense and/or Prosecution. It is possible that Lead Counsel for the Defense had an emergency appendectomy, and the "second chair" screwed up the case. Or not. Is there going to be an appeal? This is also an indicitve point.

My second point involves Mr. Harsanyi's assertion that anyone who hires a TG person, and then fires them, encounters a very real risk of being sued...a point that you categorically deny. Hon, I work for the Federal Government. I have been directly involved in "prejudice" charges involving hiring; and have had the opportunity to observe several other such charges, for terminations, and disciplinary actions. I also happen to be a member of the TG community, Let me be *very* clear on this; TG's are like *everyone* else. *Some* are decent, honest, honorable, and hard-working. *Others* are deceitful, lazy, and manipulative. Have you ever heard the term "playing the Race card"? ...well, it works the same way for us. The columnist has a valid point; and a potential employer has a valid concern. In my experience (and talking to Federal HR personnel, *and* Union members, as well); the observation is that about 70% of such "prejudice" claims are patently fraudulent. But the plaintiff fires from an open choke, and hopes to hit *something*...an overly sympathetic judge, a supervisor or manager who doesn't want the hassle of the endless mediations; or a mistake in the proceedings, that will give them a foot in the door. Such people often file claims over and over, for every possible slight, until they get what they want. I would also point out that, having been a member of the TG community for several years, and hearing many such discussions; I have observed that a lot of "disadvantaged" people or groups (of which we are only one) appear to *enjoy* being "down-trodden"...it makes them Special. When they are treated like everyone else (as they are constantly demanding), all of a sudden it's "unfair.and illegal."

My third point is the basic concept of Personal Rights...and that is that *your* rights end where *mine* (or anyone else's) begin. Mr. Harsanyi pointed this out obliquely in his column. If I believe that keeping animals penned up is cruelty; do I have the right to run around, releasing all the dogs in town from their yards? If I believed in nudity; don't I have the right to walk down the street naked? *shrug*...some would say that there is a world of difference between dressing in clothing of the "opposite" gender, and walking around with your Tallywhacker (or your Bewbies) hanging out. Others would say that it's exactly the same thing. Who is right? That is a delicate decision, for the courts to decide. And courts are swayed by public opinion.

SO....until-and-unless a majority of the American (or at least the State) population recognise (and *accept*) TGs and their lifestyle as mainstream; it will continue to be a point of contention. I am glad that there is discussion on this subject; it makes the topic more accessible to mainstream America. But it is *not* as plain and obvious as you make it out. Want to change it? Then go downtown to your local Redneck bar, and convince 'em. *Shrug*...Change is a slow process.

We would *all* do better with a bit of tolerance. Would we be better of *without* the Carrie Nation's, the Rosa Parks'es, the Dr King's? ...probably not. But I think that your reaction was way out of proportion to what appeared (to me) to be a fairly well-balanced opinion article. You are entitled to your opinion, but Mr Harsanyi is entitled to his, as well; and I don't think that it was terribly out-of-line.

And that's *my* opnion...worth what you paid for it.

judy

(anyone want this soapbox?...I think I'm done with it...)

Below is my response

I realise there is an element of realism missing from my opinion, but realism won't help advance our cause. Idealistic thinking is what causes political progress. The arguments must be polarized. If we all went around being realistic all the time, there wouldn't be any need for the democratic process... we would all be in agreement already since there is only one reality.

This is a case of someone being treated correctly by the law, and someone else complaining about it due to his irrational fears and ignorance of the situation. That is what really burns me up - that people irrationally fear us because they choose to be ignorant about the situation. I am aware that people file frivoulous lawsuits, but that's not the situation here, and the point is that having the law doesn't cause the cases. The immoral people (including the lawyers) who file the lawsuits are the problem, not the law. The problem of unfounded lawsuits is not specific to the discrimination issue, and it really needs to be considered separately. Every new law could potentially increase the amount of unfounded lawsuits. That factor can not be considered when examining the validity of a new law.

The article implies that Danielle somehow received 'special treatment' because she is transgender, but the ruling makes it perfectly clear that this is not the case. We don't need to be privy to every iota of the evidence to understand that. People need to understand that while there are good reasons for firing employees, there are also ILLEGAL reasons for doing it, and those reasons are illegal no matter who the person is - even if they are not from a marginalized minority group. This case would have been an illegal firing regardless of the transgender issue. That's an important point because it means that this person wasn't given any special treatment.

I don't think anyone should be given special treatment, but people should be restrained, legally, from acting on their hate. That is the purpose of anti-discrimination laws in the first place, not to provide 'special rights' to any group, but to ensure the same rights for groups that are targetted unfairly by the majority. If this person was fired for being a poor employee, then the case would have gone the other way. I'm fairly confident in that, regardless of your observations. As a manager for Domino's Pizza, I have been through the frivoulous lawsuit before. It was a simple matter for us to show documentaion that the employee was fired for being consistently late (time cards), being rude (customer complaints), and breaking the law (theft of company property, with police reports). That stuff didn't keep the person from whining to the court about fired for being Russian, but the company was acting legally and we could prove it. The case was a minor pain in the ass for us, but there was absolutely no chance of it going the wrong way.

In the vast majority of cases employers are not that responsible. At that point, it's one word against another, because we can't read someone's mind and figure out the real reasons for the firing. There were no unbiased observers of the situation, so we are left to look at the evidence. In most legal cases, it is possible to prove that a crime occured and who committed it, but in discrimination cases, it's usually not that explicit. In this case, the court found that Danielle was a good employee, and should not have been fired due to job performance. They also found that the company had no grounds for randomly downsizing its workforce - that the business is healthy and not failing. When the court looked at the possible reasons for firing this person, every reason was eliminated except one. Therefore, we are forced to assume that the remaining reason is the correct one, unless it can also be proven false. This is not the way we normally prove criminal intent in our court system, leaving the whole thing open to interpretation. It's not clear why this person was fired, and it never will be. The legal system is not perfect, but that doesn't mean it's flawed either. In this case, things probably went the way they are supposed to.

I am insulted by the article's suggestion that, regardless of employment-related factors, keeping your job may be as easy as putting on a dress. People who transition at work don't do it to keep their jobs. Many of us delay our transitions because we fear firing, or because we respect our co-workers and don't want to disrupt company operations. We take this decision seriously. Current laws on the books in some counties in Colorado require documentation of transgender status if you wish to 'crossdress' at work. Without that documentation, you are violating the dress code, and should be let go. These laws provide conscientious transgender people who are honest about their transitions with a vehicle for ensuring that their transition doesn't result in unfair treatment. We need laws like that on a national scale. This is the same as anti-discrimination laws regarding races, disabilities and so on.

The vast majority of people think transitioning is a choice that a person doesn't have to make, and therefore, if they make that choice, they deserve whatever smack-down society wants to throw at them. The public needs to realize that transitioning, for many of us, is no more a choice than being African, Mexican, or a paraplegic. It's something we have to do, and we don't deserve to get fired for it, any more than a Mexican person deserves to get fired for being born that way. Editorial articles that ignore this FACT are irresponsible, and serve no other purpose than to hurt our community by reinforcing these false assumptions in the collective public mind.

I could go on forever about this, but the point is, regardless of the specifics of this case, we don't need articles in the newspaper spreading lies and distrust about our community. If the editorial opinion was based on the truth, and the reporter still had the same conclusion, then I wouldn't have a leg to stand on, but this argument has been attempted before. Read that article again and replace every instance of 'transgender' with 'african', and tell me that's not irresponsible journalism. These are the same arguments that people were making years ago about the racial discrimination problem. The argument is as wrong now as it was then.

Jasmine

PS: If the employer had said "we fired her because we are in the construction business and it's bad for our reputation to have transsexual people working here. Customers won't call us for fear that 'the freak' will show up to do the job, and they don't want that in their business," then they would have won the case, but instead they tried to show that they had a business-related reason, and they failed. For more insight into that technicality, contrast "Ulane vs. Eastern Airlines" (court found that transgender people ARE protected from sex discrimination under Title VII) and "Holloway vs. Arthur Andersen" where the court found that:

"Transsexuals claiming discrimination because of their sex, male or female, would clearly state a cause of action under Title VII. Holloway has not claimed to have been treated discriminatorily because she is male or female, but rather because she is a transsexual who chose to change her sex. This type of claim is not actionable under Title VII and is certainly not in violation of the doctrines of Due Process and Equal Protection."