Recently it has been reported that a man was charged with the hate crime of beating and abusing two transgender women. Now I am normally cautious around the word hate crime as it has a very specific meaning and consequence. A black man hitting a white man for being a jerk is different from a black man hitting a white man solely for the fact he is white. However in this case it seems clear that the crime was motivated by the fact these two women weren’t originally born as women. And it raises some uncomfortable but important questions.
It is no secret that LGBT persons are discriminated against . However there is something uniquely distinct about transgender people and the tribulations they endure both internally and externally.
Now I can’t in good conscience say that I know what its like to be treated as a transgender person nor feel like one. But even with my limited imagination I feel that it would be a hard, discomforting life. To wake up everyday feeling different, like God put me in the wrong body, and being forced to become something that I am not is a terrible life to endure. In fact I think it is because it’s such a mental struggle for these people that they are willing to go to such great lengths to change their gender.
Yet even after transitioning transgender people face a severe increase in risk for psychological abuse and suicide. Now there are a variety of reasons for why this risks increase post-surgery relative to the population for these people but the part of the study behind the data that is most troubling to me is a quote by researcher Cecilia Dhejn that says ” the results should not be interpreted such as sex reassignment per se increases morbidity and mortality. Things might have been even worse without sex reassignment.” ( Dhejn online)
part of the problem is that it’s easy to point out someone who looks like a very effeminate man or masculine women. Many times it is obvious to tell when someone has undergone gender reassignment surgery. Yet there are the few exceptions where a transgender person looks like an entirely natural man or woman and is treated as such. Ironically enough this exception occasionally comes back to bite us in the ass.
I do believe that there is cause for concern coming from the extreme insistence from the left that government be brought in to cater to these transgender people’s specific needs. Yet it is unfortunately those mostly on the right, the party supposedly hell bent on keeping government out of our personal lives that is using it to do just that.
We should not let government tell us what bathrooms to use or how to treat people different from us so long as we do so with respect, but if we continue to abuse and mistreat transgender people a democratic government would be more than happy to take away our personal rights.
Regardless of whether or not you believe government should be in such power to do so the fact remains that transgender people should still be allowed to live their lives in peace. They should face all of the same love, abuse, happiness, and sadness any other person of any other race or gender faces.
So if you want to punch a transgender for parking in the handicap spot, stealing your wallet, or being an Ohio State fan go right ahead. The only difference in your anger should be that their character should decide your feelings towards them and not what they look like.
I’ll leave it to Dale Hansen to sum it up clearly.