Visible Man: By the book

Jamison Green offers a man's POV on life in the trans lane. Opinion, advice and information from an internationally respected leader of the FTM community.

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We live in a society of law and policy. Books are our source of collective wisdom. Rules and principles of law validate or condemn, and yet the beauty of wisdom is that it evolves just as we do. June 2003 brought considerable evolution of historic import.

The Supreme Court decision in the Texas case -- which affirmed the right to privacy and struck down laws against specific sexual behavior in private between consenting adults -- was probably the most significant event for gay people in the U.S since homosexuality was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM).

The DSM defines mental disorders for American psychiatrists and psychologists. When, in 1973, the American Psychiatric Association determined to remove homosexuality from its disorder category, it took away one of Western culture's canonical justifications for denying civil rights to people who are viewed as "different."

Also in June 2003, the highest court in Ontario, Canada, redefined marriage as the committed union for life of two people, removing the requirement of one man and one woman. It took a while for vocal reaction to come from official channels in the United States -- either from the Human Rights Campaign, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force or our elected government officials. It seemed as if everyone was trying to figure out what it meant before reacting. Turned out it was very good for LGBT people who are in committed relationships and want to be married, and very bad for people who want to reserve the privileges of marriage to heterosexuals. (Incidentally, the latter camp is often primarily concerned with Christian marriage rites. Its members tend to adhere to other exclusionary beliefs and practices that their prophet, Jesus, might never have encouraged.) If events proceed favorably for LGBT people, next June may be an even bigger wedding month than usual.

I am not a Biblical scholar or theologian, nor am I so intimately familiar with any religious text that I feel qualified to debate fine points of meaning, but it seems to me that -- at least insofar as homosexuality is concerned -- we are entering a climactic period when we can expect a cultural shift with regard to "sexual minority" status.

What does this have to do with trans people? First of all, any principle of law, morality or justice that is inclusive -- that truly treats all people equally -- benefits trans people as well. With respect to legal and public marriage, removal of the requirement for the parties to have physical difference (or at least difference in the form of sex designation on their birth certificates) means that trans people can also marry without being "forced" to have genital reconstruction or having to represent themselves as the abandoned sex of birth. The U.S. Supreme Court decision preserves our right to sexual privacy, too.

Trans people still have a way to go with respect to the Gender Identity Disorder (GID) designation in the DSM. What constitutes GID is still too broad, in my opinion -- it can be used to justify coercive and harmful treatment of LGB and T people. Children and youths who express gender variance are still highly vulnerable to abuse under current potential interpretations of the DSM GID text.

The Christian Bible proscribes wearing the clothing of the opposite sex, but it does not otherwise impinge upon the existence of trans people. Nowhere does it say people cannot change their sex. Recently developed Vatican policies, however (transsexual treatments, they say, are superficial and do not change the sex of origin), specify that transsexual people may not be married nor serve as clergy in the Catholic Church. I believe this policy shows a profound lack of understanding and compassion, and an equally profound ignorance in the presumption of the veracity of historical sex classification. This policy is another one Roman Catholic trans people must work to have revoked.

We live in a society of law and policy, a society founded on words. We have not yet discovered the whole truth about ourselves as humans. As we wrestle with discrepancies between what we experience versus what we've been taught, we revise the words we live by. But it is difficult to change, or even challenge, the beliefs of others. As decisions such as those from the United States and Ontario high courts are taken in by those who disagree, we may experience some backlash. Change will not come easy for those who have long felt validated by either the book of law or religious scripture. The extension of civil rights to LGBT people under the principles upon which the United States was founded may force some of those who oppose LGBT equality to expose their hypocrisy. It may not be pretty. LGBT civil rights may well be ratified by a reaffirmation of the separation of church and state -- a battle the Bush administration seems all too willing to engage.