People who hold the view that LGBT identity is nothing more than "behavior" want to make sure we all understand that it is bad behavior. This is called loving the sinner but hating the sin. "Gender confusion" is how they are framing transgender and transsexual "behavior," and they want us all to know that this, too, is bad behavior. Civil rights should not be based on behavior, they say -- especially not on behavior that is offensive to them.When the Illinois state legislature recently passed a bill banning adverse discrimination based on sexual orientation (which is defined to include gender identity and expression), Peter LaBarbera, Executive Director of the Illinois Family Institute, blared his frustration in an astoundingly vicious statement, saying "Under the guise of 'equality,' legislators have passed a bill that undermines the rights of anyone opposed to homosexual behavior to live out their beliefs." (Source: Christian Communication Network Media Relations Service, http://www.earnedmedia.org/ifi0112.htm)
To live out what beliefs? The belief that it is acceptable, if not "righteous," to prevent LGBT people from having jobs, from forming families, from offending others by exhibiting their "behavior"? Well, sir, you can believe anything you want, but what the Illinois legislature said is that no one can cause harm to another person because of her or his sexual orientation or gender identity or expression.
Contrary to LaBarbera's opinion, this legislation places a limit on his constituency's behavior, not on his constituency's beliefs. In fact, LaBarbera's statement makes it plain that his family wants to cause harm to our family.
I won't characterize LaBarbera's reaction as Christian, and I won't characterize it as "right." This kind of viciousness hides behind a mantle of "faith" that is supposed to exonerate believers from the effects of their hatred.
That these people have aligned themselves with the Republican Party and present themselves as the moral conscience of that entity is probably an embarrassment to some of the officeholders who accepted their donations. Through my eternal optimism, I expect that more Republicans eventually will come to shun the connection to this type of faith-based hatemongering.
I'm neither a Christian nor a Republican, but I don't automatically hate people who belong to either of those categories. Both are belief systems, ideologies, that have much to recommend them, and I don't blame people for subscribing to them.
But the democratic republic that is the ideal of the United States of America is about liberty, justice and the pursuit of happiness for all. Happiness does not extend to trampling on the rights of others to exist, to have equal access to and responsibility for the institutions of civil society.
This is yet another instance where the old argument of gay liberation -- "we're just like you, we just do something different in the bedroom" -- fails when confronting fundamentalist resistance. They're right: Civil rights should not be based on behavior; in a civil society, civil rights are based on the human condition.
Claiming that the only difference between gay/lesbian and straight existence is a particular behavior confined to a particular room in the house was a false portrayal of gayness and erased expression of gender variance. It failed to recognize the depth and breadth of homophobia, too, and when gay and lesbian activists and organizers realized this, they ultimately redefined their own community to be trans-inclusive.
But that old claim has given fundamentalist oppositional groups one of their strongest hooks for legislating against LGBT people: They've turned our existence into behavior that they find morally wrong. In their scheme of things, we can exist, but if we can't change our behavior, we must be punished by exclusion from the social institutions they value.
Behavior is influenced by laws and regulations that society enacts and enforces. We don't kill other people (unless the government tells us to or we do it in self-defense), we don't lie, cheat or steal (unless we think we won't get caught), et cetera. If we do those things, and get caught, the law provides for punishment, because this behavior is seen to harm society.
When we realize that a law does not serve society, we can take steps to change it. Medical marijuana laws and environmental protection laws are examples of this principle, though these are still philosophically contested areas. The laws and regulations that support civil rights are not the same thing as the civil rights themselves.
The existence of people who are different with respect to race, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, disability, veteran status, et cetera -- even though it may make some people uncomfortable -- does not harm society. Society has come to recognize that diversity is a positive force in social structures, as in nature. Striving to make everyone the same weakens our society. Giving our diverse population room to breathe and thrive equally is the principle that laws like the recent Illinois legislation are intended to protect.
In Alameda County, on the east side of the San Francisco Bay, another related debate is shaping up on the County Board of Supervisors, where local activists are working to pass a resolution that will amend current nondiscrimination policy to include gender identity as a protected class.
Finding that "discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity is invidious and undermines the public welfare, and has no place in a community in which individuals respect the privacy, personal dignity and civil liberties of others," the Board of Supervisors seeks to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, and further resolves "that all individuals shall have full and equal enjoyment of privileges, benefits, goods, services and facilities, including dressing and bathroom facilities, consistent with the person's gender identity."
This last item is the sticking point for some people, who believe that giving trans people the right to go to the bathroom where they feel most safe and comfortable is trampling on the rights of others. Opponents have actually implied that this opens the women's bathroom door to pedophiles and rapists!
I hate to tell you, but that door has always been open, and laws already exist to prevent pedophiles and rapists from engaging in that specific behavior. Equating pedophiles and rapists with trans people is irrational; there is no evidence to show that males who engage in those criminal activities are also transgendered or frequently dress in women's clothing to obtain access to potential victims.
As any trans person can attest, clothing is not necessarily indicative of gender identity. This logic appeals to fear, ignorance and bigotry concerning gender variance and is precisely why civil rights laws are enacted: to protect the rights and freedoms of those who are disadvantaged by false perceptions, fear or irrational bigotry.
In San Francisco, where a similar principle has been in force for 10 years now, no complaints have been filed against transgendered people, nor have any criminals resorted to transgender masquerades in order to perpetrate crimes in public women's bathrooms. On the contrary, complaints have only come from transgendered people whose need and right to relieve themselves has been interfered with by abusive, self-righteous nontrans people who think existence is the same thing as behavior, and that their own uncivil behavior is morally correct.
If crusaders resort to dressing as women and invading public restrooms in a vain attempt to prove their "point," they'll be as wrong -- and as criminal -- as when people assault or murder those who work at family-planning clinics. These are complex issues, to be sure, but, paradoxically, I have faith that reason will prevail.
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