Transgendereds Follow in Homosexuals' Footsteps
by Ed Vitagliano
January 5, 2004
(AgapePress) - In the wake of the increasingly successful homosexual movement, transgendereds are beginning to win victories of their own, as they use similar arguments in their campaign for civil rights and societal approval.
Transgendered individuals are men and women who believe that their biological sex does not accurately reflect what they perceive their gender to be. Some -- called transsexuals -- have sex-change operations, while others maintain their biological sex and merely "cross-dress."
In the past, such folk were regarded by homosexual activists as the proverbial oddball uncle, but the clout of transgendereds is growing. According to The New York Times, for example, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced in November that it would allow athletes who have undergone a sex change to compete in events as their new "gender." Thus a man who has become a "woman" through surgery and hormone treatments could compete in women's Olympic events.
"We will have no discrimination," explained one IOC official. "The IOC will respect human rights."
Discrimination is the rallying point for transsexual activists, just as it has been for homosexual activists. An article at www.forbes.com said cases of discrimination claims revolving around such gender-bender cases are "proliferating furiously" across the U.S.
To protect themselves from lawsuits and charges of discrimination, a growing number of U.S. companies are adding protections for their transgendered employees. According to a Reuters article, in the last two years 19 companies in the Fortune 500 have added "gender identity and expression" to their policies banning discrimination.
Four states and 65 cities and counties have similar policies in place -- either through legislative actions, executive decrees, or judicial rulings. (Legal scholars are still sorting out the full implications of some of these judicial rulings, according to Reuters.)
These gender-bending legal changes have sometimes created mind-bending controversies, such as in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where a school staff member who had undergone a male-to-female sex change wanted to use the women's restroom.
Ed Vitagliano, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is news editor for AFA Journal, a monthly publication of the American Family Association. This article appeared in the January 2004 issue.
