I agree, generally. The media has, at best, one of the most thankless and impossible jobs imaginable - communicating nuanced ideas to people and explaining complex subjects in 500 words or less. Oh, and make sure to lead with the most important information so that the editor knows where to cut out the minutiae and subtlety. The media has been avoiding dealing with how to talk about trans people for over 50 years because it's been so busy trying to figure out how to talk about a bunch of other topics like sexuality, and race, and green technology, and "what the fuck is a dot com?", and so on. I am a patient person, and a willing educator (or at least I try to be. I am not always my best self). I can see why some trans people are frustrated with the conversation, however. 50 years is a long time to be mostly ignored, and to be shown off as a sideshow freak when acknowledged. I will mention, however, that Dr. McHugh has generally been discredited on trans issues, not to mention the rest of the LGBT spectrum. Indeed, as mentioned in this article (admittedly not a scientific journal), he is at odds with the World Health Organization, and his own employer, Johns Hopkins University. He's also at odds with the APA(pdf warning) and the American Medical Association - who has come out recently to say that trans people shouldn't require surgery to have their documentation changed (including their birth certificate). He's got such a hate-boner for the LGBT community that GLAAD has a page dedicated to him, and how much of a fuckwad he is. ^ that one's some real gold right here. He also believe in reparative therapy (I.e. "Pray the gay away"). read this: and change "gender" into "sexual" and "transgender" into "homosexual" in the last line. Same shit, new brand name. You mentioned that Johns Hopkins stopped performing GRS. He's the reason, and he also commissioned the study which he then used to close down the program. Here is an article breaking down McHugh's WSJ Op-Ed. I know it's from TransAdvocate, which does little for credibility, but it was written by a genetics researcher so it's worth the time to read, along with this Slate article. The public is getting mixed messages about transgender people - it's tough to slog through the bullshit of dealing with someone of McHugh's caliber. On the plus side, at least the message is "mixed" these days, and not just "Hey look at the freak tranny."As part of the USCCB's Review Board, pushed the idea that the Catholic sex abuse scandal was not about pedophilia but about “homosexual predation on American Catholic youth.”
advocates for the transgendered have persuaded several states—including California, New Jersey and Massachusetts—to pass laws barring psychiatrists, even with parental permission, from striving to restore natural gender feelings to a transgender minor.
Not going to dispute a single point. Not my field of expertise by a long shot, and when you've got that one lone passionate voice vs. what's become standard practice everywhere else, one can usually guess he's howling in the woods. But he's howling in the woods in the Wall Street Journal. That's pretty much my point - when one wants to prompt culture change, rather than culture war, the sensitivities of the people who hate you count more than the people who are on your side. I think Matthew Shepard might as well have lived during the Stonewall Riots, as far as most 20somethings are concerned today. And yeah, I'm old enough to be their dad but there were no openly gay kids in my school. Beating someone up "because he looked like a fag" was perfectly acceptable. One of my teachers nearly lost her job for having a couple guys with HIV come to talk with us. GLBT rights are a long, long time coming, but they're also borderline miraculous. And I'm worried about clawback. 1973 - Poof! abortion is legal. End result? The knuckle-draggers have been eroding the practice of abortion ever since to the point where there are now fewer than seven abortion clinics in Texas and zero in many southern states. Your article pointed out some shamefully disrespectful coverage of transgender issues. That will go away slowly, I think. My worry is that hammering on the shamefully disrespectful coverage rather than the Holy shitballs amazing Caitlin Jenner in Vanity Fair coverage the media ends up covering the snooty, entitled trans movement rather than the noble, human trans movement.
I worry too, about clawback, about the "gentrification" of the trans movement. I count how lucky I am every day - supportive family, living in a place where surgery is covered and HRT is cheap, being white. There are so many trans people who don't have what I have, and I've got nothing compared to Caitlin Jenner. All i can do is try to amplify their voices as much as I can. However, one has to be careful to amplify the right things, and be critical of the right things (as you're pointing out, I think). I think your point's totally valid. I guess it was just nice to have the media pissing into someone else's face for once. Sounds like I need to temper my Schadenfreude.
And you shouldn't have to feel thankful for what you have. That you are required to is an injustice. Transsexuals are about as "other" as humans come, though and you tip easily into the uncanny valley. Humans are basically tribal; we align based on what we aren't and nearly all of us aren't transgender. It's a problem minorities will always face from majorities - majorities will be unwittingly prejudicial against minorities, minorities will complain about it, majorities will go "WTF we're just trying to live our lives" and now both sides are hostile rather than just one. There's no way to win, and nothing changes without the majority being made uncomfortable. This is just one of those things where I think the progressive corners of the country underestimate just how uncomfortable the rednecks already are.
This is actually one of the tools which I've used to explain to others why some people hate trans people, or find us somehow evil. I mean, the whole concept of the "Trap", or a trans woman who passes "too" well and is preying on unsuspecting men flows back to the idea of trans women being an "other", and people being unsure whether we are a threat or not. This is my favourite video on the uncanny valley (I love Vsauce) I think the worst part is that Trans people who do not "Pass" are the ones who have the hardest time, because they fall right into the trough of the uncanny valley. So much of this has to do with exposure, in my opinion. How many of these people have ever had to deal with a gay person for a few weeks? or met a trans woman? Or a trans MAN (who are so often completely invisible in this whole conversation)? How often do you hear of stories like this where the one black family in town were "the good kind of black people"? People fear what they don't understand, and that's often why people who are in the QUILTBAG fall into the Uncanny Valley. (side note, i'm going to use QUILTBAG instead of LGBT forever now because it's hilarious. well, probably not actually, but it is funny. Who doesn't love Acronyms over Initialisms, anyways?)you tip easily into the uncanny valley.
This is just one of those things where I think the progressive corners of the country underestimate just how uncomfortable the rednecks already are.