The definition of controversy is “a prolonged public dispute, debate, or contention;
disputation concerning a matter of opinion.” The transgender community experiences a lot of
controversy day in and day out including the discourse of the people for trans and people who
are against them and their rights. According to Title VII of The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, this protects all persons, including transgender
individuals, from discrimination based on sex stereotype or gender non-conformity.
Courts disagree, however, about whether these statutes forbid discrimination against
transgender individuals based solely upon “gender identity” or “gender status”. Lately, this issue
has spurred presidential and agency action that raises important questions about the appropriate
reach of executive branch lawmaking and the judicial deference to be accorded agency
interpretations that “push the envelope” in an unsettled legal landscape.
Gender and sex, though related, refer to separate aspects of a person’s identity. Sex refers
to the biological features that physically identify a person as male or female at birth, such as
chromosomes, hormones, and anatomy. Gender is the internal sense and outward physical and
behavioral expression of being male, female, or any combination thereof. For this reason, gender
is much more difficult to define and discuss as it exists on a spectrum, rather than a defined
construct. In my opinion, gender is influenced by cultural expectations and norms, race, and
social class. The term transgender refers to a person whose gender expression and identity do not
match the biological sex they were assigned at birth. While most transgender people identify as
either male or female, some identify as nonbinary or genderqueer, terms that refer to any gender
expression other than traditional masculine or feminine identities. In contrast, people whose
gender expression and identity match the biological sex they were assigned at birth are referred
to as cisgender.
The government does play a big part in the discussion of the topic but the communities
transgender people live in also play a huge part because that is where they reside and vote or
things in their community. Transgender people have been active and visible in America since the
1950s. Over the next few decades, transgender people began to gain more visibility. In the early
2000s, transgender advocacy began to focus on the legal issues that restrict transgender people.
In 2009, President Barack Obama signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes
Prevention Act into law. The act extended a previous hate crime law to include crimes that occur
because of a victim’s perceived or actual gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability. While
this law was lauded as a milestone for transgender rights, there are still many hurdles faced by
transgender people.
In July 2014, President Obama signed an executive order that protected the rights of gay
and transgender employees in federal jobs. In May 2016, President Obama also directed public
schools to allow students to use the bathroom and participate on sports teams that best suit their
gender identification. This declaration cited the provision of Title IX, a section of the Education
Amendments Act of 1972, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any public
education program or activity. The outcry from the “bathroom bill” in North Carolina which
required transgender people to use public restrooms that corresponded with the sex on their birth
certificate, was repealed. The NCAA pulled the scheduled men’s basketball games from the city
of Charlotte. The Charlotte Chamber of Commerce estimated the state law’s economic impact in
its city alone was $285 million in addition to a loss of more than 1,300 jobs.
In February 2017, the US Departments of Justice and Education, under the administration
of President Donald Trump, rescinded the directive that Obama had given to public schools.
Trump cited a lack of proper vetting of his predecessor’s directive and emphasized the primary
role that states should play when creating educational policy. The National Association of
Secondary School Principals responded with the statement that “rescinding the guidance …
discourages educators’ efforts to support [transgender students], and emboldens their harassers.”
Despite continued advocacy, transgender people still experience discrimination and additional
obstacles. As of 2016, at least twenty-eight states lack specific laws prohibiting discrimination
against gay or transgender employees. Ambiguous state policies such as these again contribute to
individuals choosing not to express the gender that they identify with, when faced with the
potential loss of employment. According to a 2015 report issued by the Movement Advancement
Project (MAP), the National Center of Transgender Equality (NCTE), the Transgender Law
Center, and GLAAD “Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation”, 78 percent of transgender
and gender-nonconforming employees experience harassment, mistreatment, or discrimination at
work. The transgender population also faces underemployment, which directly leads to lower
levels of income across this demographic. According to the same report, even though 87 percent
of transgender Americans have completed at least some college and 47 percent report earning a
college degree, transgender Americans are four times more likely than cisgender Americans to
earn less than $10,000 per year.
Transgender people also face increased hurdles to obtain housing. According to a 2011
report released by the NCTE and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, almost 20 percent of
transgender people surveyed related that they have been refused a home or apartment based on
their gender identification, and 11 percent also reported eviction. Only twenty states have
housing discrimination laws specifically prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity,
though no federal law or statute is currently in place to protect transgender people and other
gender-nonconforming individuals from such discrimination. The discrimination faced from
housing organizations, as well as discrimination or rejection by family members, has led to
transgender people in the United States being disproportionately at risk for homelessness. Nearly
one in three homeless transgender people reported that they were refused access to a homeless
shelter because of their gender identity, according to the same report. One reason that
transgender people experience such discrimination in housing and the workplace is that many
employers and housing authorities require documentation that reveals an applicant’s assigned
birth sex. When a transgender person’s identification shows a different gender than the one that
they present, it makes them vulnerable to discrimination. However, changing one’s identification
can be expensive and involve numerous bureaucratic challenges. In a 2015 survey of transgender
and nonbinary American adults, the NCTE found that 68 percent of respondents had not updated
any of their identification documents, such as a driver’s license, Social Security card, passport, or
birth certificate. Having identification that shows a transgender person’s assigned birth sex when
they present as another gender can complicate many day-to-day activities, such as ordering a
drink at a bar or boarding a flight.
Another issue faced by transgender people involves access to health care. In 2010, the
Affordable Care Act (ACA) increased the number of transgender people covered by health
insurance, due to stipulations within the law preventing the discrimination against enrollees
because of their gender identity. Republicans in Congress opposed the ACA since its inception,
however, and after winning a majority of seats in the House and Senate in the 2016 election,
sought to repeal and replace the law. As of 2017, thirty-seven states had no law or policy in place
that would prohibit the discrimination in insurance provisions on the basis of gender identity.
Health care is a topic that is uniquely important for transgender people. Many transgender
individuals undergo hormone replacement therapy, so that their physical characteristics better
represent the gender with which they identify. Some also seek gender reassignment surgery,
which often involves multiple procedures. Many insurance providers, however, do not cover
these therapies and procedures, even though the American Medical Association recognizes that
they are required for the mental health of many transgender people in order to treat diagnosed
cases of gender dysphoria.
According to a journalist for “ the conversation”, Kaitlyn Chantry, on Feb. 22, President
Donald Trump’s administration revoked protections allowing transgender students to use the
bathrooms of their chosen gender identity. In 2014, Chantry states that, the Department of
Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued a document that, among other things,
clarifying the federal civil rights protections of transgender students: Title IX’s sex
discrimination prohibition extends to claims of discrimination based on gender identity or failure
to conform to stereotypical notions of masculinity or femininity and OCR accepts such
complaints for investigation. This document further divides those who contend that these
decisions should remain in the hands of individual states, and those who believe that gender
identity should be federally protected as a civil right. Also back in the spotlight: questions as to
whether transgender students are protected under the anti-discrimination provision of Title IX.
This rhetorical landscape of transgender has touched upon the earliest uses of the term, its
shifting definitions, influential figures who have shaped it, notable publications that included it,
debates over its meaning, and activism surrounding its continued usage. We’ve used rhetorical
landscape as a method to make visible the complex historical and contextual nature of the
development of community language. While the historical research we’ve offered poses a
significant challenge to the dominant academic narrative of the emergence of transgender, some
are wary of establishing a new dominant narrative. Instead, most want to close with a stubborn
insistence upon the continually emergence of the term transgender. The rhetorical landscape of
transgender is still developing, still demanding further research, and what I have offered is just
another look in it’s growing complexity.