Transphobia And Discrimination Paper
Transphobia and Discrimination toward Transsexuals
In the Workplace: Legal Issues
Workplace discrimination has been litigated across most gender, social, and cultural lines; but case law in sexual minority discrimination is still in its infancy. This has been deliberately designed. The United States constitution originally painted a broad stroke for liberty, leaving to future generations the task of identifying cultural, social, and sexual changes as the times progressed. The concern of this paper is an examination of the issues of discrimination and legal remedies for transgendered persons. This paper will reflect on the legal implications for transsexuals in the workplace, examining both employees’ and consumers’ rights. An article …show more content…
If sex is more complex than mere biology, if it involves psychology as well as biology, then case law remains in transition. Up until the present, claimants in lawsuits have tried to rely upon Title VII of federal civil rights statutes. This statute maintains that discrimination is not allowed on the basis of biological sex. Lately, the Supreme Court has expanded the interpretation of this statute to allow cases of transsexual discrimination to be brought for trial. Only four states – Minnesota, Rhode Island, New Mexico, and California – have statutes prohibiting discrimination against transsexuals. (Minter, 2003). How, then, do transgender persons experience discrimination in the workplace?
More than likely, if an agency is prone discriminate against employees, one might expect for them to also discriminate against customers. In the remainder of this paper, I will reflect on a specific example of discrimination of a consumer in an agency I worked in several years age. Our agency provided psychosocial rehabilitation to persons with chronic mental health problems. One of our consumers was a male to female transgender person. This person, whom we will call Joe as a male or Josephine as a female, was born biologically as a male. He was considered to be transgendered because his “gender identity was in …show more content…
The word went out from management that she was to be treated as a male: Staff was to refer to her as “he” and he was to be called “Joe,” never “Josephine.” Joe was not allowed to use the women’s bathroom; he was required to use the men’s room. Joe was required to identify himself as “male” on all agency forms. Essentially, the issue of gender identity was to be completely ignored. Joe often went to sympathetic staff in private and revealed feelings of despair and depression because of the discriminatory attitudes of the agency. This “transphobic behavior is more volitional and aggressive than the ignorance associated with a heterocentric environment.” (Gotbaum, Browne, & Woltman,
In the Workplace: Legal Issues
Workplace discrimination has been litigated across most gender, social, and cultural lines; but case law in sexual minority discrimination is still in its infancy. This has been deliberately designed. The United States constitution originally painted a broad stroke for liberty, leaving to future generations the task of identifying cultural, social, and sexual changes as the times progressed. The concern of this paper is an examination of the issues of discrimination and legal remedies for transgendered persons. This paper will reflect on the legal implications for transsexuals in the workplace, examining both employees’ and consumers’ rights. An article …show more content…
If sex is more complex than mere biology, if it involves psychology as well as biology, then case law remains in transition. Up until the present, claimants in lawsuits have tried to rely upon Title VII of federal civil rights statutes. This statute maintains that discrimination is not allowed on the basis of biological sex. Lately, the Supreme Court has expanded the interpretation of this statute to allow cases of transsexual discrimination to be brought for trial. Only four states – Minnesota, Rhode Island, New Mexico, and California – have statutes prohibiting discrimination against transsexuals. (Minter, 2003). How, then, do transgender persons experience discrimination in the workplace?
More than likely, if an agency is prone discriminate against employees, one might expect for them to also discriminate against customers. In the remainder of this paper, I will reflect on a specific example of discrimination of a consumer in an agency I worked in several years age. Our agency provided psychosocial rehabilitation to persons with chronic mental health problems. One of our consumers was a male to female transgender person. This person, whom we will call Joe as a male or Josephine as a female, was born biologically as a male. He was considered to be transgendered because his “gender identity was in …show more content…
The word went out from management that she was to be treated as a male: Staff was to refer to her as “he” and he was to be called “Joe,” never “Josephine.” Joe was not allowed to use the women’s bathroom; he was required to use the men’s room. Joe was required to identify himself as “male” on all agency forms. Essentially, the issue of gender identity was to be completely ignored. Joe often went to sympathetic staff in private and revealed feelings of despair and depression because of the discriminatory attitudes of the agency. This “transphobic behavior is more volitional and aggressive than the ignorance associated with a heterocentric environment.” (Gotbaum, Browne, & Woltman,