Transgender can be characterized as a complex phenomenon in contemporary American society. The phenomenon has only recently received wider attention in the mainstream media. For most people, contact with transgender experience gives access to an unknown reality. In this way, transgender identity “causes discomfort, estrangement, and incomprehension” (Zambrano 10), and most often people attempt to fit it into the existing intelligible categories of human sexuality. For a common sense understanding, the concept of gender is equivalent to the notion of sex or sexuality (Butler).
The concept of transgender was created by medical discourse as a mental illness of identity and framed in the DSM-III in the 1980s as “transsexualism.” In 1994 the term “transsexualism” was replaced by the “gender identity disorder” indexed in DSM-IV. In the DSM-V (2013), it was again classified as “gender dysphoria”, in which the following consideration is highlighted: “It is important to note that gender non-conformity is not in itself a mental disorder. The critical element of gender dysphoria is the presence of clinically significant distress associated with the condition” (APA 1). Thus “dysphoria” is a psychopathological concept that has the connotation of being a transient illness of vague origin and accompanied by feelings of sadness and anguish.
Given the complexity of the categorization of “transgender” in scientific history, it is not surprising that people do not have a clear understanding of what it means. Yet, recent civil rights movements have helped transgender issues to emerge. Feminist and gay and lesbian movements have created a space in which transgender activists can appear. These groups have something in common, namely they all involve struggles for recognition in relation to the expression of gender and sexuality. They fight for a more accepting society in which they could exercise their rights fully.
The goal of this research is to analyze the points of view of nine New Yorkers concerning their understanding of and attitudes towards transgender people. The interviewer used a digital recorder and a semi-structured script with twelve questions. The research questions aimed to comprehend whether New Yorkers are tolerant or not towards transgender people. The citizens of New York City are known to be politically progressive and liberal in their social views in contrast to those living in other regions of the Unites States. The findings of this research show some contradictions in people’s views, implying that there are still limits that need to be crossed for transgender people to reach full equality.
In this work, the analysis focuses on three elements: different ways of expressing acceptance; knowledge of the concepts of gender and sex; and participants’ views of gendered bathrooms. The first two are shown to be correlated, but the case of gendered bathrooms does not follow this pattern. This supports the conclusion that people’s opinions of transgender issues are not fully developed. Some participants are forming their opinions and still confused about transgender in some respects.
All the participants demonstrated acceptance but expressed it differently and, sometimes, showed ambivalence in their answers. The key questions related to this were “Should health insurance cover transgender sex reassignment surgery” and “Should society be more accepting towards transgender people? Why?” In answer to the first question, Participant 2 states that “This is a very difficult question, especially given the dismal healthcare situation in the U.S. In an ideal world, I would say ‘yes’. However, in a country where so many people cannot count on obtaining basic healthcare to help to overcome life-threating illnesses and conditions, I feel reassignment surgery may not be as urgent or critical in nature.” At the same time, he/she answers the second question as “Of course society should be more accepting towards trans people because everyone is more than just their gender.” This participant is accepting of transgender to some extent but ultimately does not think that gender is important because he/she dismisses gender as a central characteristic of a person’s personality. This is reflected in his/her comment on health insurance since he/she does not see transgender surgery as critical. By contrast, Participant 4 does not hesitate to say “Yes” to the first question and, for the second, claims that “while binary gender structures our society in ways too numerous to count (and thus I’m not arguing that we should just get rid of it), it is important to continue to advocate for acceptance of the very many ways that different people relate to this binary (besides cis-gendered heteronormativity).” This person acknowledges that gender is a system in which our personalities are formed and thus transgender acceptance must occur in relation to it. One can assume that this person takes the discussion seriously and thus develops his/her reasoning based on a more advanced study of gender.
Different kinds of knowledge of gender and sex are also expressed in the interviews. This appears most clearly in answers to the questions “How do you define ‘male’ and ‘female’,” and “How do you define ‘men’ and ‘women’?” The standard understanding ties the first couple closely to biological facts while the second couple is aligned to social constructions. Nevertheless, some participants challenged these conceptions by offering more nuanced answers and by showing more complex understandings of the phenomena. In answer to the first question, Participant 7 says that “Males have penises (generally). Females have vaginas (generally). And there’s quite a range in between. In terms of the science, even these determinations are quite arbitrary; a person can fall absolutely anywhere on the spectrum we consider to be ‘male’ and ‘female’.” To the second question, he/she stated that “I identify strongly as a woman because I present as one according to what popular culture tells us is a woman. I identify with what is considered feminine. But what does this mean?” In answering the first question, Participant 6 adds that “male and female are a mix of biology, social identity, and identification on the part of the individual. I don’t think we can come up with perfect definitions for these, as there will always be individuals who don’t fit in either categorization.” For the second, he/she answers that “I think men and women have a lot in common, that everyone has masculine and feminine traits, and that society encourages these more strongly in some individuals over others. But again, I don’t think that everyone fits neatly into these categories, and there might be traits that belong in the realm of gender which do not align with either men and women.” By analyzing all the answers that these participants gave, they were judged to be the most consistently accepting of transgender people. This shows that knowledge and acceptance are correlated with each other.
A special set of responses was generated by the questions “Do you think that public bathrooms should be separated for men and women? Can bathrooms be a problem for transgender people?” The answers to these queries do not follow the correlation between knowledge and acceptance just mentioned because the case of the bathrooms touches on broader issues of gender. Both women and transgender people are vulnerable to gender based violence, and this is a reason to not make public bathrooms available to everyone. Participant 7 illustrates clearly in his/her response that “women’s bathrooms should be separate and built with three times as many stalls as men’s rooms! I strongly believe that transgender people face a difficult dilemma in using bathrooms. I feel they should be allowed, like cisgender folks, to safely use the bathroom of the gender they identify with until we as a society are mature enough to not feel the need to have these arbitrary separations (and to pee without splattering).”Participant 9 comments that “it is appropriate to have male and female bathrooms as well as non-gendered bathrooms. From an engineering and design standpoint, the space can be used more efficiently if there are three options. One for men, one for women, one for everyone.”Participant 3 also draws attention to role that gender plays early in life: “for children, it should be separated.” This person also states that “the bathroom is not a problem for transgender people. Transgender people are not confused of their gender identities, if they did, they would not have gone through the surgery changing the gender. A person who is sure of what she or he is made of does not pose a threat by going into a bathroom which are assigned by our biological features.”On this point, different from the Participant 7, who claims that mixed gender public bathrooms can be threatening for women, and Participant 9, who raises the possibility of gender neutral bathrooms, Participant 3 develops a nuanced argument that transgender people know their gender identity and so can choose which bathroom they are comfortable in using.
The findings of this study provide evidence that to increase acceptance it is necessary to increase knowledge. New Yorkers are generally educated and, in this survey, they demonstrate accepting attitudes. This correlation is not complete as some participants’ answers were not fully consistent. At the same time, providing only knowledge is insufficient. The case of the bathroom shows that the focus of the discussion must go beyond transgender rights and take into account gender relations across all of society. Unless relations between women and men are transformed, all efforts to accept transgender people will remain limited.
References
American Psychiatric Association. DSM-V. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. 5thed., 2013, http://www.dsm5.org/pages/Default.aspx.
Butler, Judith. Bodies that matter: on the discursive limits of sex. New York, Routledge, 1993.
Zambrano, Elizabeth. “Transexuais: identidade e cidadania”. Diversidade e Homofobia no Brasil. São Paulo: Editora Fundação Perseu Abramo, 2011, pp. 97-108.
