Wednesday, February 25, 2015

When Intersex People are Collateral Damage in Transphobic Battles

As intersex people, we have to deal with a host of issues because our bodies lie between the socially-expected bodily norms of male and female. Our bodies are treated as disordered, as problems to be solved by the medical profession. Doctors and people on the street alike treat intersexuality as freakish and fascinating, both intriguing and repellent.  Our bodies are surgically altered without our consent as children, and we must live with the lifelong aftereffects of limited sensation and ongoing genital atypicality. We are taught to view our differences as shameful and to keep them secret. Very often we hesitate to enter romantic relationships, fearing rejection because our bodies challenge the very ideas of heterosexuality and homosexuality through which most people understand themselves. We may be pursued, however, by sexual fetishists.

It's a lot to deal with, for many of us.  And then, on top of the challenges we're already facing, we find ourselves targeted by people who don't even recognize we exist: transphobic activists.

Today, trans gender people are making some social progress in securing protection from discrimination--but they face resistance. A central tactic of those who oppose trans gender rights in the U.S. is to propose legislation prohibiting trans people from using particular gendered facilities such as bathrooms, changing rooms, or locker rooms. Those proposing the legislation argue that the new law will protect  (cis) women and children from being harassed, attacked by sexual predators, or made to feel unsafe or uncomfortable.  Now, we should note a couple of things--first of all, proposed laws like these are aimed at trans women and girls--not even trans men, let alone intersex people. Those drafting the legislation clearly aren't imagining the situation in which an intersex teen using a school locker room is greeted by uncomfortable stares, or imagining that a trans man using a men's bathroom will make cis men flee the facility in fear. The proposed laws are transmisogynist: aimed at trans women, who are framed as "really men" who are some sort of sexual perverts. Secondly, sexual harassment and assault are already illegal, in bathrooms or elsewhere, so the only thing the proposed legislation actually accomplishes is to transform informal policing of the ideology of the sex/gender binary into formal policing. Those whose bodies don't clearly conform to expectations for what a woman's body is "supposed" to look like now become literal criminals.

But the drafters of transphobic bathroom laws run into a problem. People police binary sex/gender norms all the time, but they do so informally. The drafters have to come up with objective language to put into their proposed legislation.  Early efforts banning people from using bathrooms tended to require a person challenged upon entering a gendered bathroom to show ID with that gender listed on it. Of course, as part of the process of gender transition, large numbers of trans people have the gender listed on their driver's license or other ID changed. So the transphobic activists proposing these laws switched to using language of "birth certificate sex." But in some states, people who medically gender transition are able to change the sex listed on their birth certificate.

And that's why recent proposed bathroom-exclusionary language has moved to requiring people who use gendered facilities to have a matching "biological sex at birth" or even matching binary genotype of XX or XY.

Now, all forms of sex-policing bathroom bills, while aimed at trans people, are bad for at least some intersex people who are ipso gender (that is, who identify with the binary sex they were assigned at birth). An intersex person may be assigned female at birth, and identify as a woman, but have substantial amounts of bodily and facial hair, leading her to have to deal with a lot of sex and gender policing. Such an individual is likely to face many of the same issues of bias and outrage that visibly trans women encounter when they try to use women's bathrooms.

But the bills making it illegal to use a single-sex bathroom unless one was born with the anatomy expected for people of that sex basically declare it illegal for intersex people--by definition born with bodies that are neither male nor female--to use gendered bathrooms at all.

Further, the Texas law basing bathroom use on genotype specifically states, "If the individual's gender [sic] established at the individual's birth is not the same as the individual's gender [sic] established by the individual's chromosomes," that their gender for bathroom-use purposes would be determined by chromosomes. Just think about what this means for, say, a woman with CAIS, complete androgen insensitivity syndrome. She is born with female-typical external genitalia and assigned female at birth. She's raised as a girl and identifies as one.  At puberty she develops breasts, but no menstrual cycle, and it's only when tests are done to determine why that she finds out she has XY chromosomes, no uterus, and internal testes (whose testosterone her body cannot respond to). The Texas law tells her she must use the men's room, because her Y chromosome trumps her physical appearance, genitalia, birth certificate, sex of rearing and gender identity.  This law is telling her she is "really" a man.  If she uses a women's room, it's a class-A misdemeanor for which she could get a year in jail. And if her employer finds out she has CAIS--something that her medical records reveal--well, then, if he lets her repeatedly use the women's bathroom at work, then he is committing a felony, punishable by two years in jail and a $10,000 fine.

So what should we as intersex people do about this?

It's very unlikely that we are the intended targets of these proposed laws--we're just collateral damage. Some may argue that few ipso gender intersex people look androgynous enough to trigger enforcement--that nobody's going to call the cops on us.  But some of us *are* physically androgynous and genitally different and regularly have to cope with gender-policing. Furthermore, it's now becoming popular to have provisions in bathroom-panic legislation that either put employers and facility owners at risk of fines, like the Texas law, or give third parties who see a person of the "wrong sex" in the bathroom, locker room, etc. the right to sue the school or business and get guaranteed recompense. For example, high school students in Kentucky who see a student whose sex is "incorrect" in the bathroom or locker room would be entitled to sue the school for $2500 for each time they catch the student in the facility.

Imagine what could happen to an intersex high school child in Kentucky who has a visible genital difference under a scheme in which classmates could earn $2500 each time they complained they saw their "incorrect" genitals.

These proposed laws give people a financial incentive to scrutinize our intersex bodily differences and to report them to authorities. They give employers and businesses a financial incentive to increase their sex and gender policing, lest they face a fine.  They are a bad thing for us.

Now, one solution some might propose would be to educate transphobic legislators about the difference between intersexuality and transsexuality. We could ask that the laws being proposed include exemptions for people born intersex, based on the presumption that if transphobic lawmakers understood what intersexuality is, they would express sympathy rather than bigotry toward us.

I think not only is this naively optimistic, but that it would be a terrible mistake.

Now, I acknowledge that relations between the intersex and trans communities are not always the best.  I validate the complaints of many intersex people that trans people are quick to use evidence of our existence to try to break down the ideology of immutable binary sex/gender--but slow to act as allies, and understand our community's needs, and include us appropriately in their antidiscrimination regulatory proposals.

But I believe we must consider trans issues to be our issues.  Firstly, because the portion of the intersex community that gender transitions is much higher than the proportion of nonintersex people who gender transition. There are a lot of intersex trans folks--like myself, like my spouse--who are active in the intersex community.

Beyond that, it's rational for us to stand side by side with nonintersex trans folks in battles like these precisely because we are impacted just as they are. So many people in our society think intersex people are trans people that transphobia constantly impacts us, even those of us who are ipso gender rather than trans.  We are fighting against our own mistreatment.

Ultimately, I believe that even those of us who, pragmatically speaking, are likely never to be personally impacted by bathroom-panic laws--because our bodies and genitals and birth certificates and chromosomes and gender identities all fortunately align and our intersex differences are not visible--all of us should stand against transphobic laws. We should do so as ethical human beings, opposed to all inequality and bias, not just those forms of bigotry that negatively impact us personally.

Now, all that said, I need to have a word with our trans allies, with whom I hope our community will stand. And that is: please, nonintersex trans people out there, don't try to use us without including us. Though we're taking collateral damage, we're not the primary targets in the bathroom wars.  If you think that femme CAIS women would make great mouthpieces for delivering talking points about how cruelly these laws would impact "innocent" women like them (and I've seen the calls and requests), fine.  But don't use members of our community or the very idea of intersexuality as a way to win your battles--without making an equal effort to fight for our rights, especially the right of intersex people to be free of unconsented-to surgery.

With all these things said--intersex and trans siblings, let's stand together against sex and gender policing laws.


16 comments:

  1. There are two House Bills, not one. 1747 and 1748. Both introduced by the same sponsor, on the same date.

    A CAIS woman would be criminalised for using a male restroom under 1747, as her ID says female.

    She'd then be criminalised for using a female restroom under 1748 for the chromosomal mismatch.

    http://www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs/84R/billtext/html/HB01747I.htm
    http://www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs/84R/billtext/html/HB01748I.htm

    Make no mistake, this is not the usual case of "collateral damage". 1748 alone would be, and 1747 would be redundant. The pair - no way.

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  2. I couldn't agree more! So much of this legislation is based on the fictional sexual binary, it's really revolting to see the level of ignorance and bigotry in lawmakers. and as Zoe points out, not only are these laws sometimes contradictory, they're none of anyone's damned business! Like anyone else, I use the bathroom I choose, and if someone of ANY sex causes trouble we call the police.

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  3. The idea of using chromosomes as a determinant of who can use gendered spaces is patently ridiculous and unenforceable. What are they going to do, implement spot genetic testing for anyone who does not appear to be the "correct" sex? How many people can say for sure whether they are "XX" or "XY" anyway? No one I know has had that actually tested.

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  4. Great article. Doesn't even go into mosaics (Friend has some cells that are XX and some that are XX/ or broken Y, and had both sets of gonads... her birth cert. says O for "other")

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  5. Cis, white, christian, male, living along the west coast if that matters, which i don't think it should.

    First I would like to ask you about (middle-aged, middle-income, non-disabled, white)male privilege. It is a concept I am familiar with only by testimony and perhaps some observation, but not one which I have any recollection of being guilty of enforcing, or enjoying.

    I know what you are thinking. "Of course you don't observe it; your mind has no benefit to observing it," or perhaps just "This person is a sociopath," but I have taken the time to read (and learn from) your blog, so I hope you have time to hear me out.

    When I introspect all the major points in my lifetime. School, job interviews, or even common points, like straightening out billing errors (which seems to be becoming a rite of passage for any adult in the first world), I found that while my appearance and title may have had some effect on the outcome, far more potent results came from stance, body language, and words.

    While I empathize with cracking voices (having been a preteen trying to sound manly once) is there some physical or mental inhibition for a female or intersex person from assuming an assertive stance, posture, and tone?

    I can tell you from experience, that a slouch, stammer, and an infirm stance ("maybe I don't deserve this job, i don't know....") is too heavy a disadvantage to be carried by this "male privilege" force, so would it not also stand to reason that having assertiveness and confidence on your side is not only stronger than privilege, but also has the potential to make that privilege inconsequential?

    I'm not so sheltered to suggest racism or sexism or cissexism is non-existent. But, tagging and swearing by a concept like "male privilege" instead of taking action to dissipate it's power is like a climate-change researcher who doesn't recycle.

    Second, (if you're still reading) I'd like to suggest that your rejection by your students is less based on their religion, upbringing, and identity, and more based on a notion that their youth of mind grants them pride in opinions that they feel don't need testing.

    A person of respectable academic prowess (as you yourself appear to be) knows that even if an opinion is convenient, adopting it without its being tested, ESPECIALLY if it's a strong opinion, is irresponsible.

    But let's be a 19 yo student here for a moment. Testing opinions takes WORK. And screw that.

    So, while I've come to reject the notion that "boys will be boys" I think short of an evolutionary leap, "kids will be kids." And, if you've managed to maintain eye-rolling vigilance, I encourage you to keep it up.

    I wish you luck in your newly aligned body, and specifically solidity of your career. While I may not wholly believe that what you have to teach is the naked truth, I think it is a closer truth than many adults enjoy today, and I hope the adults of tomorrow are smarter than me.

    GE 3S

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  6. I feel to keep my body a secret, its different, but I've grown now to accept the differences I have.

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  7. I feel to keep my body a secret, its different, but I've grown now to accept the differences I have.

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  8. I feel to keep my body a secret, its different, but I've grown now to accept the differences I have.

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  9. I see little "danger" in restrooms - anyway, people "do their business" in locked stalls. However, as for locker rooms: I believe the solution is to fight for separate stalls also for the sake of another group: people who are simply ashamed of being naked in front of someone else. I haven't been seen naked, not even by my mother, since I was seven years old. (I'm asexual, by the way, so my shamefulness doesn't complicate my sex life because I don't have any.) I think most trans and intersex people would also prefer to use such stalls in order not to call unneeded attention to themselves. We should fight the idea that "every woman / every man has the same stuff" and that it's wrong to be ashamed of one's body - people have a right to be ashamed and shouldn't be pressured to feel otherwise.

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  10. "It's very unlikely that we are the intended targets of these proposed laws--we're just collateral damage"

    I must disagree, having contacted the people concerned in the Texas bill. If anything, they're even more anti-Intersex than anti-Trans. They don't see Intersex people as being human.

    “… if they and you think you can intimidate the human race into bowing down to your perverse agenda, you had better guess again. You cannot hide the reality of your condition and motives forever. WE are the human race and you are tolerated only to a point.”

    — Steven Mark Pilling, Chair of the Harris County TX GOP, on Intersex kids.

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  13. The more you think about it and the more depressed you feel, the more difficult it’s going to be to get rid of PE. Deal with the shame and the negative emotions first.

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  14. Elena DeCampo, here. I get it. I do. And you're right. BUT! As a 66 year-old AMAB Hermaphrodite, (subject to myriad surgeries and therapies throughout my childhood), I don't generally identify with too much from the "movements". As a matter of fact, I've gotten more grief from people in those movements than from the populace at-large.

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