Ames Lecture

The idea of gender is no doubt complex, however it is also one that I admittedly know too little about. Basically, I don’t really care what anyone wants to see themselves as, whether it is male, female, or anywhere in between. It’s their body and they can do, see, or portray themselves in whichever way they enjoy. With that said, when watching the Ames lecture on transgenderism and citizenship I couldn’t help but get frustrated.
First, of course it is the duty of the state to protect its citizens, no matter of what their color, gender, ethnicity, religion, etc… However, I was frustrated when the speakers made their case for how the state was not doing so. They spoke about “state-sponsored” violence towards trans people and gave very specific, even personal examples. The car crash incident that occurred to one of the speakers was particularly moving on one level, but the speaker tried to prove a huge generalization off of it and it didn’t hold up. The fact of the matter is that these acts, even when done by police, are not “state-sponsored.” Instead, it falls under the simple fact that there are some bad people doing bad things. If they were ever caught, they too would go to jail for breaking the law.
I was also didn’t agree with the approach the authors took when discussing the effects of outside opinion on the trans world. They went straight to murder, even though only a dozen people a year die from transgender-related incidents. Of course it’s unfortunate and needs to be stopped, but it shouldn’t have been emphasized when considering the statistics. Therefore, I don’t think the speakers should have focused so much on the murdering of transgender individuals, but rather the discomfort and confusion that is applicable to a much wider group of people. There remains a huge proportion of the public that is simply uncomfortable when confronted with transgendered individuals. As usual, being different still scares the crap out of some people.
With that said, I understand and agree with the main premise of their argument. There’s a problem and something needs to be done about it. It’s a slippery slope from not protecting one group’s rights all the way to mass genocide. We’re obviously far from the latter, but I’d even say we were far from the former as well. I believe much progress has been made, particularly as the speaker suggests, with the relationship of transgender to race. It’s not a matter of the state not protecting these citizens’ rights, but rather a few assholes abusing their power or just blatantly committing crimes. It’s still a hate crime, but with only twelve incidents a year you have to ask the question, how much more likely is it for a transgendered individual to be murdered than it is for me to be murdered for any trait I can state about myself. I’d be willing to bet that twelve people a year die because they’re white, but it would be absurd to say that something needs to be done about it. Overall, I understand the importance of their main point but believe they went about their argument incorrectly.