09
2011I’ve Heard That Somewhere Before
The victims are different but the language of discrimination stays the same.
California is considering providing protections that would allow crossdressers to wear whatever they want to work.
One news source quoted a commentator on this issue, as follows:
“It will inherently cause customers to be uncomfortable and not want to do business… This is about employers having to deal with employees who dress in a way that employers know will cost them either in terms of customers, employer morale, or employee operational efficiency… If you have a mother taking her son to a store for back-to-school shopping and the retail clerk is a man dressed like a woman, the mother is going to take her son and go to another store.”
Another said:
“There’s going to be people who say ‘you hire a transgender, I’m not coming in.’ You can be legally right, you can be spiritually right. But from a business standpoint, you just shot yourself in the foot.”
Isn’t this exactly what they said about blacks back in the 1950s? I’d bet that you could wind the clock back and find quotes pretty much verbatim about women too.
I am willing to concede that intelligent people can debate whether crossdressing should be accorded the same protection as race or gender. Also, whether only certain segments of the transgender community are entitled to this protection. But saying that the reason we shouldn’t be accommodated is that customers may not like it completely misses the point, and ignores history.
To me, society has to find a logically and factually defensible distinction between what people ARE and what they DO. And, people must be protected from discrimination based on what they are. To be a fair and just society we cannot do otherwise.
Ashley
A thought provoling post as usual. You mame many great points. I agree that the business agument is nit the best one and something that employers already have to deal with. I have been to stores with tgs working there and not had a poblem with it. Nor did it appear other customers had a problem either. Howver she was not just a guy in a dress. No she was well put together. Nice outfit and makeup. Not too conservative as she would wear skirts blouses dresses or pants depending on the day or weather. But also not inapprporiate too revealing clothes etc. She dressed in a way that made most of her customers feel comfortable and I think herself as well.
That I think is the conundrum for both employers and thea tg/ts/tv/cd community. What exactly should be the dress code. To take it to.somewhat of an extreme,which I genuiniely think is not too much of an extreme in todays society and attitudes, what do you do when a cd with full facial hair decides to show up in mini skirt thigh highs and sheer blouse? I know most companies I have worked for over the past 15 years have instituted dress codes to deal with casual days. One company I worked for had a couple of women that enjoyed wearing micro mini skirts and thigh highs to work. And yes it did become a distraction to employess so they changed the code. I would think that employers could do the same in this case within reason. If someone chooses to dress in apropriate attire for the work.environment it should not matter.
I know I have made a simple example but I also did not want to go on forever.
ash
cdjanie
Ashley, you make good sense. I do think there is a tendency of opponents of protections for TG rights to think of us – or at least portray us – exactly as that bearded guy in a micro-mini, when the reality is that the real issue tends to concern, in the greatest majority, transitioning or transitioned transsexuals, and full-time tgirls. I, for one, would not have any trouble with protections that specified that tgirls must conform to the company’s dress code of the gender they are presenting, which may include no facial hair, no leg hair, etc. To go one further, I don’t think it is unreasonable for a business to be able to specify that a person be the same gender every day.