[Commentary] [USA] Blue Eyed Devil: Employers can decide if a transgender employee would make customers feel uncomfort

[Stephanie Stevens]

The Daily Reveille (Louisiana State University), LA, USA


Blue Eyed Devil: Employers can decide if a transgender employee would
make customers feel uncomfort

By Nicholas Pierce
Columnist

Published: Thursday, May 3, 2012

Updated: Thursday, May 3, 2012 00:05


Homosexuals should not be discriminated against in the workplace. A
person’s sexual preference is entirely their business, and employers
have no right to hire or fire based on something as deeply personal as
sexual identity.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission went beyond sexual
orientation last week and decided employers also can’t discriminate
based on gender identity, including transgender applicants.

But there’s a narrow section I find utterly ludicrous, and it’s this:
Under the proposed bill, if I wanted to come to my job at The Reveille
wearing a miniskirt and sun bonnet, I could.
Because I, Nicholas Pierce, am a strong, independent woman.

And should my boss be offended by my hairy, exposed thighs and ask me
to cover up, he could be prosecuted for a hate crime.

Come on, people. This is pushing it a little, isn’t it?

Men are men, women are women, gay folks are gay, and the clothes you
wear don’t change that.

An important distinction: There are people who identify as their
native gender and cross-dress as a hobby, and there are those who
wholly identify, on a psychological level, as the opposite gender.

That being said, in either case, an employer has the right to expect a
certain amount of propriety in their place of business.

And if an employer doesn’t want his male employees wearing sundresses,
I simply can’t find anything wrong with that.

I’m not advocating discrimination against anyone. If a person wants to
dress as the opposite gender and go order pancakes at IHOP, that’s
fine. If an employer has no problem with dudes wearing stockings and
heels behind the counter, that’s fine, too.

But it ought to be the right of the employer to make that decision,
not the government. If a guy shows up in a skirt and lipstick, it
should be legal for his boss to ask him to put on some pants and wash
his face.

Is that so evil?

Having a penis makes you male — regardless of sexual orientation. I’m
not convinced surgically altering that penis does anything other than
deform your genitalia.

It doesn’t make you a woman physiologically. You cannot make ovaries
or a womb. Post-op transsexuals cannot menstruate or become pregnant.

Simply put, if men cannot become women — and vice versa — why should
men with mangled diddly-bits be afforded the rights and considerations
we extend to women?

We’re dealing with a world in flux right now.

Things like the traditional understanding of gender are constantly
being redefined, and that’s probably a good thing. The changes we have
undergone over the last few decades are positive for the LGBT
community as a whole.

But in a poll conducted by the Human Rights Campaign, a
pro-transgender think tank, a majority of Americans said they weren’t
comfortable around transgender people and didn’t understand them.

They also stated they did not want to see transgender people harmed or
treated unfairly.

People shouldn’t be hurt or persecuted because they chose to live a
different lifestyle than most of the people they’re around.

But if that lifestyle makes people on the whole uncomfortable and
could legitimately detract from a business’ ability to operate, then
maybe it’s just not time yet.

Until we as a society are a lot closer to a consensus on this one, we
can’t go about legislating this into reality.

And no, this is not like the civil rights movement. People have a
choice in the clothes they wear and the way they conduct themselves.

In instances like this, the law should follow society, not precede it.

And right now, there is no popular will for this.

I’m not asking the transgender community to disappear, and I’m not
asking transgendered people to change. All I’m saying is: Put on some
pants at work.

--

Nicholas Pierce is a 22-year-old history junior from Baton Rouge.
Follow him on Twitter @TDR_nabdulpierce.


© 2012 The Daily Reveille

http://www.lsureveille.com/entertainment/blue-eyed-devil-employers-can-decide-if-a-transgender-employee-would-make-customers-feel-uncomfort-1.2738280