It occurs to me that much of the irrational fear surrounding sexuality stems from the preservation of straight male privilege.
Though each dimension of social inequality is unique, it's nonetheless reminiscent of the hysteria that has historically been directed towards interracial children and relationships. In the same way that interracial unions threatened to queer the category of race, the concept of sexuality as a spectrum that includes LGBTQ disrupts and challenges the male/female binary from which sexism is derived.
In a country that attempts to enforce White/Non-White dichotomy, the prospect of "not knowing" someone's race, or of a "racial spectrum" is terrifying. In deploying a "one drop" rule, Whiteness (a social construct) became genetically recessive. Is it any wonder, then, that anti-miscegenation laws were in place until 1967?
If you look at American popular culture, especially during the Reconstruction era, a special sort of scorn was reserved for those who represented "race mixing." You would be presented as "unnatural," the chimeric product of an unholy union with no rightful, biologically determined place in this world. (Look at how Lydia and Silas Lynch were portrayed in "Birth of a Nation," for example, or the trope of the "tragic mulatto.")
Interracial relationships posed an existential threat to a social order where one's place in society was dictated by inherited traits such as skin color. Someone capable of "passing" for White could infiltrate the bastions of segregation. And, if someone who was "1/8th" Black could attend school with White children, what's next? Full integration? "What about our bathrooms?" "What about our sports teams?" "What about the
children?"
To make slavery (and the quasi-slavery that existed afterward) appear even remotely appropriate or ethical, people relied on the concept of "natural slavery." Aristotle and Sepulveda, among others, suggested that slaves were
better off under the rule of others. Slavery could be considered "just" by presenting those so conscripted as inherently uncivilized beasts of burden whose standard of living could only be elevated if harnessed as brute labor and thereby incorporated into "civil society." (Hopefully, you can appreciate the parallels to sexist gender roles, suggesting that women are "better off" in the custody of men, or that children "require" a "strong male presence" to develop properly.)
We now know how arbitrary complexion-based racial categorization truly is. It is hardly a "natural" or a sensible means of partitioning humanity. The concept that your complexion compelled you towards intellectual vs. physical labor, or that it warranted the assignment privilege and social capital, has been thoroughly discredited.
Even so, there are still those who seek to police racial categories as a means of preserving the unearned privilege and status associated with Whiteness.
Is it any surprise, then, that people are similarly resistant to relinquishing sex and gender privilege?
Gender is a social construct. Newborn girls don't emerge from the womb with dresses and make up. The same people who are threatened by the idea of a female-headed household or a female president are menaced by the "breakdown of gender roles."
Different axes of social inequality are not interchangeable, but they do intersect and function in similar ways. A poor White male is disadvantaged in one way, and privileged in others. It's, in part, for this reason that many poor Whites are resentful of the very notion that racism persists in contemporary society and manifests itself in law enforcement, housing, education, career opportunities, and so on. A poor White male may reason that he's known true hardship in a way that Oprah Winfrey does not and that, therefore, any worldview that presents her as disadvantaged due to race or gender is "an excuse" that only exemplifies the injustice he faces - and that the "preferential treatment" Oprah purportedly receives as a minority accounts for the poor White male's inability to prosper.
Dr. King once told his jailers, who were working class White men, "You are put in the position of supporting your oppressor, because through prejudice and blindness, you fail to see that the same forces that oppress Negroes in American society oppress poor white people. And all you are living on is the satisfaction of your skin being white, and the drum major instinct of thinking that you are somebody big because you are white. And you're so poor you can't send your children to school. You ought to be out here marching with every one of us every time we have a march."
Du Bois referred to this as the "public and psychological wage" of Whiteness.
There exists a public and psychological wage for males, for cisgendered persons, and for straight people.
The idea that "this is your lot in life because you have a Y chromosome" is in jeopardy. So many people have been socialized to believe that their masculinity is the very core of their identity, and perhaps even the source of their power and potency.
The prospect that masculinity, as it exists in our culture, is an affectation rather than some primal expression of innate identity is threatening. It threatens people's sense of self. It threatens their sense of privilege and empowerment.
And that, I think, is where much of the fear and defensiveness comes from.
This is how it hurts us... In my opinion. Calling this behavior "courageous" means that it is ok for transgendered people to get into relationships and not be forthcoming. This, in turn, could lead to violence when people find out.
I think what some people are really afraid of here is the possibility that they could fall in love with or be physically intimate with someone who is in any way "male." It's perceived as a threat to their sexuality. (Hence the infamous Jim Carrey "crying game" scene in the epitome of mature cinema,
Ace Ventura, Pet Detective.)
If that's the case, why must the burden of disclosure fall exclusively on transgender people? Maybe if
you're the one with a problem, perhaps
you should just make it a point to say, on every first date, "I'm terrified of accidental intimacy with a man, so, please tell me if you're transgender." I'm sure there are a lot of cisgender women would appreciate such a disclosure, so they can know right away if they're dealing with someone who is sexually insecure and potentially homophobic.
The term HATE CRIME is a media created monster. Anyone with sense doesn't take that phrase serious.
Just like the supposed knock out game that black people used as a hate crime vs. white folks
Media created monster? Hate crime legislation began with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It is, in part, a response to "Southern Justice." Many lynchings in America have been perpetrated with either direct assistance or complicity from local law enforcement. Think about the likelihood of convicting a murderer of a racially motivated hate crime in Alabama in 1965 at the state level, then compare that to the likelihood of conviction if prosecuted at the federal level. This year alone, we've seen some farcical indictment proceedings associated with killings that were likely racially motivated or, at least, racially influenced.
Please make the effort to at least familiarize yourself with the purpose and origins of hate crime legislation before characterizing it as the superfluous creation of a special "protected class" entitled to preferential treatment under the law. We all know that justice can be difficult to come by in this country, especially if you're not a member of the majority.
