Response to California’s new law (the first in the USA that provides statewide protection for trans students) makes something clear: The public needs education on what being transgender means. As I listened to news casts and read comments, one word kept jumping out at me. “Choice.” The perception of many is that trans people, whatever their age, “choose” to be transgendered.
Listen to CNN’s Brooke Baldwin who, while maintaining a neutral stance, began yesterday’s News Room segment with a summary of the new law stating that the trans student’s rights are “just based upon which gender a boy or girl chooses to identify with.” One of her guests, Randy Thomasson, president of anti-LGBT hate group, Save California, responded to her question about what he would do if he had a daughter who identified with boys by suggesting that such a child’s sexual confusion could be the result of abuse or abandonment. I am not taking issue with the helpfulness of professional counseling, but with the idea that one “becomes transgender” as a result of abuse in whatever form. In other words, it’s a choice. It’s “curable.”
The reality is, transgender persons, like all of us, are born with an deep innate sense of gender. Their body doesn’t match.
CBS NewsOnle’s report addressed the issue. While the opening statement still included the idea that school children choose their gender, the reporter, John Blackstone, interviewed an eighteen-year-old transgender student, Logan, and brought up the question of choice. Logan, of course, was clear. No one would choose such a life. No. Being transgender is not a choice.
Perhaps what will most help dispel the misconception that people choose to be transgender is what Masen Davis, Executive Director of the Transgender Law Center, mentioned on the CNN report: Getting to know a transgender person. “I realize that not everybody in America has had the opportunity to get to know a transgender person…,” Masen said. Fear and hatred are fueled by ignorance. Whether through getting to know a transgender person, watching stories of transgender persons on television specials or online, or reading those stories in books or other media, one of the first things a person will learn is being transgender is not a choice.