Are we living in the 18th Century??? v. I hate intolerance!!!

[Raz]

This report is from today's Herald Sun.

Basically, a transgender woman who has BEEN a woman for the past several YEARS is now wanting to join the police force, and it has a lot of people up in arms.

Some of the choice quotes from various cops are:

Is this person using this as a vehicle to promote their own interests, or are they genuine about becoming an officer to serve the community?

To put it simply – and I've had dealings with these sorts of people in the past – they have trouble with traditional aspects of life.

and the pick of the pack...

How can he be relied upon to make decisions about other people's lives while he is trying to deal with his own issues? We have enough trouble working with some of the sheilas, let alone a bloke who wants to become a sheila.

WHAT

THE

FUCK???

Seriously, I am SO pissed off about this...there's also an editorial which ends by basically saying that equal opportunity is all well and good, but at the end of the day it's just as important that someone be able to be considered a role model for society as it is that they can do the job.

Well guess what? Society doesn't begin and end with fucking ignorant white straight men. There are asians and kooris and gay men and lesbians and bisexuals and transgender people and *shock horror* mixtures of any and all of the above, plus lots of other variations.

Jesus, sometimes I really hate the fucking world.....

[/rant]

 

[Pleonastic]

Just a small point, but I believe that this person hasn't actually been a woman for the past several years, but has only been dressing as one. He/She intends to have the operation in the future.

Aside from that, I agree hypothetically that everyone should be allowed the oportunity to do whatever they want if they're skilled enough to do it. However it's a sad fact that in this day and age transgender people are still looked down upon. And if the general population don't respect this person then it would be a lot harder for them to do their day to day duties. So many people are anti-cop anyway, and being transgender will make relating to the general population all the more difficult.

Now don't get me wrong - personally I'd have no problem with this person becomming a cop. But remember that cops quite often don't deal with reasonable and rational people. I'd be more concerned that some idiot biggot will try to harm him/her in the line of duty.

Sure it sucks - but this phobia is pretty deeply rooted in our culture and I don't think we're ready for a transgender cop quite yet. Which is a shame - I'd have liked the whole equality thing to be more than just a utopian ideal by now.

 

[papermate]

Do you think that the person has social values which are not in line with the majority of societies opinions though?
I agree that I think that in todays world we have come to accept, or most people (society as a whole) as come to accept people with transgender issues etc, (issues not meant offensively).

However i think that essentially alot of people associate the transgender issue with alot of other issues such as drug abuse, and the seedy side of the community, and therefore would not like that sort of values to be as they say promoted.

Personally it doesnt matter to me, i beleive in the individual merits of someone in any field, whehter it be social or professional......but i think if you surveyed the whole population that most people would have dramatically different values to what they PERCEIVE a transgender person to have. and therefore the outcry.

 

[hoptis]

Yeah, this issue has become a bit of a newsgrabber in Melbourne over the last few days.

One of my friends sent me a text this morning saying "All your ex's are trying to join the police force!"... lol... one incident and I'm forever branded as the tranny-chaser in our group.

The comments quoted from officers in the Herald Sun are not really representative of how most officers answered the questions put to them by Herald Sun journalists. They simply took the most inflammatory answers and published them and sat back and sad "Look! The cops don't want them!!!". It's just beat-up.

Sure transgender people have issues with the "traditional aspects of life", they were born into bodies that don't match their personalities. A lot of gay men I meet also have issues with the "traditional aspects of life". In fact, most people have issues in this context. White, straight men from middle-class backgrounds are implicated in all manner of crimes from pedophilia to armed robbery to murder, it doesn't stop some individuals from this group being police officers does it?

NSW has several trangender officers, as does the Australian Federal Police. Rest assured that Victoria probably already does have transgender police, if not soon.

What I found the most disturbing was the final line of the Herald Sun editorial:

The public expects officers not only to uphold the law but to be acceptable role models.

From: http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,6726826%5E24218,00.html

If choosing to follow a path in life that would garner so much hatred, misunderstanding, bigotry, prejudice and suffering from others in the pursuit of something that one believes in doesn't make someone an acceptable role model... than I guess the editor of the Herald Sun considers Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi unacceptable role models?

Whoever wrote that editorial deserves to be hung naked by their tiny testicles and dragged by horse and carriage up Commercial Road and down Brunswick Street on a Saturday night. Fuckhead.

Oops, I wasn't supposed to get angry, that's Raz's job.

 

[Raz]

Just a small point, but I believe that this person hasn't actually been a woman for the past several years, but has only been dressing as one. He/She intends to have the operation in the future.

My bad, sorry...I read the "has been living as a woman and is legally recognised as a woman" and assumed that meant that she'd had the operation.

It still pisses me off though. If people waited till white affluent society was ready for any social changes, nothing would EVER change. There was absolute uproar when women got the vote...it took Stonewall to begin making gay people acceptable to mainstream society.

I understand the points you've raised Pleo, and much respect to you for your point of view, but I daresay that anybody who is going to have gender reassignment and then put themselves so much in the public eye is fully aware that he/she is making themselves a big red bullseye for all sorts of abuse. However, if the person in question is willing to take that step then I think that the cops at least should publicly support them.

...I think the thing that pisses me off about the kinds of attitudes that this article highlights is that there's an arrogant assumption that The Current Affair-watching affluent white family IS society, and that everything else is an aberration. Sure, transgender people represent a tiny portion of our community, but that doesn't mean they're not a part of it. If this woman is living a lifestyle which our law gives her every right to live, then she should have every right to participate in the society which makes those laws. In every facet of it.

Bigots aren't going to miraculously change their minds one day because they suddenly realise that they're narrow minded. The only way that minorities are ever going to be accepted as a valued part of society is for them to get out there and be a part of it.

...and for all the whitebread little suburban families that will be writing angry letters to 50/50 because it's a moral outrage, it'll show that many more people who've never been exposed to a transgender person that they aren't freaks. That being different isn't wrong, it's just different.

And it might give a bit more hope to that teenager who's sitting in misery somewhere because they think they're insane or damned for not being just like everyone else.

I dunno..I'm just rambling I guess...I don't mean any disrespect to anybody who reads this, I just can't contain my disgust that in the 21st Century we still have men working to protect our values and our liberty who openly admit something like "We have enough trouble working with some of the sheilas, let alone a bloke who wants to become a sheila."

That's offensive to women both biological and transgender and it makes me nuts that it's exactly this kind of bigotry and blind prejudice which is the social norm.

*sigh* Okay, Rant #2 over....8)

--Raz--

 

[Raz]

If choosing to follow a path in life that would garner so much hatred, misunderstanding, bigotry, prejudice and suffering from others in the pursuit of something that one believes in doesn't make someone an acceptable role model... than I guess the editor of the Herald Sun considers Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi unacceptable role models?

I wrote my second post before reading what hoptis wrote, and I wish I had read it first now....because I think you said all the stuff I was trying to with lots more eloquence...especially that above paragraph.

Nice one dude!

--Raz--

 

[onetwothreefour]

raz: yeah, it sucks. i saw this and immediately thought 'hey, this is what i should show mum to prove what a shitty paper the herald sun is'. the thing is, it shouldn't even be an issue that they report - by even making it an issue, they're discriminating against this poor person.

 

[Raving Loony]

Eventually transexuals will make it in the police force. Just like women officialling mens sport initially was a problem, homosexuals in the military, non-whites being able to vote, etc... Unfortunately changing the old values and attitude of an entire country comes with an initial backlash from the atypical "if it aint broke don't fix it people". As much as I want this guy to prove the bigots wrong, I am hardly suprised that the common media have taken this line.

 

[-Thoth]

Ahh, the Herald Scum. Just another rag from the Murdoch media empire... Seriously, 'ol Rupert's supreme goal has been to white trashify the entire world for ages!

Read it, laugh, then warm yourself by the flames as it burns.