Upsetting Article

I found the article to be a very upsetting experience. As I read the article, I found myself becoming increasingly disturbed by the author’s blindness to her own transphobia. Through her writing, it is obvious that she believes she is supporting anti-discrimination and equal rights, yet she is actually eliciting very discriminating thinking. This author appears to hold a very heterocentric perspective on the issue as she tries to organize gender in attempt to constrain its mysteriousness and excessive nature. She is obviously overwhelmed with the nature of gender, and she uses this discomfort that she feels surrounding transgenderism in order to illogically justify her argument.

The author does not recognize gender as a fluid entity like Judith Butler and fellow Queer Theory activists describes, and thus is unable to see the importance of allowing individuals to express their desires in any way they see fit and allowing them to identify as whatever they feel is natural. Moreover, if we were to really apply the Queer Theory to this situation, the individuals would not even have to identify themselves, refusing the question of “What ARE you?” and be given the choice to bypass the identification process altogether.

Everyone should be given their own rights to either identify themselves in any way they want or not at all, so as the author attempts to justify that transgenders should not be able to identify themselves, she steps completely out of line. She states that the government should focus its time on other problems, yet she fails to realize that the issue of protecting the rights of minorities is one of the government’s main jobs, not to mention that allowing citizens the freedom to convey their identity freely is a fundamental right. In this way, she is irrationally putting the discomfort that transgenderism brings to her and others in front of the right of transgender individuals to freely express themselves. Thus, the article takes a very self-centric perspective, favoring her own ideas and those that relate and take a similar stance.