Ninja'd by Truean: Effeminate is an insult? Oh. Ok. Damn. Perhaps I need to beat up some people now. Also, your society sucks.
It is here, unfortunately. I'm inclined to agree about the sucking thing.
Seems a little harsh. Back in the day I had a lab tech who through gross incompetence damaged beyond repair some very expensive optical appratus. A disciplinary tribunal ruled that he should be dismissed as it wasnt the first time this had occured. He then sprung his trump card - they were a pre-op transexual. Basically there was no way they could be dismissed without his lawyer dressing it up as a discriminatory case which would have cost a signifgant amount in damages/payoff/public image, and proceeded to come to work in female attire (as was thier right) and from that day until they left by mutual consent was referred to by thier new female chosen name.
I had no issue over thier lifestlye choice. I had an issue over their incompetence. It seemed somehow unfair that thier lifestyle choice countermanded this incompetence - the fact that this individual seemed to want to use it as a weapon or a tool to their own ends could be seen as wrong couldnt it?
....
And the first thing wrong with that post is "Lifestyle choice." I chose to be and desperately tried to be a straight male. I lived in denial for years, and did almost everything imaginable to make myself straight. I couldn't be with a girl, or be attracted to one, or even aroused by one, though I did try.... I couldn't actually [ahem] be with a girl, because I think I would just cry like hell in the fetal position. In fact, that's exactly what happened the first few months my boyfriend and I tried to be intimate, I just broke the hell down, curled up into a ball, cried etc, because I was raised to think "gays" were abominations. Simple logic, If I am gay and gays are abominations.... Somehow, he merely held me, for months, with saintly patience.... There is no choice, if there was, I couldn't make it.
This "using it as an excuse" is by far the exception rather than the rule in this country. The thing about affirmative action, I dunno, I've been fired from jobs for being gay (expressly told "you're fired faggot"). I've had to be twice as good as anyone else if I was ever found out, and that was no guarantee of not being fired. I could always submit the nervousness that caused the breaking of the equipment was caused by being trans and worrying about every aspect of their life and this is particularly relevant to trans because fully 40% of us are so worried/depressed we commit suicide. Condition causes suicide but couldn't impair work functions...?
I simply don't know enough about the case and all I have is one side of the story. Moreover, once she came out and transitioned, did her performance improve? If it's a legit excuse, then it's more than justified. If it's BS, then clearly no. It's a case by case basis thing, and a blanket rule one way or the other shouldn't be seen as just. If _____ disease or condition, effects someone's job performance and treating that disease or condition improves it, then why fire for that? Merely allow treatment. Replace, "transsexual fearing/unable to transition," "with diabetic unable to take insulin," "depressed and afraid to take medication," yeah.... See where I'm going with this? If this is a boy who cried wolf, then
I'll be more utterly enraged at them than you ever could conceive of being. If a legit concern, then I'm behind it.
That said, I'm immediately suspicious of anyone calling it a "trump card," it is soul sucking hell the likes of which I will never fully tell you. If this person is willing to risk being disowned by their families/friends, undergo expensive, life altering surgery, (which you can always die from), then slack should be cut.... Things are rarely as simple as "I have terrible condition that causes me unending misery without treatment and from statistics and experience may lead to my death (suicide or not, it's all just corpses), let's profit off it!"
. <--- Not buying this. In my experience, it's more like "I have a terrible medical condition I suffer from constantly, please have pity on and help me." Though this can be under a facade of covering shame and acting brave. I act brave a lot... "act." Not, "am," but "act...."
You wanna trade places with a transsexual? You want the "job security" in this case, in exchange for what they go through? Not pleasant, not profitable....
Truean, I'd be curious to hear your take (and ein's, although she pretty much avoids this thread) on the whole "gender predilections in kids" thing we had going a couple pages back. Especially because I realized an unwelcome corollary to my insistence that it's mostly social conditioning is that it would actually provide ammo to people who want to argue that a kid can be "made" homosexual through social conditioning (and conversely could be 'conditioned' hetero).
Although I would note that this is not MY argument, merely a direction one could take the argument I was making. FWIW, I think personal preferences and interests, gender identity and sexual orientation are three very different things and that an overemphasis on social conditioning ignores the rather large contribution of individual personality.
I don't know. The same screwed up position that gives me my unique insight, robs me of a normal one.... I adamantly oppose the notion that kids can be made gay or straight, see above in this post. I desperately tried to be a straight male for years.... I had any and every social and other reason to be straight. Nopes, cannot work. Then there's all that "ex gay" scam which I have repeatedly denounced, and will happily do again, with pleasure.....