{"id":10672,"date":"2010-06-28T21:32:50","date_gmt":"2010-06-29T02:32:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=10672"},"modified":"2010-08-24T14:00:48","modified_gmt":"2010-08-24T19:00:48","slug":"trans-formation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2010\/06\/trans-formation\/","title":{"rendered":"Trans-formation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A year ago, President Barack Obama issued a proclamation<\/a> naming June \u201cLesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Pride Month.\u201d\u00a0 The proclamation effectively incorporated the transgendered community into President Bill Clinton\u2019s 2000 proclamation<\/a>,<\/strong> which named June \u201cGay & Lesbian Pride Month.\u201d\u00a0 In honor of the transgendered community, their legal rights, and the month of June, it seems appropriate to discuss gender identity discrimination and the infamous \u201ctrans panic defense.\u201d<\/p>\n

The overall struggle that transgender people face is similar to the struggle that gays and lesbians face, but for transgender people, the progressive change for their legal rights seems to be slower. \u00a0Currently, in 38 states<\/a> it is still legal to discriminate based on gender identity. \u00a0Comparatively, 30 states<\/a> have not yet developed laws against sexual orientation discrimination.\u00a0 Wisconsin was the first state to ban employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, and it did so in 1982.\u00a0 However, as of yet, it has not created equal legislation regarding gender identity.<\/p>\n

Discrimination based on gender identity is more commonplace than most people realize.\u00a0 According to the Human Rights Campaign<\/a>, transgendered individuals suffer from a wide array of injustice including hate crimes, work place discrimination, housing discrimination, credit discrimination, public accommodation discrimination, and even health care discrimination:<\/p>\n

[F]emale-to-male transsexual Robert Eads of rural Georgia developed cervical cancer but [he] could not find a doctor to treat him. Twenty simply refused to do so. \u00a0He eventually found one more than 130 miles from home, but by then, Eads\u2019 partner said, it was \u201cjust too late.\u201d He died in 1999.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even in the states that have established anti-discrimination gender identity laws, the fight for equal treatment in the workplace is not a closed book.\u00a0 Organizations like the Traditional Values Coalition (TVC) continue to advocate against<\/a> the protection for transgender individuals on the basis that schools would be required to keep teachers who undergo sex changes.\u00a0 \u00a0TVC argues that children should not be \u201csubjected to [a transgendered] man\u2019s bizarre sexual transformation,\u201d as it claims transgender individuals are \u201cseriously mentally disturbed,\u201d despite psychological studies<\/a> that say otherwise.<\/p>\n

One \u00a0blog post<\/a> offered the conservative estimate that transgendered individuals are over ten times more likely to be murdered than individuals of the general population.\u00a0 The \u201ctrans panic defense\u201d\u2014a variation on the classics of insanity, diminished capacity, provocation, and self-defense \u2013has been introduced as a means to justify, or at least excuse, some of these murders. \u00a0Cousin to the \u201ctrans panic defense\u201d is the \u201cgay panic defense<\/a>,\u201d which was used in the case involving the high profile murder of Matthew Shepard.\u00a0 Both defenses are built around the psychological phenomenon called homosexual panic<\/a>. Psychiatrist Edward J. Kempf in 1920, who coined the phenomenon, described it as an acute, brief reactive psychosis suffered by the target of unwanted advances by homosexual or transgendered individuals.<\/p>\n

The phenomenon and its subsequent legal defense seem ludicrous on a number of grounds.\u00a0 First, it is troublesome that as legal defenses they seem to reinforce and promote negative stereotypes about homosexual and transgendered individuals as sexual deviants and sexual predators. Second, they are unsettling because the defenses seek to substantiate a subconscious bias in favor of heteronormativity, which is prevalent in today\u2019s hetero-centric society. Lastly, a disturbing analogous defense comes to mind. Should there be a similar justification for unwanted or unsolicited flirting with women by heterosexual men, and what would that mean for the male population?\u00a0 The last critique is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but the point remains that this phenomenon gives an unbelievable amount of legal weight to what might be a simple come-on.<\/p>\n

By and large, as this blog has acknowledged, jurisdictions across the US are progressively restricting the use of the \u201cinsanity defense<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 Thus, a call for the elimination of the \u201ctrans panic defense\u201d in cases concerning mental defect might be unnecessary.\u00a0 But the insanity defense is only half of the issue.\u00a0 These defenses, when tied to claims of provocation, have been relatively successful<\/a>.\u00a0 The use of the \u201cgay panic defense<\/a>\u201d and the \u201ctrans panic defense<\/a>\u201d in the judicial system show no real signs of going away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A year ago, President Barack Obama issued a proclamation naming June \u201cLesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Pride Month.\u201d\u00a0 The proclamation effectively incorporated the transgendered community into President Bill Clinton\u2019s 2000 proclamation, which named June \u201cGay & Lesbian Pride Month.\u201d\u00a0 In honor of the transgendered community, their legal rights, and the month of June, it seems […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[98,30,33,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-rights","category-criminal-justice","category-labor-employment-law","category-wisconsin","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10672\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}