Human Rights at Home and Abroad: Past, Present, and Future
Human Rights at Home and Abroad: Past, Present, and Future
Human Rights at Home and Abroad: Past, Present, and Future
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Taylor Roberts, Bloomsburg University<br />
The Passing Problem<br />
Framing Passing as the Prevention of Trans Community Mobiliz<strong>at</strong>ion<br />
Community has been defined by sociologists in terms of a common system of values <strong>and</strong>/or<br />
morals, distal proximity, <strong>and</strong> shared use of language, as well as other visible characteristics of individuals<br />
who adhere to the st<strong>and</strong>ards of the community. Because of the adoption of new forms of technology,<br />
these factors for community building are changing, but they still remain an important basis for<br />
community form<strong>at</strong>ion. The transgender community is a community th<strong>at</strong> has recently began to form <strong>and</strong> is<br />
therefore still realizing the implic<strong>at</strong>ions of imposing its values on members of the community. In this<br />
paper, I will assess the ways in which the enforcement of a binary interpret<strong>at</strong>ion of gender from forces<br />
inside <strong>and</strong> outside of the transgender community has neg<strong>at</strong>ively affected the form<strong>at</strong>ion of the inclusive<br />
transgender community necessary for mobiliz<strong>at</strong>ion <strong>and</strong> rights acquisition.<br />
Language <strong>and</strong> Definitions<br />
There is a boundless amount of language used by gender radicals to define themselves, <strong>and</strong> even<br />
within the community not all of the terms are fully realized. There are as many genders on this planet as<br />
there are people, <strong>and</strong> therefore there is an extensive set of vocabulary used to try to define the theoretical<br />
concept th<strong>at</strong> is each individual person‘s gender. Transgender is an umbrella term th<strong>at</strong> includes all people<br />
who transgress gender roles. Those who are transgender I will refer to as transgenderists or simply trans.<br />
Within the c<strong>at</strong>egory of transgender, there is a vast array of identities which have been adopted.<br />
Transsexual is a common term for a transgendered individual who either desires or has achieved a<br />
physical sex transform<strong>at</strong>ion. On a flyer for the Gender Identity Project th<strong>at</strong> was used in 1997, they include<br />
the following identific<strong>at</strong>ions, all of which fall under the umbrella of<br />
transgender: ―fem queen, male to female transsexual [MTF], female to male transsexual [FTM], drag<br />
queen, drag king, male of transexual experience, female of transexual experience, gender non-conformist,<br />
cross-dresser, etc. etc.‖ (Valentine 2007). There are gender radicals who reject the binary entirely. They<br />
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