Human Rights at Home and Abroad: Past, Present, and Future

members of the trans community can include electrolysis, breast binding, mastectomy, plastic surgery,
voice therapy, and hormone therapy (Namaste 2000).
“First You Die, and Then You Get Their Attention” (Bornstein 1994)
―Do a web search. Google will give you 9,080 hits for ‗transgender murder‘‖ (Muscio 2002).
The issue of violence against transgenderists is arguably the most pressing dilemma facing the trans
community, because it is not just a political matter, but literally a matter of life or death. Violence is a
very real threat to those who do not have the ability, or do not wish to pass, and especially to those who
successfully pass upon first glance, but are later detected as transgendered. Violence enacted against
transgendered people is often an attempt to police the gender presentation of the victim (Namaste 2000).
There is privilege associated with having a gender. When one is genderless, refuses to pass, or cannot
pass as a specific gender, they are denied this privilege. Those who do not adhere to the expectations of
one gender are often humiliated, mocked, sexualized, or otherwise victimized (Bornstein 1994).
If a transsexual does not ‗pass,‘ cissexuals often use it as an excuse to deny that person the
common decency of having their self-identified gender acknowledged or respected. Sometimes
cissexuals even use these situations as if they were an invitation to openly humiliate or abuse
transsexual (Serano 2007).
When FTMs are assaulted, for instance, rape is a routine part of the violence they endure.
This suggests that gender functions not merely as a cue to identify potential victims. FTMs
who are raped are told, through the act of sexual assault, that they are ‗really‘ women, and
will be treated as such. Biology is destiny (Namaste 2000).
In transgender support groups, it is common for members to use humor as a defense mechanism against
fear and anger rather than stoking those emotions in order to mobilize (Schrock et al. 2004). Group
members even discussed physical harassment and violence as a joke (Schrock et al. 2004). Passing is
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