The Transgender Trap?

The next time high school seniors apply for admission to Harvard, they may well find a third box next to the traditional options of male and female. Instead of being asked to define themselves within the normal binary, the high school seniors will be able to choose to define themselves as a bit of both. Of course, at that point, the issue may be moot: the students may choose none of the three, pushing aside the crimson application in favor of the simple male/female boxes in the blue and white application delivered from New Haven. Either way, I'd love to see their facial expressions when they and their parents are first introduced to Harvard's pioneering experiment in "transgenderism."

The proponents of an Undergraduate Council (UC) resolution calling both for Harvard's non-discrimination policy and for the UC's constitution to be amended to include transgendered persons cannot declare victory yet. Those who support the resolution will have significant bureaucratic obstacles to overcome before transgenderism is accepted as official Harvard University policy; our administration, despite its liberal leanings, will hopefully find the transgender resolution to be misguided.

Opponents of the UC's transgenderism resolution are right on a number of practical grounds. Because of the logistical havoc that will ensue as a result of accepting the resolution, legislating transgenderism at Harvard must be opposed. The transgenderism resolution before the UC would make the status of transgendered students so ambiguous as to present numerous complications in situations where the biological distinction between males and females is of great importance. Let me enumerate some examples of the inevitable and utterly impractical repercussions.

How is transgenderism likely to impact the fragility, intimacy, and privacy which we associate with rooming groups? Is there a possibility that biological males considering themselves to be females could be randomly assigned to a roommate who is decidedly female in every sense of the word? Will the two new roommates be expected to share the same bathrooms? (The same can be said for a biological female who considers herself to be a male and who is randomly assigned to a biological male who is in no way female. The sheer complexity of the preceding sentence should indicate the semantic confusion that transgenderism creates.)

And what of sports teams? Should a man who claims to have had a gender change of heart the day before the tennis tournament be entitled to play on the women's team? If Harvard, in the spirit of iconoclasm, decides to interfere with the healthy separation which allows athletes of each sex to compete against members of their same sex, would this be acceptable to other NCAA-affiliated universities?

There is an element of mordant irony about the liberal transgenderism resolution in that it may be the secret weapon to achieving the fairness and quality which Harvard conservatives seek. (By "fairness" and "equality," I mean equal opportunity in the unadulterated sense of the term--no special preferences for anyone, for any reason.) The first time a Radcliffe organization receives a scholarship application from someone who is a biological male but who considers himself to be a female, the conservative fight for equality will have been won. Radcliffe will finally be called upon to reconsider its exclusively female career, scholarship, and internship opportunities, finding itself struggling to tread in the midst of the transgender quagmire. Radcliffe's worst nightmare will be realized--they will have to give money to a "Harvard man." (Again, with this reasoning, conservatives might reconsider the decision not to embrace transgenderism with open arms. In spite of this seemingly strange shift in ideological alliance, the ambiguities of transgenderism could be interpreted to benefit conservative goals. Wouldn't it be interesting if one of the effects of accepting transgender as a valid category would be the granting of Radcliffe honors to a physical man.)

Radcliffe, I have discovered, is itself "transgendered" in some sense. Once Harvard's sister institution, its relationship to Harvard and its "gender," so to speak, is now no longer so clearly defined. Deprived of Radcliffe's sisterly love, we are likewise deprived of its fraternity, for, while it cannot be considered a "sister" institution, it can neither be considered a "brother" institution, catering exclusively as it does, only to Harvard females. Radcliffe finds itself, therefore, in the ambiguous and uncomfortable noman's (or no-woman's) land of transgendered confusion.

It strikes me as both funny and frightening that individuals who consider themselves to be liberal would have sent hate mail to Stephen J. Mitby '99, an outspoken opponent of the resolution. It is funny because liberals traditionally pride themselves on tolerance of and respect for opposing on tolerance of and respect for opposing view-points and for a commitment to open-mindedness. It is scary because of the mailer's juvenile effort at intimidation and attempt to stifle free debate. Free speech, dialogue, and interchange in the "marketplace of ideas" are the very foundation of the liberal canon. What would John Stuart Mill have said? (My personal message to the not-so-intellectual hate-mailers, politics aside, is to learn the subtle difference between the ancient Buddhist symbol which they drew and the swastika which they tried to draw.)

In discussing the intricacy of the transgenderism debate and the slippery slope towards which it is unavoidably heading, participants must at all times act with the sensitivity that the topic of transgenderism and that the individuals it affects deserve. Tolerance and sensitivity should be non-partisan ideals to be embraced by conservatives and liberals, alike.

Opponents of the transgenderism resolution must be mindful of the tactics they use. It would be a tremendous shame for the resolution to be passed only because of its opponent's political ineptitude. Those who speak out against the resolution must be warned against falling victim to self-strangulating rhetoric when practicality and true political correctness are on their side. Remember now--practicality and not morality is the watchword.

Invoking morality as an argument against the resolution or referring to the lifestyle of people who choose to consider themselves transgendered as "detrimental," as some have done, is likely to accomplish little, apart from being hurtful and politically unwise. These tactics assuredly will not rally the sort of opposition to the resolution that is so warranted, however justified the opponents feel they may be in using this approach.

Defining what exactly a transgendered person is, is but the very beginning of a whole host of problems. Transgenderism is a case of good intentions gone awry. The solution to the problem is for the UC to temper its debates with rationality and common sense if it is to earn the legitimacy it craves from all Harvard students--particularly those who have yet to apply.

Justin C. Danilewitz '99 is a Crimson editor and a resident of Currier House.