Transsexual wins lawsuit against Library of Congress

[Buzz]

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A former Army commander who underwent a sex change operation was discriminated against by the U.S. government, a federal judge ruled Friday in an important victory for transgenders claiming bias in the workplace.

Diane Schroer won her federal lawsuit against the Library of Congress after officials backed out of a 2005 job offer when told of her intention to become a transsexual. At the time of the job interview for a position as a senior terrorism research analyst, David Schroer was a male. He had been a onetime Army Special Forces commander.

U.S. District Court Judge James Robinson said Schroer's civil rights were violated.

"The evidence established that the Library was enthusiastic about hiring David Schroer -- until she disclosed her transsexuality," Robinson wrote. "The Library revoked the offer when it learned that a man named David intended to become, legally, culturally and physically, a woman named Diane. This was discrimination 'because of ... sex.' "

The judge will later rule on what financial damages Schroer is due.

"It is especially gratifying that the court has ruled that discriminating against someone for transitioning is illegal," said Schroer in a statement from the ACLU, which represented her in court.

"I knew all along that the 25 years of experience I gained defending our country didn't disappear when I transitioned, so it was hard to understand why I was being turned down for a job doing what I do best just because I'm transgender. It is tremendously gratifying to have your faith in this country, and what is fundamentally right and fair, be reaffirmed."

After Schroer had retired from the military, she applied for a job at the Library of Congress. Court records show that Schroer, then a male, took her future boss to lunch to outline her transition to a female, as she planned to present herself as a female on her first day of the job.

Schroer testified that on the day after the lunch, the job offer was rescinded, and she was told she wasn't a "good fit" for the library.

The ACLU said the ruling sends a "loud and clear" message to employers against firing or refusing to hire someone for changing their gender.

There was no immediate reaction from the library, which had claimed at trial that transgender people are not covered under federal anti-discrimination laws.

The case is Schroer v. Billington (Cv-05-1090).

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/09/19/transsexual.discrimination/index.html

[Jim Beaux]

It's difficult to know whether to cheer or lament over this.

Obviously, if the ruling stands and is applied in other cases, it's a major step forward.

However, that in 2005 a body such as the Library of Congress should first turn down a successful applicant for being TS, then defend the case on what boils down to ' it's OK to discriminate against transsexuals ' suggests that there is still a very long road to travel.

[sass]

Well, laws and legals precedents like this do not prevent "discrimination" from happening. They are just there as remedies when discrimination takes place.

To use an analogy, rape happens even though there's law or no law.

At best, legal actions use the punishment and reward tactic to influence people's behavior; but this tactic can never fundamentally change the situation as the change is forced up externally. Legal order may "repress" unwanted behaviors but can never eliminate them. Real change, as the cliche goes, happens internally.

1. If prejudice and bigotry are deeply-ingrained firing of neurons, then it takes a total change or elimination of this pattern in the brain.

2. If prejudice and bigotry are deeply-ingrained aspects of our DNA, then it takes a mutation to change this.

3. If prejudice and bigotry are "thought patterns", then it takes a mind shift to change it.

:-)

[sass]

Well, laws and legals precedents like this do not prevent "discrimination" from happening. They are just there as remedies when discrimination takes place.

To use an analogy, rape happens even though there's law or no law.

At best, legal actions use the punishment and reward tactic to influence people's behavior; but this tactic can never fundamentally change the situation as the change is forced. Legal order may "repress" unwanted behaviors but can never eliminate them. Real change, as the cliche goes, happens internally.

1. If prejudice and bigotry are deeply-ingrained firing of neurons, then it takes a total change or elimination of this pattern in the brain.

2. If prejudice and bigotry are deeply-ingrained aspects of our DNA, then it takes a mutation to change this.

3. If prejudice and bigotry are "thought patterns", then it takes a mind shift to change it.

:-)

[Jim Beaux]

Well, laws and legals precedents like this do not prevent "discrimination" from happening. They are just there as remedies when discrimination takes place.

To use an analogy, rape happens even though there's law or no law.

At best, legal actions use the punishment and reward tactic to influence people's behavior; but this tactic can never fundamentally change the situation as the change is forced. Legal order may "repress" unwanted behaviors but can never eliminate them. Real change, as the cliche goes, happens internally.

1. If prejudice and bigotry are deeply-ingrained firing of neurons, then it takes a total change or elimination of this pattern in the brain.

2. If prejudice and bigotry are deeply-ingrained aspects of our DNA, then it takes a mutation to change this.

3. If prejudice and bigotry are "thought patterns", then it takes a mind shift to change it.

:-)

There are certain differences M-F that are not going to change. Males are generally bigger, heavier and stronger and this physical inequality powers a lot of the prejudice/bigotry in the world.

My army is bigger than your army. I'll invade, because I can.
I'm bigger than you. So I'll rape, because I can.

I was watching a programme about what life was like for a particular peasant woman in England's middle ages (Around 1300AD). Women did not inherit property or land when their husband or father died - it reverted to the state or the Church. To set a daughter up, a father had to gift ownership of the property/land during his life. Ditto a husband had to formally invest ownership in his wife whilst he was still alive.

The programme pointed out that this did not change until the law was revised in Victorian times.

The law doesn't prevent crimes, it defines them. But the law also is, in essence, a statement of what society sees as (reasonable and) unreasonable
behaviour.

And while it takes more than the law to change things at grass roots, getting corporate USA up to the levels of Europe/Canada would definitely be progress.

[Ecstatic]

Great observations by both of you, Jim and Sass! Good to see intelligence and refined sensibility at work.

[Genaroz]

I think the most important part of the trial was how the court ruled. The Government lawyers charged that Transgendered Person were not covered specifically under the discrimination act however the court ruled in the plaintiffs favor site that it did not have to be spelled out as part of the language of the bill. This case could have far reaching implication in a positive was throughout the transgendered community. This case means the word IMPLIES does not have to mean SPECIFIC in order to prove discrimination.

[sass]

The law doesn't prevent crimes, it defines them. But the law also is, in essence, a statement of what society sees as (reasonable and) unreasonable
behaviour.

And while it takes more than the law to change things at grass roots, getting corporate USA up to the levels of Europe/Canada would definitely be progress.

Well, that's definitely what the law does best, "a statement of what society sees as (reasonable and) unreasonable behaviour."

But of course, the law is definitely needed as remedy and as a "motivating" factor to direct behaviour in a particular way. Yet I am afraid, the law can only change behaviour that are similar to a "red light=stop green light=go" type of behaviour but when it comes to attitudes towards people the law cannot change it.

A fundamental shift in behaviour/thought pattern takes a long time to happen, perhaps a change of generation is needed. Remember the world used to think that the world is flat, declaring otherwise means death.

The question is how we can have this "fundamental shift".

I read an article from Financial Times, a study done by the Level Playing Field. That despite, anti-discrimination laws and diversity initiatives of corporations in America, discrimination is still rampant BUT it has taken a different guise - it's no longer blatant, it has taken much subtle yet a more powerful force.

:-)

[Jim Beaux]

Remember the world used to think that the world is flat, declaring otherwise means death.
:-)

Side issue. Technically, the above isn't accurate. I've been reading an interesting debate in a Catholic Church forum that touches on this.

At the time that most Europeans believed the world was flat, Arab/Muslim scholars had already calculated the radius and circumference of the Earth.

Around 1000AD Granada (Spain) was the largest city in Europe (possibly in the world, but I don't know that for a fact). They had theoretical (libraries) and applied (eg sanitation, medicine) knowledge that Christian Europe didn't catch up on until the Renaissance.

[sass]

I stand corrected.

Actually, I've also read in an essay of Umberto Eco in Serendipities that the world didn't generally believe that the world is flat. Pagans believed that the world is round, so does Ptolemy. And interestingly, Eco reports that in Andrew Dickson White's History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, even St Augustine, Albertus Magnus, and St Aquinas, who represented the dominant theological thought at that time, very well know that the world is spherical.

Interestingly, though this is a digression from the main topic, we can see here that patterns of human thought - even for or against something - sustain itself even though what is being perceived is not the same as the interpretation of the perception. And this is important to note as, most often than not (I'm not sure) it is not perception that guides action but the interpretation of the perception.

Interpretation are, of course, informed by our biases/prejudice/former though patterns. And this is of course at work in the issue of discrimination. Can the law eliminate thought patterns (which of course guide behaviour)?
I say, that the law can suppress the expression of a particular thought pattern and therefore human action BUT it can never stop it from being expressed.

Yet people change, of course; we are just stuck in a particular way of thinking (and therefore doing)... But that's the point unless people change - institutions, society, a country, a corporation - and all those that flow from human interaction will remain the same... :-)

[sass]

I stand corrected.

Actually, I've also read in an essay of Umberto Eco in Serendipities that the world didn't generally believe that the world is flat. Pagans believed that the world is round, so does Ptolemy. And interestingly, Eco reports that in Andrew Dickson White's History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, even St Augustine, Albertus Magnus, and St Aquinas, who represented the dominant theological thought at that time, very well know that the world is spherical.

Interestingly, though this is a digression from the main topic, we can see here that patterns of human thought - even for or against something - sustain itself even though what is being perceived is not the same as the interpretation of the perception. And this is important to note as, most often than not (I'm not sure) it is not perception that guides action but the interpretation of the perception.

Interpretations are, of course, informed by our biases/prejudice/former though patterns. And this is of course at work in the issue of discrimination. Can the law eliminate thought patterns (which of course guide behaviour)?
I say, that the law can suppress the expression of a particular thought pattern and therefore human action BUT it can never stop it from being expressed.

Yet people change, of course; we are just stuck in a particular way of thinking (and therefore doing)... But that's the point unless people change - institutions, society, a country, a corporation - and all those that flow from human interaction will remain the same... :-)

[Jim Beaux]

I stand corrected.


Sass,
I didn't mean this bit as a correction. I just wanted to slice it off so we can focus on the core.

I've been thinking more about the points raised and I'd like to see if I can note more precisely exactly what this should change and what it shouldn't. But to try to paint a decent picture I think I need time for some detailed consideration.

Regards,
Jim

[Ecstatic]

Sass I must say I basically agree with you. I think it often takes a generational change to really shift behavior on a large scale--perhaps even several generations. Punishing bad behavior (such as getting ticketed for running a red light) can reinforce good behavior, but may not change the underlying motivations. These take longer to change. Eventually, they do change: here in America, as recently as my teen years (mid-1960s), it was illegal in many states for blacks and whites to marry, and many laws were on the books to enforce that socially ingrained system, to the degree that the Tracey/Hepburn/Portier movie "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" and Janis Ian's pop song "Society's Child" were considered shocking.

Yet today, such ideas are considered (by most, not all) as truly antiquatedand repulsive. Yet here we are, fighting the same battle again, this time over same sex marriage (go Massachusetts and California). In fact, Massachusetts just overturned the heinous 1913 law preventing marriage in the state by couples whose marriage would not be allowed in their own state. Set up as a bulwark against interracial marriage, it was forgotten for decades until the legalization of same sex marriage a few years ago. Now it has been struck from the books.

Side Note: Actually it was Eratosthenes of Cyrene (Greek mathematician who lived from 276 BC - 194 BC) who first calculated the circumference of the Earth--and remarkably within 1% tolerance. Chief librarian at the great library of Alexandria, he observed that, on the summer solstice, the sun was directly overhead at noon in the Egyptian city of Swenet (known in Greek as Syene), which lay on the Tropic of Cancer. Knowing, from measurement, that in Alexandria (950 km north) the angle of elevation of the Sun would be 1/50 of a full circle (7°12') south of the zenith at the same time and assuming that Alexandria was due north of Syene, he concluded that the distance from Alexandria to Syene must be 1/50 of the total circumference of the Earth. based on an approximate value of 700 stadia per degree, he concluded that the circumference of the Earth was 252,000 stadia or 39,690 km (within 1% of the actual). He also is credited with first devising a system of latitude and longitude and the tilt of the earth's axis (again with remarkable accuracy).

The major break in the Renaissance was not the discovery that the world is round, but rather that the Earth is not at the center of the universe. The Ptolemic system, which dominated European thought for some 1500 years, held that the Earth was at the center and that all celestial bodies rotated in fixed spheres at varying distances from the Earth. Ptolemy, who lived in the first and second centuries AD, had devised a system which accounted for all then observable astronomical phenomena, and it was not until Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler that his system was disproved, first with a heliocentric system, then with what has evolved as our contemporary astronomical system of the expanding universe.

[Jim Beaux]

Sass,

There is too much being mixed in together so I’d like to see if it can be teased out into separate strands.

1. Thought patterns/bigotry/perceptions.

The legal ruling in itself will only change things in one fairly limited area. In general, people generally bigoted against TS (etc) will remain so.

Examples – (Absolute)Carla detained at Hong Kong airport; UK decriminalises homosexuality in 1968 and it takes until 2008 to get a gay judge at the top level; I’m reading one TS activist engaging in debate with the Catholic Church.

Time spans for change seem to be lifetime to centuries in this area.

2. Practical improvements.

2.1 Corporate USA

The biggest businesses are making big improvements as The Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index.

Yes, problems of discrimination still remain. See http://www.tgirltalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4651 (http://www.tgirltalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4651) for recent statistics.

I’d see ‘right to sue’ pushing change through faster, and extending it further down into companies outside the very biggest.

(The education/training that goes with these programmes is the only perception change I can see from the judgement.)

In medium/small companies, I suspect the judgement will have limited impact, due to the small percentage of TS in the workforce.

2.2 US Military

I don’t think this will alter in the slightest and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell will remain a major obstacle.

While http://www.tgirltalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4651 (http://www.tgirltalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4651) shows quite positive results in on-line US citizens, I suspect the military and less well-off USA is likely to prove very difficult to change.

2.3 Government – local/Federal

US representatives of tgt can correct me on this if I’ve got it wrong here. But is seems to me the current judgement is massive in this area. If the judgement stands and if it has wide application then it appears to be a sea change in this area. For example, the Orlando city manager who was fired (around 15months ago after many years of successful work) on the basis of transitioning would also have the right to redress.

3. In Summary.

I agree the judgement will change attitudes and behaviour only by an inconsequential amount.

But unless it gets overturned, in practical terms it is a landmark.

PS I consider Genaroz hit the nail on the head on this one.

Regards,
Jim

:)

[sass]

Sass,
" (Absolute)Carla detained at Hong Kong airport"

Actually it isn't just Carla who has been detained at the Hong Kong Airport. All the members of the Society of Transsexual Women of the Philippines (STRAP) who have been to Hong Kong has been subjected to this rigid airport security already. The latest is our Chairperson. (I have been detained twice; and been subjected to a humiliating scrutiny while exiting Hong kong).

STRAP is already taking action and raising this to the Chief Immigration Officer as well as to the Embassy of China here in the Philippines. We are presenting 6 cases to them - one of them had an element of sexual harassment.

Rumor has it that HK is subjecting TS women from the Philippines (perhaps also from Thailand) into this rigid airport scrutiny because they are preventing the entry of TS sex workers in Hong Kong.

We'll see what will happen here as STRAP stands up...

[sass]

Sass,
I didn't mean this bit as a correction. I just wanted to slice it off so we can focus on the core.

I've been thinking more about the points raised and I'd like to see if I can note more precisely exactly what this should change and what it shouldn't. But to try to paint a decent picture I think I need time for some detailed consideration.

Regards,
Jim


:-) Hihihi...this is the problem with the typed word.... :-) If you're going to hear it live from me, it will sound nothing serious....It will sound just a little funny self-deprecating humor... :-) :-)

[Jim Beaux]

:-) Hihihi...this is the problem with the typed word.... :-) If you're going to hear it live from me, it will sound nothing serious....It will sound just a little funny self-deprecating humor... :-) :-)

Sass,
No problemo.

It's just that I've seen threads start off focussed on an important TS issue and get sidetracked on debate about something that really isn't related. I simply wanted to ring-fence the round Earth debate.

Sorry to hear the HK airport issue is systemic. Best wishes with a resolution.
Regards,
Jim