Rose is a Male-to-female (MtF) transgendered person, and she was correcting one of the misconceptions I had -- that transgenders are hassled at border checkpoints.

In very few Asian countries do governments permit transgenders to change their documentation to match their gender identity, sticking to the archaic anatomical definition of male and female. Even Singapore does not permit such a change in our identity cards and passports until a person has completed a series of sex-change operations. Many transgenders have not, or do not want to.

"But just in case," Daniel added, "we advise all transgenders to carry with them a doctor's letter saying they are transgender." If any question arises, that usually does the trick.

Daniel is one of those rare straight guys who speak up for transgenders.

Where transgenders face the most problems while growing up is in school, as I learnt in a forum organised by the group SgButterfly two years ago. Teachers are seldom sympathetic and schoolmates can be downright cruel in their bullying.

For 10 or more years of their lives, just using the toilet is terror. MtF students are compelled to use the boys' toilets, but the boys there will not leave them alone, demanding to look, climbing over partitions and repeating all sorts of vulgarities. Naturally, teachers are nowhere to be found, and even if they come to know of the ragging, they tend to locate the problem not in the boys' vigilante behaviour but in the lone MtF child's gender transgression: "Why can't you behave like a boy just like the others?"

The fact that escapes them however is that the child is not a boy, but a girl.

We too often use anatomy to define male and female without exception. But exceptions exist. There are individuals, perhaps one in 10,000, whose gender identity does not match their anatomy. Gender identity is a product of how our brains are wired; we each have a very deep, subconscious sense of being male or female. Very frequently, it coincides with our anatomy, to the point where many people think that it is our anatomy that makes us male or female. It is not. The rare condition of transgenderism shows us that gender identity and anatomical sex are independent attributes.

For an analogy, take albinism. Roughly 1 in 20,000 individuals exhibit this trait. They have no pigmentation, thus looking somewhat like the fairest Europeans with platinum blond hair. That doesn't make them European. They can be Chinese and identify as Chinese. At a social level, we know that singling them out for irrational discrimination, taunting or abuse is just not right.

Why the difference in the way people respond to albinos and transgenders? I think it boils down to awareness (we are more conscious about the sensitivity of race and ethnicity) and to the way we valorise sex roles and the power dynamics associated with sex.

Transgenders are subconsciously seen as either traitors or imposters to our sex. They  undermine the rationale for differing sex roles mandated by our culture and which are ultimately founded on beliefs regarding the essential differences in the nature of masculinity and men, and femininity and women. Transgenders are perceived to subvert our place in the power structure.

Teenage boys and young adults, for whom their self-identities are less secure than in the case of more mature persons (generally speaking) therefore tend to exhibit more aggressive behaviour towards trangressors. They compensate for their own insecurities about their own sexuality by enforcing sex roles on the latter.

Yet, that would oversimplify the issue, for adult teachers stand by unconcerned. And as the next story about Rio Moreno's experience shows, anyone from security guards to college deans can be the source of problems.

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Rio Moreno is an MtF transgender in the Philippines. On her identity papers her formal name is Leo Moreno, but she uses the name "Rio" instead, to better reflect her gender identity.

She has been a nursing student at the Emilio Aguinaldo Colleges since November 2006. By the time of the incident, she had completed five semesters without much trouble.

She dressed as a female nursing student "since there is no provision or item in the school handbook that forbid or disallow transgender student to wear any particular uniform," as she wrote in her open letter.

On 30 June 2008, she had some difficulty swiping her ID card through the gate and sought assistance from a security guard. After helping her gain access, he glanced at her card and asked why her name was "Leo". She ignored the question.

A week later, she was called to the Nursing Department's Dean's Office where a Ms. Dumadag (Dean of Nursing) and a Mr. Boquiron (Dean of the Office of Student's Affairs) immediately accused her of having submitted fraudulent documents 3 years earlier for admission to the school. Rio protested that all the documents were authentic which indeed they were.

Still, according to Rio, the officers persisted in their "insinuations and harsh words" and demanded that she should henceforth wear what is prescribed for boys/men "or else I would be given disciplinary action."

She wrote to the President of the school, a Mr Campos, but despite speaking with his secretary a few times, was unable to get an appointment with him. In the meantime, she had been skipping school, because the security guards would not admit her until she dressed as a man.

You can read her open letter here or here.

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How is it that immigration officers tend not to hassle but private security guards and college deans can be such a pain? It is explained, I think, by organisation and control.

When private citizens wield power however, they can be petty tyrants, enforcing their private prejudices. No shortage of misery in this world is caused by people believing they are maintaining proper order when in fact they are just flattering their egos, flexing their power, showing who's boss in the little patch that they control. 

© Yawning Bread