This letter was published in The State News in the Wednesday 6 February 2002 edition, given by them the title, "Transgender clause needed for 'U' staff." Parts enclosed in square brackets [] were not used by the State News.
Editors
The State News
The recent article, "Groups discuss gender identity," (SN 2/1) seems to me to give the impression the protection of gender identity expression is primarily a student issue.
I would like to point out there have been transgender, transsex and intersex staff and faculty on the MSU campus for quite some time, though they generally keep a pretty low profile.
I don't know any staff or faculty member at MSU who has run into trouble when they have come out about gender identity issues, but I do know of cases where MSU's lack of such a policy seems to have been a factor in preventing people from coming to MSU to join the staff. [(I was one of the founders in 1995 of a trans support group that met on campus for many years and I have heard a number of stories.)]
The MSU anti-discrimination policy does include sexual orientation, but sexual orientation, per se, is invisible; it is variations from accepted or prescribed gender behavior that causes trouble for lesbian, gay and bisexual people.
It is not at all clear that a sexual orientation clause protects LGB people from all the forms of harassment they can and do receive because of the different ways in which they perform gender, and such a clause does little [if any] good for transgender, transsex or intersex people who may not identify as LGB or don't want to be seen as LGB.
As the article pointed out, many other institutions are adding the gender identity language to their anti-discrimination policies. If I had to make a choice, I'd certainly favor working at an institution that was heads up about this issue.
Lisa Lees
department of computer science and engineering analyst
[former systems analyst, CSE Department]