Courtesy and common sense
The situation comedy “Barney Miller” premiered in 1975, detailing activities occurring almost exclusively in a New York City detective squad room in a fictional Greenwich Village police precinct.
In that debut season, the ninth episode involved a male actor whose character, Al Schreiber, a truck-driving former Marine who earned a Silver Star and two Purple Hearts during World War II, was arrested for dressing as a woman.
When Al was charged with the “unspecified misdemeanor” of “wearing a disguise” in public, he lamented to arresting detective Stanley Wojohowitz: “I wasn’t bothering anybody.”
Wojo responded: “The law prohibits anyone from attempting to conceal his identity.” Al replied: “I’m not hiding anything.” He wasn’t. Al never denied his sex. He simply didn’t conform to bien-pensant norms. The apt message of the show was that everyone is entitled to a zone of autonomy, regardless of convention.
The evolution of this half-century-old lesson of respectfulness from “Barney Miller,” however, has gone for some from tolerance to imposition—from that zone of autonomy, paradoxically, to demanding governmental participation in claimed-private activities.
While the state shouldn’t compel how people present to the world, the law must demand that we interact accurately with government. Removing the gender-neutral X option from driver’s licenses’ sex categories, as was just done in Arkansas, strikes that proper balance.
Joe Johnson, a spokesperson for Central Arkansas Pride, which organized a rally outside the state Capitol to protest this change, said: “That’s a big issue because it puts people in a situation that might affect their safety, their social well-being, their ability to cash checks, open bank accounts and travel … It’s going to create situations where it may put that transgender individual in a position where they have to be forced to out themselves, explain their life. And frankly, that’s dehumanizing.”
The problem with this claim is that it’s hard to believe in two dimensions. First, for years, transgender individuals—just like the cisgendered—were required to designate a biological sex on their state identification. Yet these transgender individuals still got bank accounts, cashed checks, and traveled based on those IDs just fine. The mistreatment transgender individuals suffered wasn’t at the hands of the banking system or airline industry.
Second, the broader assertion about forced outing and safety incorrectly presupposes that: a. transgender identity is generally hidden in the first instance, and b. that it somehow remains hidden—to the extent it was—after a transgender individual voluntarily chooses the X descriptor explicitly designed to, well, disclose non-cisgender status.
Thus, in reality, the complaint isn’t about compulsory disclosure, but rather the opposite—the inability to proclaim one’s gender identity on a driver’s license. However, nothing prevents transgender individuals from choosing to volunteer their gender identity when presenting government identification. (In fact, holders of concealed-carry licenses don’t even have that option; they’re obligated to disclose their firearm and license status when providing their driver’s licenses to police.)
At the rally, Keon Anderson, CEO of the Be Youuu organization, said, “Our rights have been taken away as far as what they did [earlier last month] . . . . So that’s why we’re here . . . We want our rights back. I want [an ID] that fits my identity. Nobody should take that right away from us.”
But the category on the license doesn’t reflect gender identity. The selection records biological sex. And nobody can deny that gender and sex differ for transgender individuals. That’s literally what the “trans” in transgender means.
Also, what’s Anderson’s source for the alleged right not to provide one’s biological sex on a driver’s license? Driving is considered a privilege, after all. How can it be that one has a right to choose how to identify on a required-identity card for a privileged status? (Answer: it can’t.)
Too often, claims to rights have become hackneyed and cartoonish. Don’t like some government action? Assert a “rights” violation. But merely disfavoring government behavior doesn’t make for infringed entitlements.
State House Democratic leader Tippi McCullough of Little Rock declared, “The LGBTplus community, especially the transgender and nonbinary community, is under attack nearly every time these doors [of the Capitol] open.”
McCullough would do well to dial down the histrionics. They’re not accurate, and they don’t help. (That’s not to say that some conservatives couldn’t also communicate kindlier about the LGBT community.)
Rally attendee Raheem White said, “It is about the right of every individual to define themselves on their own terms.”
This is simply untrue. Driver’s licenses aren’t dating profiles. Biological sex appears on official documents precisely because it is a highly identifying, objective characteristic—like age, race, eye color and height. Drivers don’t determine any of these attributes. Otherwise, they wouldn’t serve the distinguishing function provided by their mandatory inclusion.
“Barney Miller’s” Al should not have been arrested for wearing a dress or required to don a sign disclaiming female identity. But when confronted by the police, Al did exactly what he should have done—properly identified himself.
All people deserve to be treated respectfully. But ceasing to describe biological sex as the nonexistent X—rather than male or female—on official identifications isn’t disrespectful. It’s common sense.
This is your right to know.