To say that living as a transgender American is difficult is probably an understatement. But with the national spotlight beaming down on you (not to mention press camera lights), it just plain “sucks,” according to Amanda Simpson.
She would know.
Simpson is the first openly transgender presidential appointee, and yesterday she began her job working at the U.S. Commerce Department.
This appointment has brought the attention of national media as Simpson was inundated by cameras and reporters on her first day.
It’s not the spotlight that bothers her most, though. The media has jumped on the notion that this is a political appointment designed to appease Obama’s liberal base; his track record with the gay community has been lackluster thus far.
Simpson says that she was hired on her merits rather than for some kind of political positioning.
As expected, the source of the arguments that Simpson’s appointment was purely political is Christian-right groups like Focus on the Family.
A spokeswoman for the group further argues that the appointment undermines “the most basic organization of social systems” — gender — and that it asks society to “radically reorder” the ways that we make “reasonable and rational accommodation for the two genders.”
Unwarranted attacks and prejudice aside, the fact that this appointment has attracted so much attention means that maybe Americans really do need to “radically reorder” the way they think about gender.
Because if a person can’t go to work without cameras, questions and criticism simply because of an issue of gender, then we are sorely lacking any kind of “rational accommodation.”
