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I'm not sure if that is meant to be serious or not. However, I have a feeling that the institutions you mention would probably track down and persecute transpeople perfectly efficiently even if transitioning was not commonly communicated.
It was indeed intended seriously, but rather hastily written and badly conveyed. Basically, I mean that with many forms of discrimination, "neutral" is the default position and exposure of minority groups doesn't necessarily mean greater acceptance. Racism's presumably the easiest example; though it's impossible to answer the question, "Is racism innate?" I think one would be hard pressed to claim that people's natural reaction to others with a different skin tone to their own would be as bad as the "average" reaction of someone, say, forty years ago or, arguably, even now. Surely this could be attributed to "negative exposure"?
What people's "natural" reaction to those with sexualities other than straight (i.e. what their reaction would be on coming across such a person without any prior knowledge) would be is perhaps a little more difficult to judge. However, There have been, and I think still are, societies where sexuality was/is barely an issue or not an issue at all. Is this the default position, or is the level of homo- (or whatever-) phobia present in our society natural, with these societies being examples of places where people have actually been conditioned to accept varying sexualities?
And "one further", transness; the average reaction here in the UK is still of shock and horror, but is this a "natural reaction" or a reaction caused by what media coverage the subject receives? From what I gather, in Thailand transpeople are accepted as the gender as which they present themselves, whether they are able to "pass" or not. Again, the default position, or due to transexposure in the country?
Of course, unless one were able to test reactions of a large group of completely unconditioned people (except, of course, such people presumably wouldn't even have any concepts of gender, so...), it's impossible to tell.
As to whether "the institutions I mention" would track down and persecute transpeople regardless of exposure: would they? Would they see it as an issue? And surely if you're referring to the media, how "commonly communicated" the issue is would depend on whether or not they did track transpeople down.
Perhaps because of the sensationalist nature of the press, their default position on any "deviant" behaviour will automatically be extremely right-wing, and therefore the first exposure in the media of any issue such as transness will always be negative, regardless of what the "natural reaction" of the public would be. Par exemple, while an "average unconditioned person" might react neutrally to discovery of different sexualities, press reporting it for the first time may be much more predisposed to take a Shock Horror attitude. And therefore perhaps time and greater debate will always be required for the reporting of any such matter to shift towards a more liberal view.
Does all that make sense?
Whereas, in a perverse sort of a way, this is somehow a forward step, since, although a rather depressing one; after all, Sky and Endemol felt that there would be a worthwhile audience, even if that audience was watching out of prurience - that is, that he audience would not be so disgusted as to avoid it, and thus damage advertising sales.
Mmm... I'm not sure that follows. If a program about the gay scene depicted those involved as baby-sacrificing monsters, the fact that people tuned in to watch it certainly wouldn't mean a "forward step" in acceptance, just because the public weren't so disgusted by the mere thought of queerness as to avoid a program about it.
Our Lady of..., I don't follow your reasoning. If the court were to rule this as sexual assault, surely it would be on the grounds that what appeared to be consensual was not because the consent was based on false pretenses. In the case of rape, there is no apparent consent to begin with.
Do I understand that you seriously believe the men are justified in their claim?
So if she turned out to be wearing a wig, could they scream, "Argh, sexual assault! I didn't consent to sexual contact with a girl wearing a wig!"... or if she had prosthetic breasts, "Argh, sexual assault! I didn't consent to sexual contact with someone without *real* breasts!"...
... Or if she was post-op? "Argh, sexual assault! I didn't consent to sexual contact with someone who wasn't *born* with that genitalia!"
Claim that these "lads" could legitimately cry sexual assault based on something they didn't know about the girl in question, and you're on very, very dodgy ground indeed. |
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