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By Marlene Barajas / Staff Writer
( ABC)
By Marlene Barajas / Staff Writer
As society continues to evolve and adapt, our culture still refuses to accommodate certain subcultures like goths, atheists, gays, lesbians, and transgenders.
This struggle for acceptance is seen in the situation regarding Chaz Bono, formally known as Chastity Sun Bono. After undergoing a series of operations and hormonal changes, Bono biologically transformed himself from a female to a male, thus making him a transgender.
Recent news of his choice to perform with a female dance partner on ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” has caused a huge commotion. The controversy surrounding Bono’s choice demonstrates this country’s ignorance and lack of acceptance for those whose appearance are socially incompatible to that of their own.
Conservative American’s counter-arguments are based solely on the sexual deviance they consider an immoral crime, according to their standards.
“If a person came to me tattooed as a zebra, I’m not going to have my kids watch a show in which people pretend to be farm animals,” Fox News contributor Keith Ablow said in an interview on the Howard Stern show.
This exposes just how bigoted and narrow-minded some are in regard to this topic.
Some have argued that “Dancing with the Stars” is a family-friendly show and that Bono’s performance would be substandard because it would supposedly convince children to become transgender.
This reasoning, however, is flawed in that their main argument has been discredited by John Oldham, President of the American Psychiatric Association.
“There is no evidence that viewing a television show with a transgender contestant would induce Gender Identity Disorder in young people,” Oldham said in his research.
According to Piaget’s stages of cognitive development, children between the ages of four to seven are in their preoperational stage, in which a child’s thought is irrational.
Children at this stage tend to have difficulty understanding life from any other perspective than their own.
Because they are egocentric, self-oriented, and have logically inadequate mental operations, children will therefore respond to all similar looking objects as if they were identical.
For example, since Bono looks like a man, they will categorize him as such.
Furthermore, if some truly wish to acquire a family-friendly show in the truest sense of genre, they should focus on aspects of the show, such as the other contestants’ provocative dance routines and wardrobes.
Considering that they’re also icons to these young viewers, they may also be influencing them in not so family-friendly ways as well.
Science has proved that sex is much more elaborate than your typical male XY chromosomes and female XX chromosomes. In many cases, certain individuals have different variations of chromosomes, such as XXY or XYY, but these genetic differences are not always visible. It affects the distribution of certain hormones and therefore influencing the way in which your sex organs form.
In Bono’s case, he was born a female, but felt like a male. Only after careful consideration did he decide to change how he looked on the outside to fit who he was on the inside: A man.
Additionally, transgenders and intersexed people are protected by the first amendment of the Constitution, stating that American citizens have the right to practice freedom of expression.
That includes the freedom of every individual to decide how to dress to their own gender identity.
Many laws have been passed against the act of gender identity discrimination, such as bans in singling these men and women out by denying them employment, housing, and education.
The U.S. government also supports and protects transgenders to ensure equality and anything less than that may be deemed unconstitutional.
“I’m going to be dancing. I’m not up on there talking about anything other than dancing,” Bono said in response to the controversy. “People who don’t have gender dysphroia aren’t going to catch it by watching me dance on television.”
As our culture progresses through changes, let us support those who differ from us by accepting them for who they are. Let us take a greater step towards equality by accepting every single person for who they are and what they have to offer without discriminating those who don’t fit perfectly into society’s close-minded social construct of gender.