Transgendered Person at the White House: A Dangerous Media Strategy

The White House has published a press release announcing the hiring of an openly transgender person. Christian Combaz asks if transgender people are gaining anything by having publicity accorded to them in this way.

“Your problem is pathological; there are people who can help you.”

This shameful quotation, pulled from one of the Figaro’s forums where transsexuality was being discussed, shows the misunderstanding that prevails about “those people.” The omnipresent psychiatry has ended up letting the public believe they have a choice over what happens to them — and that they can then overcome [such a situation] by undergoing appropriate therapy. Without going into the definition of the different types of transgendered people, there are at least those who exemplify that it is just as unfair to talk to them about therapy as it is to suggest psychological treatment to someone who is left-handed. It is caused by adrenal hyperplasia, a genetic peculiarity that results in increased exposure to androgens in the womb, which — for girls — leads to hermaphrodism, to which you could say that Western society has eventually lent a degree of respect, both medically and psychologically.

But this respect still needs to stay as discreet as the phenomenon. Alas, between respect and demonstrativeness, there is the great power of American moralism, which conforms to private and public political preoccupations about the contempt of those it claims to defend. The White House, which wants to do whatever it takes to ram tolerance home, has ended up getting a slap on the wrist. When Barack Obama explained to the African nations that they must treat homosexuals with the utmost kindness then departed after four hours, leaving the latter to face those to whom his sermons were addressed, he came across as a lightweight when he had previously seemed a heavyweight. When he sent out a press release to highlight that office No. 26 had appointed a transgender employee, he practiced positive discrimination, but it was discrimination all the same. It would have been more meaningful to not announce it at all. The most tedious thing about this genuine and permanent campaign in favor of minorities is its counterproductive side — going out of one’s way to show whose hair on whose head you shouldn’t touch.

This is what leads his opponents into the immediate temptation of teaching him a lesson by putting the “untouchables” in the middle of it all. Imagine if François Hollande, to copy Obama one more time, made a typically impulsive declaration that an attack on the homosexual community was an attack on him personally. His spin doctors wouldn’t sleep any more easily.

In short, ever since America has taken the lead role in a crusade in favor of minorities, the fate of the latter is more and more uncertain.