Ethnography
While we can’t deny that humans vary biologically and that biology is relevant when defining one’s sex, it is important to note that gender and sexuality are cultural concepts and being “male or “female” is not necessarily universal but culturally and geographically confined. Additionally, one’s sexuality of being either “homosexual” or “heterosexual” is equally ingrained in one’s culture and is regulated and shaped by human cultural orientation. It is more of a cultural and historical invention, and that is why it is getting challenged as with time. Those in power often have cultural origin stories in the effort to legitimize ideologies that favour their views. They use culture to rationalize, explain and perpetuate systems of inequality.
I want to introduce the term “Ethnocentrism” in this discussion. Anthropologist describes this as the use of one’s culture to understand other cultures or way of life. Ethnocentrism can be termed as a cultural ignorance where one sees his/ her own culture as the correct way of living, and so all the other cultures are based on his culture. One examines the other cultures from the lenses of their own.
As earlier stated, gender and sexuality are culturally defined, and one culture changes from one place to another. It is, therefore, possible for one to expect transgender people to behave and do things in a certain way, based on the observer’s culture. This is selfish and narrow-minded. It is wrong to impose one’s beliefs, values and lifestyle one another simply because you see things based on your culture. This lacks objectivity and is skewed. Geertz (1986) puts it that “Loyalty to a certain set of values inevitably makes people partially or totally insensitive to other values to which other people, equally parochial, are equally loyal. It is not at all invidious to place one way of life or thought above all others or to feel little drawn to other values. Such relative incommunicability does not authorize anyone to oppress or destroy the values rejected or those who carry them”
Amy Zaharlick (1992) introduces the concept of holism am cultural relativism with the first meaning, referring to the relative worthiness of ways of life. Education Anthropology believes that other cultures are just as valid as our own. “Distinct cultures can therefore only be understood in relation to their own unique integrity”, and it would be wrong to judge the behaviour, thinking, acting and feeling of one group based on the values of another group.
While there is no denying that transgender can biologically be defined as being born male or female based on their body anatomies, there is the underlying fact that gender identity goes beyond these biological facts. It’s important to note that one’s biologic sex is different from their gender. While one’s gender is embedded in one’s culture, with intended expectations and set out roles and behaviour, sex is purely biological. Gender, therefore, is learnt, assumed and performed, and one can consequently, theoretically choose their identity. The transgender people often identify with the opposite gender and often feel that they were born in the wrong body. Transgender people have also been defined as “two-spirit” people because they are people who do not conform to the gender roles and ideologies associated with their biologic sex. They, therefore, feel the need to dress, behave, use mannerisms and even use the medicine in the effort to identify with the particular gender which they feel they belong.
Gender dysphoria is real among the transgender. This is a form of distress, anxiety and unhappiness that is experienced by the transgender people. This is the inner battle that is constant within them between their biological anatomy and their gender identity (Cornwall, 2014). They are often fighting the mismatch between their bodies and their gender identity.
With all that the transgender people have on their plate, it is really disheartening to see more discrimination being perpetuated at the colleges by allocating them rooms that match with their birth sex and not their gender identity. This is adding salt to the injury. Passing is exceptionally crucial for transgender people. Passing means the experience of a transgender person being seen by others as they would want to be seen. For example, a male by birth but identifies himself as a woman is seen and treated by say, her classmates as a woman. Passing provides a safe haven for the transgender people; it provides safety from harassment, violence and discrimination; it makes their life comfortable.
One of the existing assumptions is that all culture divide human being in two and only two genders. This is not true; some cultures gender is more fluid and flexible and allows individuals who were born in particular birth sex to assume another gender or creating more than two genders from which one is free to select. In such cultures, biology is not the destiny when it comes to gender identity and gender roles.
It is therefore not fair to force the college students to take rooms of residence which do not coincide with their gender identity. This infringes on their human rights. They should not be forced to “feel” what they are not. Biology aside, people should be identified by the gender they feel fairly suit them. College administration should not be blinded by their culture to judge other cultures. They should not be narrow-minded in this day and age. Transgender people should, therefore, be given the freedom to behave, act, think and do things as they feel so long is within the law. They should not be forced to take some gender roles which they do not identify with.
Being a school of higher learning, a college should act as role models to other institutions and indeed the society on tolerance and acceptance of all individuals as they are. Anthropologists in such colleges should enlighten the management on Ethnography and the need to accept all people as they are.
References
Cornwall, S. (2014). Intersex and transgender people. Oxford Handbooks Online. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199664153.013.002
Geertz, C. (Ed.). (1986). The uses of diversity.
Zaharlick, A. (1992). Ethnography in anthropology and its value for education. Theory Into Practice, 31(2), 116-125. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405849209543532