”I’m Not Sleazy and I Don’t Frequent Bars”: Respectability as a Legal Strategy in Transsexual Employment Discrimination Lawsuits, 1970–95

Between 1970 and 1995, thirty-one transsexuals—overwhelmingly white, gender-normative, heterosexual, and suburban or urban-adjacent—were fired during or immediately following their gender transition. These transsexuals challenged what they believed to be obvious cases of sex- or disability-based employment discrimination in front of state court, federal court, or the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), but they faced a steep, uphill battle against jurists’ and legislators’ entrenched, conservative, and generally trans-exclusionary interpretations of “disabilty” and “biological sex.” In an attempt to surmount these institutional barriers, plaintiffs tried to convince courts and their communities that they deserved equal protection under the law by positioning themselves as different from—and, indeed, as antithetical to—homosexuals, transvestites, other gender- and sexual-deviants, political extremists, drunkards, and the mentally ill. Plaintiffs hoped that by ingratiating themselves with white, middle-class suburbia in appearance and values they could reap some of the rewards promised by Cold War liberalism. However, this quest for respectability cut transsexuals off from other gender- or sexually-diverse people, preventing the sort of group-solidarity that could have led to broader or more systemic change. Furthermore, by working within the bounds and limits of a cissexist, homophobic, and white supremacist system, transsexual plaintiffs did little to change the fundamental structures of oppression which harmed people of both reputable and disreputable sexual and gender presentations. By emphasizing their own inherent respectability, plaintiffs’ attempt to normalize their own gender came at the expense and further marginalization of others.