Must we change the foot?

On January 2, The Citizen had on its front page an article about a woman who argued - unsuccessfully - that her wide, square-toed feet constituted a disability and that OC Transpo was guilty of violating her human rights by its policy of disallowing bare feet on its buses.

WHAT? Is she crazy? She wants to go about BAREFOOT during an Ottawa winter? Her feet didn't look that abnormal to me and you absolutely cannot convince me that it would be impossible to make suitable custom footwear to fit her feet! Supposing they had allowed her complaint. If she subsequently got frostbitten toes, would OC Transpo be liable for that as well?

Anyway, the question "Must we change the foot?" is generally attributed to Gloria Steinem. In the context I read it, she was writing about the politics and logistics of gender reassignment surgery, or "sex change operations". And my answer to her question, which she may have meant rhetorically (and may even have changed her mind about in the interim) would be "In most cases, no - although there are exceptions to every rule."

That's not a very popular stance to take these days. The prevailing view of the medical profession is that the physical reality must be altered to conform to the psychological one rather than the other way around. I'm prepared to allow for things like electrolysis and hormonal rebalancing through drugs but when it comes to surgical treatments (which for all intents and purposes need to be considered irreversible), I believe that the doctors are generally doing the transsexuals themselves (unless they were actually born with ambiguous or improperly functioning genitalia), and to some extent society at large, a grave disservice.

Now, there is of course no excuse for discrimination against the transgendered, or any other element of the LGBTQ community. Their money is as good as anyone else's and they need to rent apartments, study, obtain employment, and so forth, just like anybody else. But all rights are subject to "reasonable limitation" - and certainly things like self-expression or gender expression are too broad to be absolute rights. If I were to divulge secrets about my employer or my government, or if I were to go around deliberately being rude and obnoxious in whatever inappropriate forum I chose, I certainly wouldn't turn around and try to file a human rights complaint because I felt my freedom of self-expression was violated.

I also have to say that a majority of transgendered folk I've met, whether in person or through the pages of books they've written, strike me as having very traditional views of sex roles in our society. Perhaps part of the problem I have with all of this is that I tend to be something of a separatist radical feminist in my outlook. For example, I'm very much in favour of Brownies and Guides being limited to girls and women, with strong positive female role models. I also think that same-sex education in the schools makes a lot of sense, at least as one option, especially for certain subjects and grade levels.

Another way to interpret the question "Must we change the foot?" could be slightly less literally. For example, if women want to be out of the labour force, or to work part-time, during their childbearing years, it seems to me that career models must be in place to accommodate them. Law firms with their "billable hours" requirements, for example, tend to be antithetical to many women's life and career goals. And is there any such thing as being a part-time Member of Parliament, Cabinet Minister or Prime Minister? Not likely! So a woman who aspires to these roles, in many cases, is a square peg trying to fit into a round hole, forced to adopt a male-like career model that doesn't suit her needs.