Transgender Diversity in the USA Society

Subject: Sociology
Pages: 7
Words: 2034
Reading time:
8 min
Study level: Bachelor

Introduction

Transgender diversity is one of the most powerful and influential trends in today’s society. On the one hand, it develops positive tensions in society so that more people become concerned about the freedom of self-expression and self-consideration. On the other hand, this trend influences society to restate the most fundamental values existing today, such as marriage, family, and human relations. As a result, the community would gain the needed institutions’ flexibility, which is critical for their consistent development. Transgender diversity is an impressive example of actual-world issues which has significantly influenced modern society in terms of developing traditional institutes’ inclusivity, improving work conditions, and promoting cultural enrichment.

Lens Analysis: History

From a historical perspective, transgender diversity existed throughout human history, but the most active development of this tendency began in the 20th century. The vast majority of people gained freedom of expression, which led to the dramatic increase of pluralism in the traditional legislative institutions, such as the Supreme court. For instance, during the Price Waterhouse versus Hopkins case in 1989, the legislative power resolved the issue based on self-expression issue on the workplace, which significantly contradicts the fundamental diversity principles. This legal application teaches additional lessons about prejudices for further diversity development (Fiske et al., 1991). At the same time, same-sex marriage also plays a critical role in transgender diversity development.

More specifically, the main issue in the Obergefell versus Hodges case was the specific sex stated in the marriage applicants’ birth cards. While some people are against same-sex marriages, society should consider that transgender issues enable people to live in traditional marriages due to the changes in self-consideration and medical operations concerning sex change. Some scientists discovered that the popularity of same-sex marriages increased dramatically in the aftermath of the verdict, indicating that society was in strong need of developing an adjusted legislative system for transgender representatives (Kazyak & Stange, 2018). However, during the last decade, the U.S. society has experienced significant development in adjusting social institutions to transgender diversity. For instance, in 2014, actress and singer Laverne Cox positively influenced the LGBT movement (Steinmetz, 2014). Bullied and harassed in her childhood, Cox finally revealed their transgender identity and pursued acting in New York. She has become a visible leader of the transgender community as a protagonist of the Netflix movie Orange Is the New Black.

Last but not least, historical lens analysis has the most visible interpretation in the recent precedent that occurred at the highest level of government regulation. As a result of Dr. Rachel Levine’s Senate approval to the Department of Health and Human Services, she became the nation’s first openly transgender government servant in the country’s history. Levine earned degrees from Harvard and Tulane Medicinal School and has published articles on various public health topics, including the opioid epidemic, medical marijuana, and adolescent medicine (Madani & Tsirkin, 2021). This case demonstrates that transgender diversity development enabled people to govern the country despite their self-consideration, which is a positive sign for further society’s evolution.

Humanities

From the humanities perspective, the transgender diversity issue plays an important role in today’s culture. In many cases, this trend symbolizes self-expression, which incites people to demonstrate their feelings and thoughts through a humanities lens. For instance, Throughout Mx. Vaid-presentation, Menon’s underlined that fashion plays an essential part in his professional life, with several of their looks combining typically feminine features, such as bra and skirt, with apparel that transcends gender classifications (Carmel, 2021). Mx. Vaid-Menon was a guest on a podcast named “Man Enough,” which investigates what it means to be a man. Mx. Vaid-Menon pushed the cisgender hosts, including Justin Baldoni and Jame Heath, to assess whether they were ready to heal’ before proceeding in one particularly remarkable interaction.

At the same time, a sizable portion of Americans have divided views on transgender diversity topics, and religion and party affiliation play a significant role in explaining this division. More specifically, the findings indicate that political and religious divisions that drove the initial “culture wars” continue to have a significant role in American politics (Castle, 2018). This notion helps to derive the statement that transgender diversity creates positive tensions in society that lead the community to consistent development. Since people realize the diversity issue, they begin discussing it with the other community representatives, which is the first significant step of adjusting the society to a new tendency.

Finally, transgender diversity has significant support when analyzing it through a humanity lens since people are incited to express themselves and apply the issue in society’s cultural life. Even though this tendency might result in some interpersonal conflicts, they are necessary for the community’s consistent development. While different people discuss the common issue, they admit the existence of the problem and introduce the possible solutions and perspectives, which positively affect society’s self-perception.

Natural and Applied Sciences

Recent studies reveal a scarcity of research on the effects of transsexual identity on behavior and, more specifically, on the sexual reaction of another partner. These results are within the category of natural sciences since they tend to explain the world rather than create new components. More precisely, Raines et al. (2021) explain that since the majority of men and women have substantially different sexual reactions to pornographic films showing men or women, they used these sexual responses to assess whether a person behaves in a male- or female-typical way. As a result, the transgender human investigations established the biological importance of the trans-diversity problem. The authors concluded that, whereas transgender guys exhibited some female-typical behaviors consistent with their feminine birth sex, they also exhibited significant male-typical reactions consistent with their male sexual identity (Raines et al., 2021). While it is not often obvious, natural sciences are directly interested in observing transgenders’ life since it gives precise proof for a large number of previously unanswered scientific concerns.

From an applied scientific standpoint, transgender diversity issues provide opportunities for the creation of new theories and methods, particularly in medicine. For instance, one investigation acknowledged that cosmetic surgeons had identified that little surgical changes might greatly improve transgender representatives’ self-esteem and functioning (Canner et al., 2018). While these procedures often comprise penile or neovaginal reconstruction, the surgical outcomes of these procedures are not certain in all cases, which enforces the need for transgender operation studies. Additionally, the author states that “approximately 20% to 40% of transgender persons pursue gender-affirming surgery” and that “these figures are based on surveys administered to a representative sample of transgender people, significantly limiting their generalizability” (Canner et al., 609). As a consequence, the transgender problem may be the most promising subject of research for representatives of applied sciences, as the existing scenario demonstrates less than half of the potential surgical market size. Simultaneously, the larger scale with greater pricing would benefit the financing of investigations and the development of fresh analyses on this issue.

At the same time, both natural and applied sciences representatives agree that transgender community connection (TCC) has been associated with several beneficial outcomes, including better mental health and enhanced connection to care. These results emphasize the overall influential aspect of TCC and the importance of developing this tendency in society (Sherman et al., 2019). Finally, the research outcomes might be used to guide the development and adaption of health care treatments targeted at reducing trans people’s negative consequences of gender minority stress.

Social Sciences

In fact, the perspective of the social sciences is the more prominent domain for transgender issues analysis. In particular, this is due to the fact that significant shifts mostly influence this phenomenon in society’s consideration of an untraditional style of living. Since the contemporary world has positively changed transgender representatives’ perceptions, the main issue for this group is not only to continue its existence but also to fundamentally develop its integration in society to increase the overall level of welfare.

From a scientific perspective, several efforts have been made to explain the impact of gender diversity on corporate boards on an industry’s financial and economic performance. For instance, Martinez-Jimenez et al. (2020) state that some theoretical perspectives, such as agency cost theory, the resource-dependency viewpoint, and Becker’s 1964 human capital theory, might help to develop a better comprehension of the transgender diversity problem. This is due to the fact that these people have more creative backgrounds and the ability to express themselves freely, which leads to making better decisions and, thus, creating value for society (Martinez-Jimenez et al., 2020). Some examples include the success of creative personalities such as Laverne Cos and Alok Vaid-Menon. At the same time, some scientists emphasize the importance of the multi-stage approach to the issue. More specifically, Gardenswartz et al. (2015) affirm that despite all people being indoctrinated into gender-specific behaviors and expectations, gender roles continue to vary throughout time. In addition, they observe that the same conduct may be seen differently depending on the gender doing it. Simultaneously, the authors concern gender roles by stating the necessity to accommodate the needs of transgender people through the process of gender reassignment that has gained prominence in the community in recent years (Gardenswartz et al., 2015). As a result, the authors admit the existence of the transgender problem in U.S. society as a whole by providing evidence from workplace studies.

Finally, the research demonstrates one example where a male boss who is aggressive may be seen as a leader, but a female manager who acts similarly may be perceived as overbearing and arrogant (Gardenswartz et al., 2015). Since there is no precision provided for transgender diversity representatives, they might experience being negatively perceived from both genders’ perspectives. In this case, social sciences helped not only to admit the existence of an issue rather than a single future perspective but also to derive the opportunities for future studies, which play a pivotal role in addressing transgender diversity in U.S. society.

Conclusion

In conclusion, on a professional level, diversity helps individuals break through gender barriers to create an impartial and cliché-free environment conducive to communication. For instance, corporate leadership may undergo periodic representative changes to allow employees to analyze the company’s operating processes and other workers’ challenges. On the personal level, transgender diversity helps people to develop empathy since the freedom of self-expression and self-consideration would make them open-minded and free from prejudices.

In fact, routine and long-term social practices have been affected by transgender diversity development. For instance, reflection processes were rarely observed throughout the whole 20th century. However, in today’s world, the community feels the necessity to express their thoughts, which leads to a more inclusive society since there is no dominant opinion. More specifically, the reflection social practice became widely used in the corporate world, where self-expression plays a more important role than personal point defense.

One of the most notable diversity advantages is that the transgender trend is already on the rise, which means that less work would provide a much better outcome for society’s issue perception. Additionally, transgender diversity has proved its usefulness in addressing the personal and professional environment for more effective and beneficial communication. On the other hand, diversity continues to pose several issues to society that are not well handled. For instance, society still experiences legal issues since different individuals cannot be classified as belonging to one of the specific genders. Moreover, the minority of strongly settled individuals cannot adapt to contemporary reality and reject diversity as a worldwide trend. These individuals retain sufficient influence to curb the developing trend. Finally, it is still difficult to impact the institutions in conservative states despite the significant progress in more liberal ones, which might disrupt harmonization in society.

When it comes to interaction development, transgender diversity helps to rethink the direction of the interpersonal communication process. More specifically, in the two-gendered society, absolute values have a predominant position, which creates the possibility of emotional conflict. At the same time, transgender issues have taught people to consider relative values, which are more discussible from the factual perspective. For instance, instead of asking about their favorite basketball team, the person would interrogate the interlocutor about why they consider basketball an interesting sport to watch or play.

References

Carmel, J. (2021). Alok vaid-menon finds beauty beyond gender. The New York Times. Web.

Canner, J. K., Harfouch, O., Kodadek, L. M., et al. (2018). Temporal trends in gender-affirming surgery among transgender patients in the United States. JAMA Surgery, 153(7), 609–617. Web.

Castle, J. (2018). New fronts in the culture wars? Religion, partisanship, and polarization on religious liberty and transgender rights in the United States. American Politics Research, 47(3), 650–679. Web.

Gardenswartz, L., & Rowe, A. (2015). The sage encyclopedia of intercultural competence. SAGE Publications.

Fiske, S., Bersoff, D., Borgida, E., & Deaux, K. (1991). Social science research on trial: use of sex stereotyping research in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins. American Psychologist, 46(10), 1049–1060. Web.

Kazyak, E., & Stange, M. (2018). Backlash or a positive response?: Public Opinion of LGB issues after Obergefell v. Hodges. Journal of Homosexuality, 65(14), 2028–2052. Web.

Madani, D., & Tsirkin, J. (2021). Dr. Rachel Levine becomes first openly transgender person confirmed by Senate to federal post. NBC News. Web.

Martinez-Jimenez, R., Hernández-Ortiz, M. J., & Cabrera Fernández, A. I. (2020). Gender diversity influence on board effectiveness and business performance. Corporate Governance: The International Journal of Business in Society, 20(2), 307–323. Web.

Raines, J., Holmes, L., Watts-Overall, T. M., et al., (2021). Patterns of genital sexual arousal in transgender men. Psychological Science, 32(4), 485–495. Web.

Sherman, A., Clark, K., Robinson, K., Noorani, T., & Poteat, T. (2019). Trans* community connection, health, and wellbeing: a systematic review. LGBT Health, 7(1), 1–14. Web.

Steinmetz, K. (2014). Laverne Cox talks to TIME about the transgender movement. Time. Web.