In light of the Grantland controversy, Parker Molloy defends transgender people who choose to stay in the closet:
I may meet someone, whether it be a coworker or acquaintance, and be treated with the same casual attitude I imagine they treat everyone. Then, should they find out that I’m trans, conversations start to take odd turns. Suddenly, the topic of my genitals becomes fair game in their minds. Suddenly, they feel the right to ask what my “real name” is. Suddenly, pronouns start slipping, and I find myself called “he” by these people who had just been referring to me as “she” five minutes earlier. Suddenly, I’m no longer a human being, but rather a biological freak show.
Is that something you’d like? For every conversation to veer away from you as an individual and to instead focus on one singular part of your history? As a writer, as an author, as an activist, this is a choice that I have made for myself. I am willing to endure the awkward questions, the stares, the misgenderings, and the gawking. I do this in an effort to urge society to come to terms with the fact that transgender people are just like anyone else. I do this because I choose to. Essay Vanderbilt did not choose to put her trans status front and center, and taking that from her is not journalism, but rather a betrayal of her right to privacy.
Update from a reader:
I read Parker Malloy’s piece on Dr. V and a lot of the commentary on the Grantland piece. And while I agree with Parker’s point of view – that no one has the right to “out” a person as transgender – I think Parker and others ignore an important fact:
Dr. V raised money from investors. When you do that, you may not make an untrue statement of a material fact or fail to disclose a material fact necessary to make the statements made, in the light of the circumstances in which they were made, not misleading. In almost all instances that means disclosing biographical information about key employees. I don’t know how Dr. V could have possibly done that without revealing, indirectly, that she was transgender.
Professional investors in businesses such as hers typically conduct background checks on the founders/inventors/key executives. How could they have conducted a thorough background check without knowing her prior stereotypically male name? I’m not saying that the fact she was transgender was itself material or the failure to disclose that fact was fraudulent, but it seems as though it would have been impossible to avoid revealing she was transgender in order to make accurate disclosures about other material details of her life, such as her work and credit history.
And ask yourself this question: what if you knew her background disclosures were misleading? The obvious course would have been to encourage her to update them or pull the offering, but what if she refused? A lawyer would be obligated to keep such information confidential, but probably would also be obligated to withdraw as her counsel (and perhaps make what’s called a “noisy” withdrawal).
But what if you were the CFO of the business, not subject to attorney-client confidentiality? Would the “you may not out a transgender person” rule apply to you? If you don’t say anything, you could find yourself in the legal crosshairs. Put another way, should you be forced to commit securities fraud because she chose to keep her transgender status a secret? Again, I’m not saying you’d be obliged to reveal she was transgender, but I can’t see how you could correct the misstatements and omissions without also inadvertently revealing she was.
People have rights – like a transgender person’s right to decide whether to keep her personal history secret – but they also have duties – like an entrepreneur’s obligation to make accurate and complete disclosures to investors. If a transgender person wants to keep that part of her personal history a secret, then she’s going to have a real hard time raising capital from investors in a manner that complies with law.
The Dish 