Magical Sailor Fuku

Extra, Extra, read all about it!

President Obama has hired a male to female Transsexual to a government post. Her name is Amanda Simpson, and here is her background, courtesy of Wikipedia.org.

Amanda Simpson (age 48) is the Senior Technical Adviser to the Department of Commerce, appointed by the Obama Administration.[1][2][3] She is the second transgender political appointee in any administration, with the first being Dylan Orr. [4][5] Simpson will work in the Bureau of Industry and Security. She was born Mitchell Simpson, but underwent MtF Sex reassignment.

Simpson received her MBA from the University of Arizona in 2001, her Master of Science in Engineering from the California State University, Northridge in 1988 and her Bachelor of Science in Physics from the Harvey Mudd College in 1983.[6] She was a test pilot who flew the T-39 and A-3 Sky Warrior in those planes' development stages for Hughes Aircraft.[7] Simpson also is on the board of the National Center for Transgender Equality and Simpson was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Representative of District 26 in the Arizona House of Representatives in 2004.[8]

I'm surprised more people didn't respond to this. I was really happy when I heard about it. Go her

I didn't respond before because I didn't think that it was anything special. What matters about a job is one's character, performance and ethics/policy, not their race, gender, sexual orientation, et cetera. It's nice that being a transsexual doesn't prevent said potentially-capable person from being hired, but you can find a potentially-capable person that isn't a transsexual, too, so... Not hiring someone for something like that is wrong, but it'd also be wrong to hire someone just because they are like that; especially irregardless of their qualifications.

opus` wrote:I'm surprised more people didn't respond to this. I was really happy when I heard about it. Go her

It's politics. Politics make me nauseous.

Mitera Nikkou wrote:I didn't respond before because I didn't think that it was anything special. What matters about a job is one's character, performance and ethics/policy, not their race, gender, sexual orientation, et cetera. It's nice that being a transsexual doesn't prevent said potentially-capable person from being hired, but you can find a potentially-capable person that isn't a transsexual, too, so... Not hiring someone for something like that is wrong, but it'd also be wrong to hire someone just because they are like that; especially irregardless of their qualifications.

Well, of course. The thing that makes this important is that trans people have an extremely hard time getting hired irrelevant of their qualifications. This person got promoted to an impressive position despite that, which is hopefully indicative of the beginnings of a change in the attitudes of the general population. This individual is also definitely qualified given her old position at Raytheon.

I dunno...smash gender binary, etc

I wouldn't count on it being a good reflection of the general population, but I suppose that one can hope so.

Mitera Nikkou wrote:I wouldn't count on it being a good reflection of the general population, but I suppose that one can hope so.

Definitely not, but it's hopefully a start. I mean, he's the first elected official to really even publicly acknowledge the existence of trans people. Trans people are still decades behind the LGB movement, but at least they are gaining a little headway. Trans people are no longer considered to have a disorder as of the publishing of the upcoming DSM V, for example. It's being changed to "gender incongruence" which sounds subtle, but it will have profound implications for trans people who are currently jumping through hoops in the psychiatric world to get access to hormones and surgery or just to be taken seriously.

*Takes one look at the title*
Obama...
Politics...
*moves on, for the sanity of the forums*