Transgendered cabin crew? Medical point of view vs uninformed discussion

[akerosid]

A friend of mine, who has transitioned many years ago (and is very presentable) was looking at the possibility of becoming a flight attendant.

Although she knows that EU law and precedent would be on her side, she wanted to get some idea of how airlines - and indeed, other cabin crew - would look on an employee/colleague who was transgendered?

[Hotel Mode]

There is a similar girl in BA. BA dont have any problem and I think colleagues are sympathetic.

[i_am_waiting]

I remember flying with said crew member before the transistion and as I remember BA was very supportive with said crew member, and may I say she looks rather stunning in her bikini and can give a few female crew members a run for their money.

[I love twins]

There is a girl in easyJet who has done this. It hasn't been an issue for employer or colleagues.

[A and C]

In this day and age is this likely to be an issue?............ I think not !

[Storminnorm]

Britannia had a FO a few years ago that decided that HE was SHE.
"She" went in to have a chat to the Chief Pilot, and said "In future
I'd like to be known as Christine." The Chief Flugger is supposed
to have replied "In future I think you'll be known as unemployed."
He was last heard of at Orion.(?).
Wouldn't get away with it now I think.

[pc6]

Up front, I dunno, in the back she'd probably have no problems. We are all family, people let go of their hangups after a few trips of varied crews. As long as she can perform the duties required, who cares! :ok:

[GalleyHag]

In oz I know of an F/O that became known as Miss F/O after extended leave. Its funny I know more pilots that transition than cabin crew. I suppose no one gives a dam if you are cabin crew we are very accepting of everyone, however pilots on the other hand may take a very different view therefore good on the boys/girl up the front that have the guts to move on and up.

I dont know if I could do it as a pilot (as im not) but if I had to I think cabin crew would be more acceptning maybe!!! who knows maybe pilots dont give a rats

[TopBunk]

I believe I know the person concerned in BA. I am sure that everyone wishes her well and will not be judgemental and realise the incredible stresses and courage they will faced in life to get where they ar enow.

I do believe though, that in the UK you cannot change your birth sex on legal documents, ie Martha will always be an Arthur on passport. This again must be quite stressful in this line of work.

[Rainboe]

There's a lot of nonsense spouted about this. We are genetically programmed- our chromosomes (XXY and that stuff) tell us whether we are male of female, despite what we may 'feel' we should really be. If someone has male chromosomes and feels they should be a girly and wear bikinis and make-up and frocks, that's their business. If they cannot conform to society and present themselves as what they really are, then they will be regarded very much as 'odd' and treated like a pantomime dame. That is how it is. If they are biologically a 'he' and want to be called a 'she' and dress up as one, then that is not really enough to be called 'female' in official documentation, and this is reflected in the official UK system.

Whilst we may try and convince ourselves everyone accepts this, I can confirm it is not so. I have flown as passenger with one such person mentioned above. My opinion is that most people around me were uncomfortable with it and reacted with derision. I think there is little biological basis for it- it's more a psycological need to dress up. Nature has decided which you will be- you cannot just override that.

There is a similar girl in BA. BA dont have any problem and I think colleagues are sympathetic. I think it is more afraid to say what they really think.

[betpump5]

So Rainboe what's your stance on the subject? Were you just giving us a few cents worth on your opinion that a tranny shouldn't be a hostie, or were you actually saying that he/she will find it very tough to get a FA job in the first place?

If you watch Channel 4 documentaries, then the trannies you see look like something out of a 70's horror movie so maybe that is influencing your views.

However if you are around SE Asia, namely Manila and Bangkok, I think you would have a different opinion :ok:

I did learn my lesson though- always look for the adams apple :ugh:
:}

[Rainboe]

My own opinion is just one particular voice and fairly irrelevant. But I have to say I have seen one of the transvestites mentioned above and my impression was it was more like seeing a lorry driver dressed up in girly clothing and talking with an artificial 'girly' voice that fooled nobody. My grown up children were also flying, and their reaction mirrored the general reaction, which, without doubt, was uncomfortable and derisory.

You do not just swap genders by deciding you are now called 'Christine' instead of Chris, and wearing girly clothes and make-up. All I want to see is what your chromosomes say. It is a society thing where there are 'men' and 'women' who generally conform to clothes wearing practice. If you are not willing to conform, why should a company start calling you 'she' when you are not, and confront its customers with you? Until you accept you are what you were born as, perhaps you should be grounded until you are stable again? If you are not allowed to wear overt religious symbols, why should you be allowed to go against society practice? I do know that the company that employs the above individual is doing itself no favours with its customers.

Well, you did ask.

[flapsforty]

The OP's question was:
how airlines - and indeed, other cabin crew - would look on an employee/colleague who was transgendered?

As you have pointed out yourself Rainboe, your personal opinion on transgender-ism is enitirely irrelevant here.

There's a lot of nonsense spouted about this.
Indeed, and on this thread, most of it by you. ;)

When reading your posts on matters pertaining to flying an airliner, on-board CRM or matters technical, one knows that what one reads will be grammatically correct, factual, pertinent and devoid of supurfluous verbiage.
Great respect always for your posts on piloting matters.
This is not a piloting matter.

Let's stick to the parameters of the OP shall we?


PS: For those who wish to know a bit more about the issue: Answers to Your Questions About Transgender Individuals and Gender Identity (http://www.apa.org/topics/transgender.html)

[cyclops16]

With reference to Transgender documentation. I believe it is now legal and has been for a couple of years for that person once full transistion has taken place to get their Birth Certificate replaced with their new name on it and all the relevant authorities are legally obliged to accept this, so any Transgendered person may use their ' new' Birth Certificate to reapply for a new Passport,etc. The only things that never change are their National Insurance number and Medical Card( NHS) number. In effect the person they were before will no longer legally exist. I have this information from my sister who works with a Transgender person and my sister helped her out with all the new paperwork including Driving Licence,etc.so they were all in her workmates new name and gender.
I believe this change in legislation was brought in at the same time as Civil Partnerships for those in same gender relationships to give them a legal status much like a wedding.

[Mac the Knife]

Much as I respect Rainboe's views on the art and science of flying aircraft he is at best misinformed here.

Gender dysphoria is one of the most tragic and difficult to treat of all conditions. It is is no more a mental illness than homosexuality andd no more "curable". Essentially, the physical (somatic) and chromosomal gender is at odds with the mental gender.

Formal physical surgical gender reassignment to the appropriate mental gender is possible to varying degrees (not all patients want this) but somatotype is one of the limiting factors. It is impossible to make a believable woman out of a rugby fullback type and I have my doubts as to whether one should try. Nevertheless, their anguish may be relieved by a discreet orchidectomy and possibly a penectomy and wearing gender neutral clothes. With a more favourable feminine somatotype a very attractive and fully sexually functional woman may be achievable. The chromosomal gender remains, of course, unaltered.

Somatotypic factors also complicate female to male reassignment and the genital surgery is technically very challenging, particularly if penetrative sexual function is desired (many are content with the ability to urinate standing). Nevertheless it is possible.

These are tormented people, trapped in a physical body that they cannot identify with and as Rainboe demonstrates, profoundly misunderstood. Their ambiguity and sufferings make most of them difficult patients emotionally and the reconstructive procedures are not trivial. Selection is all. Nevertheless, they can be some of the most rewarding to treat and it is a joy not given to many to see them finally even if imperfectly restored to the harmony that they deserve.

:ok:

Mac

[flapsforty]

Thank you very much for counterbalancing previously posted opinions with scientific facts and the voice of experience Mac the Knife.

Now let's all get back to the OP's parameters please. :)

[BYALPHAINDIA]

Quote
Britannia had a FO a few years ago that decided that HE was SHE.
"She" went in to have a chat to the Chief Pilot, and said "In future
I'd like to be known as Christine." The Chief Flugger is supposed
to have replied "In future I think you'll be known as unemployed."
He was last heard of at Orion.(?).
Wouldn't get away with it now I think.

Reply
Yeah remember it well, She went for a job at EZY but was unsuccesful, EZY were 'Keane' on the subject!!

She however had the competence, Hours & experience for the job.

A difficult situation.

[visibility3miles]

I recall a story about a flight attendant giving the Board of Directors of an airline a standard flight safety review, which included the chairs in the Board Room having actual life vests strapped underneath. Moments after the briefing was finished, the lights switched off, plunging the room into complete dark, and a fire alarm was set off to raise the stress level.

Then the BOD was told, NOW PUT ON YOUR LIFE VESTS and EVACUATE in an orderly fashion.

The BOD realized it's harder than it seems.

Another comment I recall was that if your plane splashed upside down in water at night, do you really care what type of mascara the stewardess uses?

I know there are more issues than this, but I hope it's relevant.

Not a Cabin Crew,
Your pax,
vis3

[Rainboe]

And........? Was there a point I missed to that?

Well it's interesting what Wiki coughs up (when you hit it on the back enough). I felt I should educate myself.
Gender identity disorder (GID) is the formal diagnosis used by psychologists and physicians to describe persons who experience significant gender dysphoria (discontent with the biological sex they were born with). It is a psychiatric classification and describes the attributes related to transsexuality, transgender identity, and transvestism. It is the diagnostic classification most commonly applied to transsexuals.Other transgender people object to the classification of GID as a mental disorder on the grounds that there may be a physical cause, as suggested by recent studies about the brains of transsexual people. Many of them[who?] also point out that the treatment for this disorder consists primarily of physical modifications to bring the body into harmony with one's perception of mental (psychological, emotional) gender identity, rather than vice versa.

Have we a massive con here? In our haste to bend over backwards these days to let what was previously regarded as socially unacceptable behaviour by people now to be 'perfectly OK', maybe we are bending over backwards too far? Does it not boil down to 'what's your chromosomes, XX or XY?'. We're not listening to people who decide they really want to be another sex and then surgically altering them....because they want to change? There's a lot of horrors going on these days, one of them that same-sex couples can adopt children- something I am adamantly against, along with the Catholic Church and a darn sight more people than are willing to admit. If surgical procedures are being carried out against chromosome evidence, then it is criminal, especially if I am helping pay for it.

I am not convinced. I think it is largely psychological. Essentially, the physical (somatic) and chromosomal gender is at odds with the mental gender. If a man feels he's a woman trapped in a man's body, why change the body? Doesn't the head need repairing? I can't believe what I'm hearing here. I'm a rich person trapped in a normal person's body- can the Health Service make me rich, or perhaps better to get me to understand I can't automatically be what I feel I should be?

Our control of genetics will eventually give us the power of species realignment. So, if a disturbed person decides he's really a parrot trapped in a human body, Mac, are you going to start operating, or treating the disturbed condition? Why are you saying 'yes, we have the technology.....we can make you a woman!' when you should be saying 'look mate, you're a bloke!'? Why?

[Rainboe]

Mac, I'm very disturbed by this: you are giving surgery to otherwise healthy bodies to make them something they are not? Please explain. I know some people don't have normally formed parts, but I know that most of this surgery is on normal bodies to make them something they are not, but what their perverted desire wants them to be? Is that a correct interpretation? We are not talking about simple things like breast augmentation- we are talking about changing nature? How do you justify pandering to someone's psychological whims by carrying out unnecessary radical surgery? It's all very well using fancy medical terms to pretend a condition exists, but it doesn't, does it? If you're so willing to carry out such surgery, why, when I want to be not quite so bald, can I not get society to pay for hair enhancement?

[Mac the Knife]

"So, if a disturbed person decides he's really a parrot trapped in a human body, Mac, are you going to start operating, or treating the disturbed condition? Why are you saying 'yes, we have the technology.....we can make you a woman!' when you should be saying 'look mate, you're a bloke!'? Why?"

I agree that there has been discussion as to whether gender dysphoria is a psychiatric rather than a brain structural anomaly. Just as there has been about homosexuality.

Equally, attempts to alter the perceptions of gender dysphorics (and homosexuals) by means of psychological manipulations (operant conditioning etc., etc.) have been singularly unsuccessful. The threat of punishment, torture, and imprisonment (or worse) is ineffective. Just as have simplistic attempts as reason like saying 'look mate, you're a bloke!'.

"Doesn't the head need repairing?" Perhaps; most gender dysphorics (and many homosexuals) would dearly love to be "normal". But this does not seem possible.

"Our control of genetics will eventually give us the power of species realignment." I doubt it, and besides, that is a long way from isospecies gender problems.

"So, if a disturbed person decides he's really a parrot trapped in a human body, Mac, are you going to start operating, or treating the disturbed condition?" No, and that is a reductio ad absurdum as you know full well.

In the end, we may offer selected patients physical gender reassignment because other treatments (apart from 65gm of lead in the back of the head) don't work.

Mac

[Mac the Knife]

"Mac, I'm very disturbed by this: you are giving surgery to otherwise healthy bodies to make them something they are not? Please explain." Correct, as I have said. And many people find the thought of this distressing or distasteful.

"I know some people don't have normally formed parts, but I know that most of this surgery is on normal bodies to make them something they are not, but what their perverted desire wants them to be? Is that a correct interpretation?" I'm not happy with your attribution of "perverted desire" to these people. For them, the only perversion is that they should have been born with a physical gender not in concordance with their mental gender. A cruel trick that nature has played on them.

"We are not talking about simple things like breast augmentation- we are talking about changing nature?" Breast augmentation is changing nature - its only a matter of degree. So too is taking antihypertensives or insulin. There are always ethical dilemmas, for example the resuscitation of ultra low-weight babies.

"How do you justify pandering to someone's psychological whims by carrying out unnecessary radical surgery?" It isn't a psychological whim (I wouldn't do it if it was) and surgery is only agreed to after extensive psychological assessment, a prolonged period of living as the other sex and often hormone treatment.

"It's all very well using fancy medical terms to pretend a condition exists, but it doesn't, does it?" Unfortunately it does - just ask the unhappy people with it. There is increasing evidence that this is neither a whim nor a perversion nor a psychological disorder but an inborn error of brain anatomy and neurochemistry.

"If you're so willing to carry out such surgery, why, when I want to be not quite so bald, can I not get society to pay for hair enhancement?" A bit less of the "so willing" if you please but if it truly causes you that much distress then perhaps society should.

Mac

[Re-Heat]

In our haste to bend over backwards these days to let what was previously regarded as socially unacceptable behaviour
I'm afraid that is only your opinion, and that opinion is very much in the minority these days.

Yes, there is a dichotomy between public presentation in customer-facing roles, and absolute personal freedom. However, I am confident that many such individuals pass for the opposite sex without anybody noticing.

Besides, I don't think anyone was asking for absolute personal freedom, but rather a right to choose something that in no way whatsoever affects anyone but themselves.

What exactly do you think you / we are "letting them do"? It has been a time-honoured and cultural tradition for many years both for men to dress as women, and to genitally mutilate men (e.g. in opera). I am sure you can put your strong wikipedia searching skills to use in educating yourself on those areas as awell.

I am unclear as to what exactly you see to be "previously...socially unacceptable behaviour", though I am clear that you are liberally applying rose-tinted spectacles to your view of society as a whole.

[ZFT]

betpump5

I did learn my lesson though- always look for the adams apple

You might need to relearn that lesson as many of them have this removed.

[flyblue]

This thread has been copied here from the CC Forum. It was clear that there are two aspects to this topic: one the ''becoming CC'' point of view, the other the medical one.
We split them into the respective Forums.

[Bad medicine]

As flyblue has said, this thread is for the medical aspects to be discussed. The usual rules apply.

Cheers,

BM

[gingernut]

Going back to the original question, I'm trying to think of a medical reason why this person shouldn't fly, and I can't.

I don't know a lot about the subject, (other than watching The Ladyboys of Bangkok a few years ago). Do transgendered folk have to take any medication?



Rainboe, I'm trying to understand your argument, but I'm finding it difficult. I guess there could be an argument about how we, in the UK, spend our scarce resources, and I'd agree that relying on "expert opinion" to label conditions can have it's drawbacks, but the bottom line is, this surgery relieves patients suffering, drastically.

I'm not sure that you can argue with that?

[Loose rivets]

Rainbow. This analogy might be more than a tad patronizing, but here it is anyway.

The manufacturers of a new and vast airliner stand back and look at their work. It's a beautiful creation, and for some time it seems to perform normally. At a certain age, it starts to show some serious anomalies in the way it responds to its black boxes. It's designer looks aghast at the plans. They fitted the wrong black box - in one of its deeply embedded driving logic centers. It's a logic area that only comes into play some of the time, but when it does, it's all pervasive, and will take over all other logical processes - no matter how much the pilot tries to deny it access to the controls.

This box is so embedded, that there is no way that it can be replaced or modified without destroying the aircraft.

The designers ponder long and hard about the fix. The only way is to start modifying the things that the black box controls. Smaller flap area, different rates on control movement, totally redesigned fuel management...huge technical problems trying to marry complex mechanical functions, to what is after all, a miss-structured square of silicone, only a centimeter square and two microns thick...its circuitry only visible with a Scanning tunneling microscope. Yet, a piece of circuitry that can ride rough shod over almost all of the aircraft's higher functions.

Something has to be done when the existing condition can not be born any longer.

[Mac the Knife]

No further comments from Rainboe?

A pity in a way. While I believe that his approach to the "problem" is Neanderthal and profoundly misinformed, it is only by ventilating such topics that that understanding and communication from both sides of the fence can be improved.

Incidentally and just for a start, Jan Morris CBE., the excellent British historian, author and travel writer, who served in World War II in the 9th Queen's Royal Lancers and accompanied the British expedition which was first to scale Mount Everest, was once James Morris....

As an amateur historian, I particularly admire her biography "Fisher's Face" of Admiral of the Fleet Jackie Fisher, the architect of the modern Royal Navy. Amazon.com: Fisher's Face; or,: Getting to Know the Admiral: Jan Morris: Books (http://www.amazon.com/Fishers-Face-Getting-Know-Admiral/dp/0679416099/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244653421&sr=1-1)

A partial list of well-known people who have crossed-over can be found at List of transgender people - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transgender_people)

:ok:

Mac

[gingernut]

Formely known as Macy the Knife


tee hee, sorry couldn't resist:E