The following column is a Head to Head argument answering the following question: Should federal nondiscrimination laws protect transgender employees? For the opposing viewpoint, click here.   
Homosexuals should not be discriminated against in the workplace. A person’s sexual preference is entirely their business, and employers have no right to hire or fire based on something as deeply personal as sexual identity.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission went beyond sexual orientation last week and decided employers also can’t discriminate based on gender identity, including transgender applicants.
But there’s a narrow section I find utterly ludicrous, and it’s this: Under the proposed bill, if I wanted to come to my job at The Reveille wearing a miniskirt and sun bonnet, I could. Because I, Nicholas Pierce, am a strong, independent woman.
And should my boss be offended by my hairy, exposed thighs and ask me to cover up, he could be prosecuted for a hate crime.
Come on, people. This is pushing it a little, isn’t it? Men are men, women are women, gay folks are gay, and the clothes you wear don’t change that.
An important distinction: There are people who identify as their native gender and cross-dress as a hobby, and there are those who wholly identify, on a psychological level, as the opposite gender.
That being said, in either case, an employer has the right to expect a certain amount of propriety in their place of business.
And if an employer doesn’t want his male employees wearing sundresses, I simply can’t find anything wrong with that.
I’m not advocating discrimination against anyone. If a person wants to dress as the opposite gender and go order pancakes at IHOP, that’s fine. If an employer has no problem with dudes wearing stockings and heels behind the counter, that’s fine, too.
But it ought to be the right of the employer to make that decision, not the government. If a guy shows up in a skirt and lipstick, it should be legal for his boss to ask him to put on some pants and wash his face.
Is that so evil?
Having a penis makes you male – regardless of sexual orientation. I’m not convinced surgically altering that penis does anything other than deform your genitalia.
It doesn’t make you a woman physiologically. You cannot make ovaries or a womb. Post-op transsexuals cannot menstruate or become pregnant.
Simply put, if men cannot become women – and vice versa – why should men with mangled diddly-bits be afforded the rights and considerations we extend to women?
We’re dealing with a world in flux right now.
Things like the traditional understanding of gender are constantly being redefined, and that’s probably a good thing. The changes we have undergone over the last few decades are positive for the LGBT community as a whole.
But in a poll conducted by the Human Rights Campaign, a pro-transgender think tank, a majority of Americans said they weren’t comfortable around transgender people and didn’t understand them.
They also stated they did not want to see transgender people harmed or treated unfairly.
People shouldn’t be hurt or persecuted because they chose to live a different lifestyle than most of the people they’re around.
But if that lifestyle makes people on the whole uncomfortable and could legitimately detract from a business’ ability to operate, then maybe it’s just not time yet.
Until we as a society are a lot closer to a consensus on this one, we can’t go about legislating this into reality.
And no, this is not like the civil rights movement. People have a choice in the clothes they wear and the way they conduct themselves.
In instances like this, the law should follow society, not precede it.
And right now, there is no popular will for this.
I’m not asking the transgender community to disappear, and I’m not asking transgendered people to change. All I’m saying is: Put on some pants at work.
Nicholas Pierce is a 22-year-old history junior from Baton Rouge. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_nabdulpierce.
 
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