Here's a jaw-dropping example of how far afield so-called affirmative action has gone from its initial purpose of compensating for past discrimination against black Americans. Last Friday a Boston trolley collision injured 46 people and caused an estimated $9.6 million in damage. Officials say trolley driver Aiden Quinn, distracted by a text message, rear-ended the other trolley.
ABC News reports that Quinn was an affirmative action hire, despite being a white male of sorts:
Quinn was originally hired as a part-time driver by the MBTA under the name Georgia Anne Quinn. In 2007 he was hired for a full-time position from a lottery of minority candidates. He was granted minority status as a self-described "female-to-male transgender," two sources told ABC News. Quinn lists his sexual orientation as "FTM."
"[Quinn] was initially hired as a minority and used her transgender status,'' an MBTA source said.
MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo told ABC News there was "nothing unusual" about Quinn's hire, and that he was picked out of a lottery that he entered in 2004.
Or that she entered in 2004--it's hard to keep these things straight.Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr slams the Boston Globe for having "waited until the 19th paragraph to mention Quinn's sex change." It's worse than that, though: The Globe never mentions that Quinn was an affirmative-action beneficiary, and indeed implies the opposite:
Quinn, 24, joined the MBTA 22 months ago after attempting for three years to get a job through the transit agency's lottery, a random system designed to prevent bias in hiring.
Carr raises another pertinent question:
We still don't know how far along Georgia/Aiden's transformation is. Is he taking hormones? If so, do the treatments have any side effects?
According to PositivelyAware.com, a support site for HIV patients, "FTMs" often take testosterone, whose side effects "include behavioral developments associated with production during puberty (aggression and increased libido)." Curiously, the Globe story begins as follows:
Last week's Green Line crash, the second in a year involving a 24-year-old operator, has renewed focus on the MBTA's training and hiring standards, which allow drivers as young as 18 to control a trolley.
"I think, at a minimum, it should be looked at," said Senator Mark C. Montigny, a New Bedford Democrat who serves on the Legislature's Transportation Committee. "The irony is, in some places you can't even rent a car if you're under 25."
An age limit on trolley drivers may be a reasonable precaution, but preferential treatment for applicants who chemically simulate male puberty is insane on its face.
2 comments:
This is an extremely silly and disrespectful way of looking at this situation, but you probably already knew that. You actually probably enjoy that fact, since you seem like that kind person.
There are FTMs ALL OVER doing ALL kinds of jobs without any kind of incident. You just don't see them. (woooo, hide under your covers) He crashed because he's a 24 year old dumb ass, not because he's taking testosterone. They are right to look at the age of the people they hire to drive such dangerous equipment. But as 1,000s of FTMs and their doctors can attest, testosterone actually does very little to your personality aside from making you as horny and irritable as all the other men in the world. Perhaps only women should drive then?
I totally agree with the above comment. There was a muni bus driver who killed a pedestrian in San Francisco and they weren't blamed because they were black or experiencing menopause but because they were a shitty driver. if the person was reading his texts and driving, well isnt that the issue right there? who cares what hormones he's on. shitty driver who text messages or good driver who doesnt, bottom line. FTMs and MTFs are everywhere. are you sure your grocer, doctor, mailperson, toll collector, policeman, or fireman isnt a trans person? we're everywhere, and (like mentioned above: hide under your covers) we are often invisible to you.
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