
For many people, the thought of being in public spaces does not excite fear, but for some it can be terrifying and unpredictable.  The argument, in “The Tyranny of Gendered Spaces – Reﬂections from Beyond the Gender Dichotomy” by Petra Doan, is that “gendered spaces” are harmful to those who do not conform to gender binary roles. The term “gendered spaces” refers to places where particular genders are deemed appropriate while others are unwelcomed. Petra Doan is a transgendered woman who uses her real-life experiences as a gender variant woman to reveal the consequences that these gendered spaces have on non-conforming individuals. These different experiences help to establish ethos, pathos, and logos which is necessary in order to present a persuasive argument. 

Petra Doan’s main argument is that those who are heteronormative and feel a sense of superiority over those who are gender variant, are tyrants that create unsafe spaces for these individuals. “In this article, I argue that transgendered and gender variant people experience the gendered division of space as a special kind of tyranny – the tyranny of gender – that arises when people dare to challenge the hegemonic expectations for appropriately gendered behavior in western society” (Doan 197). Doan uses her own first hand encounters in these “gendered spaces” and the oppression and fear she dealt with on a daily basis, just because she does not conform to society’s idea of what gender is. This article is organized by subheadings of different places that are considered “gendered”, that Doan has personally been oppressed. The article is organized this way to show how every day places such as classrooms, work, elevators, public transit, public restrooms, the mall, and even home are places that Doan has been assaulted, insulted and made very uncomfortable.

Doan’s argument consists of little to no statistical evidence, so she relies heavily on rhetorical appeals to make herself seem credible, and to make the audience feel emotions toward the subject. Doan displays intrinsic ethos because she is gender-variant individual who has dealt with the oppression her entire adult life. She is also the co-founder of the first transgender support group in Tallahassee. This makes her credible and nobody can dispute the fact that this is what she has to deal with and what other people like her deal with as well. For extrinsic ethos, Doan cites queer and transgender literature on almost every page in order to make her argument as accurate and effective as possible. As for pathos, Doan makes the audience feel sympathy for those who are gender variant, and anger towards those who have oppressed them. When Doan was in a public elevator a drunken stranger noticed that she was transgendered and attempted to expose her by squeezing her breasts thinking they were fake and something were to fall out. “He stepped up very close to me, and giving a lecherous wink said ‘Well, look what we have here!’ I tried simply staring him down, but as the doors opened, he reached up and grabbed both of my breasts and squeezed, apparently expecting to ﬁnd the falsies used by drag queens. I was stunned by this unexpected sexual assault and stood there in a speechless state of shock as he turned and walked away. By squeezing my breasts, he was objectifying and assaulting what Young (1998) calls the most visible sign of a woman’s femininity” (Doan 201-202). Regardless of whether or not the person reading this supports gender variant individuals, this is still an example of sexual assault, which everybody can agree as human beings, is morally wrong. Although Doan does not use statistics in her argument she still portrays logos by providing logic. Doan describes another scenario in which she goes back to work as a college professor. When she was teaching as a man, she was highly respected and nobody questioned her credentials, but as soon as she came out as transgendered it would be as if suddenly her teaching abilities and knowledge did not matter. “When the world perceived me as a man, I found it quite easy to step to the front of a lecture hall and assume the role of a knowledgeable professor. I never had difﬁculty in keeping or maintaining the attention of any class. After transition, however, this experience changed quite markedly” (Doan 202).  At the end of the semester, her students were required to fill out an evaluation about her class. One questioned asked the students what they enjoyed most about the class. One student responded to this question with “’Nothing. Input a new teacher. S/he’s a man dressed like a female! It’s gross!’” (Doan 202-203). While another student responded with “‘How could a university hire a person who pretends to be female? It’s horrible! I recently explained to my parents that one of my professors is a man that had a sex change and she about lost it’” (Doan 203).  These comments worried her.  “This comment refutes my gender as well as the possibility of sex change itself and then implies some administrator may get an irate phone call from a parent. These comments are attempts to regulate my behavior or at least to strike back at my gender non-conformance” (Doan 203). This shows how illogical it is for an individual to completely undermine someone’s talent and abilities based on whether or not they conform to normal gender roles. So regardless of how you personally feel about someone’s gender identity it does not change how qualified they are to hold a certain position.

It is clear that Petra Doan feels very strongly about how gender variant individuals are treated in society. Her intended audience is for those who do not understand the world that non-gender conforming people must live in, she wishes to inform, educate and bring about change. The change she wishes to see is for “gendered spaces” to be a thing of the past and all public areas should be welcoming to everyone in gender spectrum.

 Whether or not your personal beliefs are that what you are assigned at birth is what you should be, it is wrong to exclude those that are different and to make them feel unsafe. These individuals are human beings before anything else and have the right to live the same lives as everyone else without fear.  Doan uses her personal, troubling experiences to establish, ethos, pathos and logos. These rhetorical strategies are essential to persuade the audience that those who fall within society’s constraints feel a sense of superiority towards those who do not, and by oppressing them, it’s a form of tyranny, and by staying silent, you are siding with the oppressor. 
