From the Grauniad, a change in the law for transgender people in Denmark.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/shortcuts/2014/sep/01/eur...
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Comments
Wonderful News, If...
The article is wonderful news about an advance in attitudes about gender. If you don't read the comments.
Every article about any liberalization to benefit the LGBT community seems to attract a sh*tstorm of horrible, offensive, ignorant comments. Somehow, though, I never seem to be able to avoid perusing the comments, trying to get a sense if we're making any social progress towards equality and acceptance. But, even when it's only a few "trolls" trying to anger people with inflammatory comments, and the majority of the comments in response are defensive and positive, I can't keep myself from being sad about the base nature of some people.
TERFs
On another article in the Graun a rabid feminazi described TERF as being a misogynistic term, and that they didn't exist. I pointed out that several columnists in the paper could fall under that definition---cue multiple comments by myself deleted.
TERF is not an insulting sexist term unless you are raving mad, for it stands for Trans-Excluding Radical Feminists. The people who want transwomen excluded from rape treatment centres, just for starters.
I read the article in the print edition in Charing Cross this morning, which meant I missed the comments. Let me guess...chromosomal gender determination? Imaginary social role reinforcement? Tools of the patriarchy?
Not entirely.
Hillslug wrote a very sympathetic piece if I recall.
Angharad
A Gender-Blind Future?
I've just had a quick look, and they seem reasonable for the most part - if in many cases hopelessly misinformed. As someone with a rather cute avatar points out!
Here's a person who's identified the way forward.
A better solution would be for the state to leave the gender business altogether. No gender recording on birth certificates, passports, driving licences, or anything else. For most people life will go on exactly as before, but for those for whom the gender binary is a strait jacket, it will mean freedom.
I'd qualify that last bit by saying it would mean more freedom - other than that I'm struggling to think of an argument against it.
'TERF' and misogynism
It's kind of funny, in a macabre way, to see them claim that TERF is a misogynistic term. After all, as I've understood the term was coined by other (cis) radical feminists to make it clear that not all radfems would like to mandate us out of existence (as Janice Raymond so eloquently put it a few decades ago).
Their position is also more than just a little inconsistent. Gender is a social construct – so why is it that one's gender may only be legitimately constructed so that it is in line with one's anatomical sex, and not, say, the other way around? Or one only qualifies as a woman if one was socialised as a woman – so wouldn't that mean that upper-middle-class British women and subsistence-level Australian aborigine women are different genders, as they share very little socialisation? And as for the claim that transsexuals strengthen the gender binary and patriarchal hegemony by conforming to traditional femininity (in contrast with the oh so brave radical feminists who look and behave in traditionally masculine ways), isn't this argument based on a view of feminine gender expression as inherently inferior – so who really is the misogynist here?
Anyway, yay for Denmark! I hope this will prompt the rest to start catching up.
TERFs
The attitude is remarkably Orwellian.
All people are equal.
Men and women are equal.
Women are more equal than men.
And then:
All men are rapists.
Anyone born with a penis is a man.
They are confused all to hell about things such as acute AIS, but then a lot of them are followers of Money, ignoring the fact that what he said is untrue. I laugh at their backward flip with three twists to contend that (according to WHO's definition, which is wrong) gender is entirely a social construct and at the same time it is innate in women AND WOMEN ONLY.
Rant rant rant
Just laid into a commenter. Synopsis: a pill to cure GID.
My reply: identity death.
His/hers: rubbish. My identity is not TG
Mine: No, my identity is as a bloody woman. Sod off!
Breathe...
Kind of Glad I'm in British Columbia, Canada then.
The Provincial government has adopted the new standards for transitioning, will pay for the operations, and best of all, it only takes a short, 2 page form, to be filled by your GP to have the gender changed on your birth record, then all of your Identification.
Stupidity is a capital offense. A summary not indictable.