Gender, and politics
Jun. 16th, 2020 01:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
julietAccording to a leak in the Sunday Times (and let us set aside how bloody annoying it is to constantly be finding out about policy by 'leaks' to the press), the proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act to make life a bit easier for trans people, are not, despite the consultation showing 70% support for them, going to happen. And not just that, but there are suggestions that things may be made *more* difficult for trans people.
This is all aimed pretty squarely at trans women (and trans children; there's also a risk of treatment being made even harder to get for trans kids which, given how hard it is already, is pretty horrifying). It will, of course, affect other trans people. (As it happens, it is unlikely to affect me personally, as a non-binary person who is pretty invariably read as a woman, except for the emotional impact of the whole shitty business.)
I find it hard to write about this, partly because of how very distressed it makes me. Scared for my friends, and for the kids I support via Mermaids. Sad and confused that this strange thing has happened in some strands of British feminism that has led to this place where some people believe that in order to protect cis women they need to further marginalise trans women. (And other trans people, but this particular debate is squarely focussed on trans women and largely ignores trans men and non-binary people other than to paint them as deluded; as above, that doesn't protect them from its effects and impacts.)
Laurie Penny has written an excellent (long) article talking about how British feminism got here and why the transphobia currently highly visible in some strands of British feminism is bullshit, so there's all of that; she's saying it better than I can.
Self-ID (which is still a legal declaration with legal force, not, like, something you print out off the internet) has existed in other countries for years, with no ill effects or resulting issues. The 'safety' issue is a massive red herring. Men wanting to abuse women don't *need* to pretend to be women and sneak into women's toilets to do so; it's not like rapists and other sexual assaulters generally face any significant consequences for their actions. How about we focus on that? In any case, when was the last time you got asked for your ID (still less your birth certificate) to go into a public lavatory? If you do start asking people to prove their gender before entering a single-sex public space, who do you ask? Everyone? People who don't look 'feminine' enough? Whose body shape doesn't match your expectations? (Whose expectations?) How the hell can this possibly be 'feminist'? (This sort of toilet policing has already started happening to cis women who don't 'look right', indeed happened to a butch lesbian friend; and the N Carolina 'bathroom bills' were unworkable and were in the end struck down.) Women's refuges have been including trans women for years, because trans women, like cis women, can be victims of domestic violence.
Trans women get this much scrutiny precisely *because* of misogyny and the patriarchy: it's the same damn struggle. Trans rights are human rights; trans women's rights are women's rights; black trans lives matter; and this is all intersectional. That's it.
This is all aimed pretty squarely at trans women (and trans children; there's also a risk of treatment being made even harder to get for trans kids which, given how hard it is already, is pretty horrifying). It will, of course, affect other trans people. (As it happens, it is unlikely to affect me personally, as a non-binary person who is pretty invariably read as a woman, except for the emotional impact of the whole shitty business.)
I find it hard to write about this, partly because of how very distressed it makes me. Scared for my friends, and for the kids I support via Mermaids. Sad and confused that this strange thing has happened in some strands of British feminism that has led to this place where some people believe that in order to protect cis women they need to further marginalise trans women. (And other trans people, but this particular debate is squarely focussed on trans women and largely ignores trans men and non-binary people other than to paint them as deluded; as above, that doesn't protect them from its effects and impacts.)
Laurie Penny has written an excellent (long) article talking about how British feminism got here and why the transphobia currently highly visible in some strands of British feminism is bullshit, so there's all of that; she's saying it better than I can.
Self-ID (which is still a legal declaration with legal force, not, like, something you print out off the internet) has existed in other countries for years, with no ill effects or resulting issues. The 'safety' issue is a massive red herring. Men wanting to abuse women don't *need* to pretend to be women and sneak into women's toilets to do so; it's not like rapists and other sexual assaulters generally face any significant consequences for their actions. How about we focus on that? In any case, when was the last time you got asked for your ID (still less your birth certificate) to go into a public lavatory? If you do start asking people to prove their gender before entering a single-sex public space, who do you ask? Everyone? People who don't look 'feminine' enough? Whose body shape doesn't match your expectations? (Whose expectations?) How the hell can this possibly be 'feminist'? (This sort of toilet policing has already started happening to cis women who don't 'look right', indeed happened to a butch lesbian friend; and the N Carolina 'bathroom bills' were unworkable and were in the end struck down.) Women's refuges have been including trans women for years, because trans women, like cis women, can be victims of domestic violence.
Trans women get this much scrutiny precisely *because* of misogyny and the patriarchy: it's the same damn struggle. Trans rights are human rights; trans women's rights are women's rights; black trans lives matter; and this is all intersectional. That's it.
