Whose rights though?
More indignation.
These organizations don’t seem to have paused to ask themselves what human rights are, ever at any time. The result is that they end up sounding like small children who think they have a “right” to all the ice cream they want right now this second.
Rights aren’t simple. They’re not a matter of just “I want this therefore I have a right to it.” They have to be judged on the basis of their impact on other people. They’re a balancing act. The T+ people seem to think it’s just a matter of demands.
Well, their demands. They don’t seem willing to acquiesce to other demands, such as the demand that violent male people not be housed with vulnerable female people. Our demands don’t matter.
Their real view is not that trans rights are human rights; if they were honest, they would say “human rights are trans rights”. Because they seem to think the trans rights are the bulk of human rights. The only right the rest of us have is to grovel before them begging their forgiveness for saying “sir” to an obvious male who dreams of being female.
The usual suspects – Owen Jones, Christine Burns, Roz Kaveney, David Allsop, Jolyon Maugham and Benjamin Cohen – are furious at the EHRC’s decision.
The EHRC document is thoughtful and moderate. Hopefully it will help discourage attempts to legally copperfasten “affirmation-only” policies onto the practises of specialists working with children and adolescents with gender dysphoria.
Those harsh critics of the EHRC’s decision won’t stop with the polemics, whether they’re working or not, because that’s just how they roll. If the politicians could be bothered to ignore Twitter for a bit and help devise a policy that would be acceptable to both women and trans persons, that would be nice.
“Copperfasten” – I learned a new word today! Thank you, Mostly Cloudy.
Meanwhile, I am curious as to what constitute “Q+” rights.
cb: Q+ = better than mere faggots & dykes
J.A. #3
I’m pretty sure there’s no such thing, just like there is no possible society that both trumpists and decent people would want to live in. At least to the dominant, TERF-bashing strand of TRAs any policy in which women aren’t thrown under the bus is unacceptable.
I think a policy that allows for trans persons to self-ID as the gender of their choice is acceptable to most women. One’s sex also must be considered though with respect to sex-segregated spaces, as women have a right to privacy.
@TA – It is my considered opinion that the trans movement is an outgrowth of the MRA movement, even in the way that women seek transition to their version of manhood. Such a goal is contradictory to their aims as they will only accept a policy that further subjugates women and leaves women nothing of their own. Women still are not considered to have their own rights, and I’ll be buggered if we ask them to accept a dilution of those they have gained so far in order to serve a fantasy.
I don’t think I would be accepting of self-ID for the main reason that it redefines womanhood to have men as women. I have fought my entire life against men defining what it means to be a woman, and I shall continue.
Now, if they want to play at being a woman in their own home, or if they want to pretend to be women sexually, that’s no skin off my nose.
I also have no problem if men want to wear dresses. Go ahead. I don’t want to wear dresses, so I don’t. I am allowed to choose to wear pants, I see no reason to insist men cannot wear dresses, make up, lipstick, nail polish, whatever, as long as it is suited to their work. (We have a transwoman here who does yard work in high heels; I can’t imagine trying that.) As I told my colleague when he was complaining that women have more choices in dress than men, I don’t see why it should be a problem if he wanted to come to work in a pink tutu (the mind boggles at the image, but so what?). If he did, though, there would be a near melt down all the way to the top as his students converged on the ADs office to complain. (They never complain to the instructor, or even try to sort through an ordinary problem; they go straight to the supervisor. I begin to think college students are the real ‘Karens’.) One thing I might point out, though, is they would do the same thing if I turned up to work in a pink tutu. I was once called on the carpet for kicking my shoes off in class because I have severe psoriasis on the tops of my feet. I was wearing socks, so anyone who has a distaste for feet should not have been disturbed.
It depends on what that means though. If it means expecting us to pretend that any particular man is a woman because he says so, then that in turn depends on a whole string of other things. This whole idea of “self-ID”ing as something one isn’t is peculiar at best, and really just shouldn’t be a public policy issue at all. Fantasies are private, and there just shouldn’t be any expectation – much less demand – that other people play along with them. We’re busy, we have other things to do, we’re not here to endorse other people’s fantasies.