International standards
A top UN official has backed the Scottish government’s plan to reform gender recognition laws. Ministers want to make it easier for trans people to change their gender.
The UN high commissioner for human rights said the Scottish bill is a “significant step forward”.
For women it’s a disastrous leap backward. UN high commissioner for human rights doesn’t care. Women don’t matter.
Last month, a UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, warned the Scottish bill could endanger women.
Because of course it could, but way too many people are determined to pretend otherwise.
Reem Alsalem said it “would potentially open the door for violent males who identify as men to abuse the process of acquiring a gender certificate and the rights that are associated with it”.
This was disputed by a separate independent UN expert on gender identity, who said the legislation would bring Scotland in line with international human right standards.
But saying the legislation would bring Scotland in line with international human right standards has nothing to do with whether or not easy gender certificates will open the door for violent males. Those are two separate claims.
SNP MP and lawyer Joanna Cherry challenged claims the legislation would bring Scotland into line with international human rights standards.
Ms Cherry, who has been critical of the Scottish government’s plans, argued self-identification was not required to comply with international human rights standards.
Responding to Mr Madrigal-Borloz, she tweeted: “This ‘legal opinion’ contains no analysis of the potential conflict between the proposed system of self-identification and the Equality Act and, in particular, of how self-ID could undermine the sex based rights of women & same sex attracted people.”
All it contains is blithe indifference to the needs and rights of female people.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said that some people have “genuinely held concerns” about the plans but argued that others have latched onto the issue to spread transphobia.
Does she have a divining rod to tell which is which?
If I was in Scotland I would reply to Nicola that transphobia is not the overriding concern, being a madeup accusation meant to silence objections from LGB, feminists, skeptics, and anyone else who can see the problems with re-defining gender as the determinitive factor for sex class discrimination.
Ah, but “genuinely held concerns” is a dog whistle for transphobia.
The mouse, poised over the cheese in the trap, took a “significant step forward.”
After #3: While bravely ignoring its own trapphobia.
Really? I don’t see any mention of it in the UDHR, or did I miss it being silently inserted in secret TRA code words?
What I do see is:
Article 2
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
Obviously, this article was written by white colonialists imposing their idea of sex on the populace. Due to their cultural biases, they have ignored to efforts of trans people to define and develop human rights. Trans people have always been the leaders in the fight for human rights and this erasure of their role is nothing short of genocide.
Then, there is this:
Article 18
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
There, at last, is the acknowledgement of trans people’s right to existence. “(F)reedom of thought”; I think I am a woman, therefore I am, along with “freedom to change his (…) belief,” means I can switch from girl mode to boy mode and back as often as I like and you can just STFU, bitches.
All is well and good and happy in Unicorn land, until poor Mr Madrigal-Borloz crashes into Article 19.
“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
Ooops. Reality collides with fantasy, realists and fantasists are both entitled to express their opinions, and neither gets to shut the other out of the public square. Let the discussions commence, and may the facts win out. Unless your position relies not on facts, but on bald unsupported assertions.
As we know, of course, there is no nation on Earth that implements the UDHR 100% of the time. Universal rights are overridden by national and sectional interests. In many Muslim nations, it is a universal right that women must submit to men, cover their heads outside the home, and not make independent decisions.
But please, let’s not hollow it out anymore by denying rights to half the world’s population based on their sex.
Yeah, see, the wording is sneaky; I noticed it when I was posting this. The UN expert on gender identity didn’t say the legislation would bring Scotland in line with international human rights laws or declarations, so the UN expert on gender identity wasn’t talking about the UDHR. The UN expert was careful to make a much broader sloppier unfalsifiable claim. If they know anything it’s how to be sneaky.
[…] time was 17 days later when the BBC […]