Last week the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission issued a new set of guidelines for public authorities explaining how they might best go about carrying out their duties to treat trans people fairly. Amongst the things that the EHRC would like public authorities to do is to:

set the example for society challenging stereotypes to
ensure that trans people are treated as human beings who deserve to
access services, goods and facilities with the same respect and
dignity as everyone else.

Yes, the EHRC believes that it is necessary to encourage the British public to treat trans people as if they were human beings.

One of the reasons this is necessary is, of course, because the British media spends an inordinate amount of time trying to convince the British public that trans people are anything but human, and should be laughed at, discriminated against and otherwise bullied and belittled in any way possible. It was inevitable, therefore, that the EHRC’s document would be greeted by some journalist getting into a frenzied panic about how politically correct loonies were threatening our British way of life by catering to weirdo perverts.

Step forward, therefore, Marie Woolf at the Sunday Times, who managed to ignore the vast majority of the EHRC’s document and focus solely on a small section about gender-specific clothing in schools. It was perhaps inevitable that Ms. Woolf would get the details completely wrong. The story would have been much less interesting if she hadn’t. But let’s think about the issue instead.

Gender-specific clothing isn’t a trans issue, it is a feminist issue. The British media fell over itself in its haste to condemn Sudan last year when women were sentenced to be lashed for wearing “indecent” clothing, namely trousers. And yet suddenly when trans people become involved Ms. Woolf discovers that forcing women to wear gender-specific clothing is an integral part of the British way of life that must be defended at all costs. I’m sure that the Sudanese government will be very happy at this change of heart. They might even offer Ms. Woolf a job doing PR for them. I hope she remembers not to wear anything “indecent” if they do.

This week is going to be very thin blog-wise because I’m off to London tomorrow to take a look at The Identity Project. Christine Burns is giving a guided tour tomorrow at 3:00pm, and it is a public event so come along if you are around.

On Wednesday morning I should have a chance to find a proper bookshop: one that actually sells books I want to buy. Guess which one that will be.

But blogging will be light as a result. Here, to keep you going, are two LGBT-related Guardian articles.

Firstly there’s the sorry tale of how people convicted of “buggery” are still treated as criminals today, even though the crime itself has long since been dropped from the statue books.

And secondly here’s a bisexual complaining about being discriminated against by lesbians and gays (and sadly he seems to think that being trans is a sexual orientation).

The draft of DSM-V, the latest revision of the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic manual, has been released and reactions are beginning to be posted. The excellent Zoe Brain has a long analysis of the implications for trans and intersex people for those who are interested.

On the plus side, it isn’t nearly as bad as I had feared. All of the suggested language about classifying all trans people as sexual perverts appears to have been dropped. Only the poor transvestites are still left at the mercy of Ray Blanchard’s mad fantasies.

The best part is most definitely the addition of an “exit clause” whereby people diagnosed with the new Gender Incongruity condition (which replaces Gender Identity Disorder) can be said to be cured once they have transitioned to a gender they are comfortable with, rather than having to live with the stigma of mental illness all of their lives as was the case before.

The worst bits are a result of the general desire to expand the scope of the DSM to catch ever more people in the psychiatrists’ net. For example, intersex people who have been brought up in a gender that is uncomfortable for them are now to be regarded as mentally ill even though all that is wrong is the way other people treat them. Equally it used to be the case that a transvestite who was happy with his life could not be diagnosed as mentally ill. Now he has no escape. In a similar vein, here’s The Guardian talking about how things like temper tantrums and binge eating are being added to the ever-growing list of mental illnesses. Thank goodness Blanchard is not in charge of the whole thing, or they’d all be classified as sexual perversions.

Crooked Timber has a fascinating post on the effect of introducing civil unions in France. These are open to everyone, not just gays and lesbians. The result of this policy has been a substantial decrease in the number of people getting married, but a substantial increase in the number of people entering government-sanctioned relationships of one kind or the other.

It is hard to interpret what this means without more knowledge of French law. For example, it may be the case that opting for one of these pac contracts is the only way that French people can avoid a religious wedding. Also, as Henry Farrell notes in the post, the pac is easier to dissolve than a marriage, and that may be a powerful selling point.

(Mes amis français, veuillez commenter.)

Nevertheless it does seem that if you are a Christianist (thanks for the word, Jay) you should be more afraid of allowing straight people to opt out of marriage than of allowing teh gays to opt in. And if you are a social conservative (hello, Mr. Cameron) you should be looking at simplifying government-sanctioned relationships as the best way to encourage people to enter into them.

As you may have noticed, I think that civil rights for trans people are very important. Apparently I am not alone. A Rethuglican candidate for Secretary of State in Michigan thinks that they are so important that he has put in his manifesto a promise to ensure that no disgusting pervos get any civil rights in the state should he get to run it. Monica Roberts has more.

To a certain extent you can count having come to the attention of the enemy as a success. In this particular case, however, I think what is more interesting is the tactics. Few things make the Rethuglicans happier than seeing various minority groups fighting viciously between themselves for a seat at the table that they are never going to get. This, I am fairly sure, is a deliberate attempt to sow discord, both of the racial sort that we saw over Prop. 8, and between members of the LGBT community.

By the way, if anyone was interested in the questions raised by my gender in sport post, you might like to check out this post (and the interestingly named Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies) and this one from Andrea James at Boing!Boing!

No sooner had I managed to calm down after the David Letterman nonsense that I discover that it has become the fashion amongst left-wing Americans to “joke” about how Anne Coulter is “really” a man.

And then I saw this, in which Stephen Fry joins the ranks of gay men who demand our support when one of them gets attacked but is only too eager to dump on the trannys when the mood takes him because “everyone knows” that trannys are pathetic scum who deserve to be laughed at.

Let’s get this very clear, people.

1. Every time you make a joke about how someone born female is “really” a man you are reinforcing the idea that trans women are something shameful. It is like kids in a school yard yelling “spastic” at the current target of the bullies.

2. Every time you describe trans women as “deceptive” you are denying their gender identity and their right to live as they feel appropriate. You are also making it harder for them to get access to jobs, health care and so on. You are labeling them as inherently dishonest.

3. Every time you describe trans women as deceptive sexual predators you are reinforcing the myth that trans people only do what they do in order to satisfy perverted sexual desires.

4. Every time you advise men to be wary of being “deceived” by trans women you are providing support for the “trans panic” excuse for murdering trans women. This is no different from the “gay panic” defense for murdering gay people, which is still being used today.

5. Every time you attack trans people but actually only attack trans women you are reinforcing the idea that for a woman to want to live as a man is a natural and understandable ambition but for a man to want to live as a woman is somehow shameful and degrading.

Really, I’m all for having a sense of humor, but it is not necessary to be cruel in order to be funny. Humor should not depend on belittling someone other than yourself who you think is unable to fight back.

Yep, I’m going on about trans rights again. And I’m a few days late on most of this story to boot. For those of you who are terminally bored with such things, I am putting it all under the fold.
Continue reading →

As a follow-up to Friday’s Transgender Day of Remembrance post, here are a few links for your consideration.

Firstly Feministing reminds us that alongside the horrific murders we need to remember that trans people are much more likely to commit suicide than the general population.

If anyone would like examples of the sort of hatred directed at trans people, Roz has links to a couple of supposed “feminist” web sites.

In Twitter today I got asked to publicize this call for action on the UK’s supposed “Equality” Bill. That, you may remember, is the bill over which the EU kicked the UK’s butt because Gordon & Co had written in provisions allowing people to be exempt from the duties of the bill if they claimed that their religion required them to be homophobic.

However, the religious exemption and the trans issues raised by the call to action linked to above are just the tip of the iceberg as far as trans issues in this bill are concerned. I refer you to Christine Burns and the Press for Change submission to Parliament.

Those posts date back to June, but as far as I know the government has refused to budge on any of PFC’s complaints. Bear in mind here that the UK’s Gender Recognition Act of 2004 gives trans people who have passed through all of the required hoops full recognition in their new gender: birth certificate and all. However, the Equality Bill specifically creates “single sex services” and “genuine occupational requirements” which would allow vendors and employers to discriminate against trans people, even if they have a Gender Recognition Certificate. For example, the “Equality” Bill would change UK law to make it legal for a clothes store to ban trans women from women’s changing rooms, for a restaurant to ban trans women from women’s restrooms, and for any company with a sufficiently inventive HR department to refuse to employ trans people.

Oddly enough, the same government has also established an Equality and Human Rights Commission whose job it is to, “protect, enforce and promote equality across the seven “protected” grounds – age, disability, gender, race, religion and belief, sexual orientation and gender reassignment.” Some of the work it has done on trans issues has been very good. However, today the government announced the appointment of 10 new Commissioners. Not one of them has any interest in or experience of trans issues, and the press release by Harriet Harman (Minister for Women and Equality) omitted any mention of EHRC’s duties regarding gender reassignment.

Sorry if this comes across a little ranty, but it is all rather depressing, especially in view of the strong probability that the UK will soon have a Tory government whose behavior towards trans people is likely to be much, much worse.