Quote from: Valeriedances on May 31, 2011, 10:25:01 AM
Expecting to change a legal identification system that is in place around the world and works for billions of people for the sake of a very tiny few people that wouldnt have surgery (transsexual non-opers. a few hundred/ few thousand) is completely unrealistic and an arrogant view, however popular it may be here. I am not name calling, just reflecting on what I just stated. Changing billions for a few.
You really expect to change a system of billions of people?
If you identify as the gender that does not match your body, lets fix the body.
This is erasure of a minority, which I find strange within out own community. The trans community is estimated to be, what, 1% of the population? Isn't that one of the justifications for our oppression, that we are such a small percentage and that we therefore don't matter? Removing sex from legal documents isn't unrealistic: it is just, would only alleviate oppression, and wouldn't cause anyone problems. There are only minimal, one-time administrative costs with removing sex from legal documents, and even that could be eliminated by just not recording that information for future citizens. Initiating and perpetuating single-payer health care system has huge star-up costs, staggering and forever increasing upkeep costs (both direct and as a result of removing capital from the private sphere), huge political barriers, and a slew of other problems, social and economic.
What is unrealistic is to believe that universal health insurance will be instituted everywhere, that SRS and hormones will be covered and accessible, and that bureaucratic guidelines will be fair, consistent and respondant to individual human needs. What is arrogant is to say that non-binary identified people, transsexuals with disabilities, transmen, and those who do not wish to undergo SRS
must do so in order to be legally recognized and not harassed by the state.
Quote from: Valeriedances on May 31, 2011, 11:14:51 AM
I do not see how I or my view oppresses anyone. I advocate medical help for all transsexual people.
Are we talking of gender recognition or not? How does the human race identify a gender other than physically since the beginning of time?
I'm still asking, do you expect to change a system that works for billions of people?
Maybe that is what the transgender movement is about. I will fight against it because of my own concern for the creation of 3rd gender status that I might be forced into.
It works for most people because most people are cisgendered and never have to question the system or be oppressed by it.
Cisgendered society has, historically and largely to this day, determined gender by sex: this is called gender essentialism, and is actually a huge barrier to the entire trans community, as well as cisgendered women. My gender is not determined by my lack of a penis, and I won't "become" a man when/if I can have a functioning penis. I AM a man.
Non-binary and binary identities already coexist: the issue is whether to oppress non-binary people with the state while privileging binary identities. This has nothing to do with the validity of your identity, one which we all affirm and that all should. If sex was removed from legal documents, then the state just wouldn't police bodies or identities, including your own. It sounds as if you fear society not recognizing your identity if non-binary identities are not invalidated, but your plan of action is to effectively "ban" those identities with an institution of violence in order to affirm your own. Nobody should "other" your identity, neither the state nor society, but to oppress genderqueer identities with the state is just as wrong, and doesn't help yourself or anyone else.
QuoteWhat is not acceptable is removing a path of normalcy that we now have for transsexual people and replacing that with a legal recognition of 3rd gender/other status. I fail to see how that is progress?
I advocate removing sex from legal documents. This helps everyone and hurts no one, and therefore is progress. Identities can be formed in by individuals and socially, not legally battled for if anyone dares to not be cisgendered.
QuoteI do not see conservatives and most cis people budging on gender identification. What I do see as possible is their assigning us our own unique status which cannot be a good thing.
But you do see conservatives passing universal health care, paying for it into perpetuity, including SRS and hormones in coverage, creating and maintaining trans-friendly guidelines for SRS qualiifcation, and allowing for fair and balanced rules to change legal sex identification? I don't want the institution of violence known as the state policing bodies and identities in ANY way, that is the only way the state won't abuse power and oppress people the trans community.
Quote from: Valeriedances on May 31, 2011, 05:01:01 PM
Because I believe there will be a public backlash against what the public will view as gender deconstruction, anarchy and chaos. I believe the public would rather other us than allow us to change our gender merely upon our word.
First of all, recognizing the factual coexistence of non-binary bodies and identities along side binary identities and bodies does not constitute the end of gender, and such a shift in perception would only be a good thing. Secondly, "anarchy" is a social philosophy that advocates a stateless society, of which there are many nuanced types (including anarcho-socialism, anarcho-feminism, anarcho-synidcalism, anarcho-capitalism, and queer anarchy, to name a few), and is in no way synonymous with "chaos." And thirdly, removing state policing of bodies and identities would not lead to chaos, but would remove the bureaucratic sprawl of overlapping jurisdictions and agencies that currently dictates legal recognition. And lastly, a fear of societal bigotry is no reason to use violent force to oppress a part of our own community due to our own ableism, classism, sexism, and (ironically) transphobia.
