Trivial Whinges of a Pig
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Friday, May 29th, 2009
| Time |
Event |
| 1:54a |
Something I wanted to post about an issue that has been flying around Facebook
see quotes from my rant on Harri Cole Weeks' Facebook note:
If trans kids 'expressing gender variance' because they can't be in the NHS system yet can be protected by law, how come when you get to 18 years old the law no longer protects people expressing gender variance?
If PFC, EHRC and the govt can accept that transgender people who are not transsexuals exist, they are to at least some extent saying that the non-transsexual transgender people damn well deserve whatever other people want to do to them, that they deserve to be excluded from equality and liberation for their failure to fit neatly into a box. Even the HBSoC accepts that for some people experiencing gender dysphoria, having an androgynous appearance and identity is enough to alleviate their (less severe than transsexual) gender dysphoria.
If for example a trans person (at this point, transsexual or transgender politics irrelevant) is banned from entering single sex spaces such as some rape crisis centres, some forms of accomodation, most shop changing rooms and most sporting opportunities, there's fuck all point in having an equality bill becaue it isn't meeting the equalities needs of the people.
If at age 18 someone says 'yeah I'm still gender variant but don't want to be forced into either a sex change or my birth gender', why should they suddenly no longer be covered by a law which DID protect them? Surely that's discrimination against gender variant people based on age! If I'm perceived as being under 18 then am I protected?
It's as if gender variance is seen as something that should only be permitted up to a certain age, in the way that having an invisible friend when you're an adult is a mental health concern. Children who express gender variance don't suddenly overnight become binary transsexuals or cisgendered and heteronormatively-behaving. Many of them become adults who have had their gender variance bullied out of them, and they've been made to feel ashamed and embarrassed to express their individuality, and the fact that even transsexuals are encouraging this to continue happening is a disgrace. | | 1:55a |
I know I haven't written in a while and that's how I wanted to keep it
but hey, no harm in writing really.
I had a pleasant surprise in my inbox this morning, El's most recent Uni essay which is really fucking good. There should be a QYN/TYN academic essay blog because I know other people must have written good stuff too. I like the anger and frustration and passion which I see around me at the minute, people's impatience with how crap the world is, and their drive and determination to improve things. I like that STA and GSUK seem to almost be teaming up as a rival to PFC, onwards and upwards! Everyone is so politically aware and intelligent, five to ten years ago I never could have dreamed that I would genuinely like this many people's brains, and so I'm grateful that I'm living in an era and in a space where those discussions are taking place at a grassroots level, about issues that appeal to me, and I'm not a meaningless ant on my own fighting the tide.
I have a really jam packed tomorrow, at least a 12 hour working day, but I'm content. Bought two new CD albums last week, the new Manics one and the Star Fucking Hipsters one - SFH are a Leftover Crack spin-off band and they were mint live last week, really glad I went. Anti Flag and The King Blues played together in Kingston and that was really good too, and The Specials in Leeds was a mint night aswell.
Goodnight. |
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