Malta passes law to ban normalisation surgery on intersex infants

Hey guys, this is really good.

Full story here: http://feminist.org/blog/index.php/2015/04/03/malta-just-became-the-first-country-to-ban-normalization-surgery-on-intersex-infants/

Highlights:

"Malta’s parliament just passed new legislation that allows self-determination of gender (with a simple process to legally change gender), and outlaws unnecessary surgery on intersex babies. This bill makes Malta the first country to ban unnecessary surgery on intersex infants.

In 2013, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture announced it condemns unnecessary surgery on intersex babies. “The Special Rapporteur calls upon all States to repeal any law allowing intrusive and irreversible treatments,” the UN statement reads, “including forced genital-normalizing surgery, involuntary sterilization, unethical experimentation, medical display, ‘reparative therapies’ or ‘conversion therapies,’ when enforced or administered without the free and informed consent of the person concerned.”

Maltese officials and medical professionals are now working to come up with guidelines to make sure all surgeries done on infants are medically necessary and not “driven by social factors without the consent of the minor.”

Excellent!

Batgirl 37 - did y'all miss the appropriation of ASL?

I finally read Batgirl 37, and yes I agree with the rest of the liberal internet community, that issue relied on tired old tropes and cliches for trans people and was all in all clumsily and hurtfully done.

Why have I not seen anything about the use of ASL in the issue?  For those that don't know, ASL is American Sign Language, used by the Deaf community in the States and is a different language to all the other sign languages in the world.  Like English is different to all the other spoken languages in the world.  Even other English speaking countries have sign languages that are different to ASL.  E.g. Australia has AusLan, the UK has British Sign Language (BSL) and the languages are not interchangeable.  Got that? Good.

Back to the comics.  My ire is particularly directed at this page:

Some background - Babsgirl goes to an art show and it's full of floor to ceiling photographic images of someone dressed as Batgirl, pulling all sorts of stupid poses.  Babs is obviously horrified as everyone thinks it's the actual Batgirl in the pictures.

When the show has ended Babs does some investigations and looks up an ASL dictionary.  A quick google search brings up a variety of different images for ASL dictionary, none of which look like the book Babs is holding.  Harrumph.
After looking in the book Babs concludes that the stupid poses were actually ASL signs, a code to her, saying 'Below Burn Side Bridge 10pm'.

Arrggghh!  OK, before we get into how the signs work, let's just look at how this secret message would work.

The plot assumes that no one else at the show, or who would be consuming the images at a later date, understands ASL.  Like it's some ultra secret hidden thing, that you only get to learn once you're in the club.  Not so.  This article gave the number of ASL users in 1974 at half a million, at a very conservative estimate.  For crying out loud, America has a University for the Deaf where everyone uses ASL!  That's not even counting those for whom ASL is a fluent second language, or those who have studied ASL and use it in their jobs or for fun when out with friends, for example.

So, I do not hold that Babs will be the only person ever seeing those images who can work out that it's ASL.

Next, the signs.
Full disclosure here:  I don't know ASL, I know BSL.  I have no idea about ASL vocabulary, but I do understand the grammar of sign languages and the ways in which they can be represented.

The photographs in this comic are 2d representations of a 3d language.  It can be hard to accurately draw vocabulary from sign languages because you need to show movement, speed and relation of the sign to other parts of the sentence.  But it can be done.  Off the top of my head The That Deaf Guy comic strip does it well, as did some of David Mack's Echo/Daredevil comics.  Peter David's Deaf Supergirl and Young Justice issues also did OK.

These Babsgirl panels do not do this.  Yes, you can see that the handshapes are correct - so some tell me, others say they aren't so I guess there's some regional variation in the signs there.  If you look at the image for burn, I'll bet you anything that the ASL for burn is not static and is similar in construction to the BSL sign for burn or fire, e.g. the sign includes movement and without the movement the handshape is meaningless.  Here are some clips of the BSL sign for burn and fire.

Oh look, I've remembered I'm online and have just looked up the ASL sign for burn.  What it ain't is someone clutching their chest and looking wistfully/sexily at the sky.  Facial expressions, shoulder position, head position all count in ASL.

Here are the other signs in that panel:
Below
Burn
Side
Bridge
10
Pm or any other indication of time isn't even in there, as far as I can see.

Taking handshapes from just one part of the sign is akin to writing down 'cial' from facial and expecting everyone to know you mean facial.  On twitter I said that movement wouldn't have worked in the context of the comic.  I take that back.  They could have shown movement, they could have done lots of superimposed images of the fake Batgirl's hands moving through space.  Bet they still could have made it sexy if they wanted.

Finally, I'd expect Burnside, as a trendy area of Gotham, to have it's own sign and not be an amalgamation of Burn and Side.  It might not be in the dictionary, but I bet you, within the fictional DCU Deaf folk have their own sign for it.

This comic bothers me so much because it reads like cultural appropriation of ASL, it's nominally in there just to move the plot forward and show how awesome Babsgirl is.  It doesn't do anything for Deaf studies, Deaf awareness or ASL.  It's like Gwen Stefani's harajuku girls or white folk dressing up as Native Americans for Halloween.  Or like that godawful French film that was recently released.

I know I'm hearing, and some would say it's not my place to say this, and really it's probably not, you'd be better off reading Deaf bloggers views of the comic, and I'd point you to them but I'm out of the loop on Deaf blogs and I have no idea where to find Deaf comic bloggers (particularly political ones), and particularly fans of the DCU.  If anyone knows any please point me in the right direction!

I'm not trying to say my viewpoint supercedes any Deaf people viewpoint. It doesn't.  But I can't believe that no one else has spoken up about this.  Regular readers know I get my knickers in a twist quite regularly, this is one of those times.  If no one else is going to speak up so that I can comment on the blog and link back to it, I'm going to mouth off.

Many thanks to @matttygurney75, @unikornus and @adreanaline for talking through my ideas with me on twitter.  As @adreanaline said:
"Comics is about capturing 3D motion onto 2D pages.  That is why ASL Deaf artists should be hired.  They know how to do ASL."

Incidentally, she is a Deaf cartoonist and author of How to Write American Sign Language.  So she'll know.

Suzanne Moore

Suzanne Moore said something recently which made a lot of people angry:
"the desired body for women is that of "a Brazilian transsexual"

She called it a throwaway comment, which no doubt made people more angry.  Not surprising, it's an exoticising, reductionist statement which sexualises trans (women's) bodies.  It's thoughtless and in a climate where trans people are regularly and routinely discriminated against, it is not helpful.

Then she wrote this article that a lot of people took as a fake apology/non existent apology, which also made people angry:  I don't care if you were born a woman or became one.

Now, I read this article this morning and tweeted that "I like this article. Flippant comments aside, I appreciate her stance".  This wasn't well explained by me and is not descriptive of all my thoughts around the article.  As I don't think Twitter is the place to have in depth conversations I said I would blog about it.  So here we go.

I am not writing this to counter or reinforce any particular person's viewpoint or comments.  These thoughts are my own, as I understand them.

Part of the reason I don't view this article as an apology, is because she doesn't appear to want to apologise, or pretend to apologise.  So I don't understand why people are focusing on that.  The article starts off by talking about Bowie, presumably prompted by his recent single, so I don't think she ever wanted it to be an apology.  By all means, be pissed off by the fact she hasn't apologised but I don't think it makes sense to view it in terms of a (non) apology.

There are a lot of things I dislike about her article, but there are some things I do like.

I do not like (quotes from the article in bold, my comments are below each quote):

I was a waitress and I served them (trans people) breakfast at 5am and they were so kind to me. Many had had botched surgery in Morocco and their lives were more than difficult.
I think she's put this in to show she respects and likes trans people, and that she gets on with trans people.  The problem is that meeting, getting on with and feeling sympathy for a small group of trans people is largely irrelevant.  It's possible to get on with people and still consider them second class in some way.  The comments about surgery are a bit odd - this isn't really important to the article at all.  I expect that she's included it as it's how she relates to trans people - through their surgery - which is offensive.

Mostly this (transitioning) seemed to be an obsession with secondary sexual characteristics: peeing sitting down if they had been a man, wearing horrible lumberjack shirts and refusing to wash up if they had been a woman.
Ugh.  This is reductionist, dismissive and horrible.  It illustrates quite clearly that she doesn't care about trans people experiences and is willing to use them to back up narrow minded prejudices.  if what she states is the case, there are any number of reasons why trans people might choose to fulfil gendered behaviours - even me, with my limited understanding, knows that one option is that 'doctors*' insisted that their trans patients had to act in set gendered ways in order to be approved for surgery.  Another reason might be because they just wanted to - and there is nothing wrong with that.

However I mostly think she's talking bollocks and that her observations are cherry picked and made up to support her own view.

*I use the term doctor loosely here, because anyone acting like that clearly doesn't have the health of their patient in mind, which I think should be a requisite for a doctor. 

The radical fluidity of gender vaporised.
Errr, trans people getting surgery does not equate to gender fludity being vaporised.  I'd argue that getting surgery and living as your self identified gender is actually pretty fucking radical, considering the shit that trans people put up with (including the stupid comments in this article).  But then again as a cis person I am not the right person to lecture about trans experience (it would be nice if Moore also understood this).


Some trans people appeared to reinforce every gender stereotype going
And?  I don't see the problem here.  A few things -
I wonder is Moore would criticise cis people for fulfilling gender stereotypes.
This opinion is probably as seen through Moore's own eyes, not seen through trans people eyes.
If this highly subjective statement is indeed true, and if that is indeed a problem, 'some' does not invalidate 'all'.

I speak as a white woman of privilege, though I was indeed born in the wrong body. It should have been Gisele Bündchen's.
So here Moore is mocking and invalidating trans people's experience and feelings.  I am willing to accept that she perhaps wasn't intending to do this, but was intending to make a joke.

There's one more bit I take issue with, but I'll deal with that at the end as it will only make sense in view of the rest of the article.

Things I do agree with, in part (quotes from the article in bold, my comments are below each quote):

For this I have been attacked on Twitter for "transphobia". I made it worse – well why not? – by saying that I don't like the word. I don't think it adds to our understanding of the complex webs of hatred it invokes, but instead closes down discussion.
First off, I think that the word transphobia is highly highly useful, relevant and absolutely needed.  For without it it becomes much much harder to identify, discuss and fight against discrimination against trans people.  So I disagree with her when she says it doesn't add to the discussion.  I think it's quite disingenuous of her to say otherwise.

But, I do think that sometimes some people attack other for being transphobic and use that to shut down discussion.  This is different to what Moore is saying, but on first read of the article that's how I took it.  This isn't the fault of the word 'transphobic'.  It's down to people.  Blaming it on the word itself is wrong.

I absolutely understand why trans people wouldn't want to engage in education and discussion on every single issue of transphobia, but my feeling is that it is allies who put forth accusations of transphobia and then refuse to discuss it.  Sometimes I think people get accused of transphobia without the accuser considering the context in which things were said.   There seems to be a moral high ground in some social justice circles whereby if you accuse someone of being discriminatory you are automatically right and so don't have to engage with them further at all.  Well, sometimes people misunderstand other things and sometimes people express themselves badly and I don't think we should hang people out to dry because they've said a couple of stupid things.

I don't have evidence for this - it's just my feelings about twitter discussions (where I do a lot of my reading nowadays) and I am perfectly aware that my feelings are just as subjective and likely to be ill informed as Moore's statements above.  But all these feelings informed my reading of Moore's article so when I got to the bit in bold above, I went, hmm, she's right.  Except as I said in the second paragraph of this point, my reading of her words is different to what she said.

Intersectionality is good in theory, though in practice, it means that no one can speak for anyone else. It is the dead-end where much queer politics, feminist politics and identity politics ends up. In its own rectum. It refuses to engage with many other political discourses and becomes the old hierarchy of oppression.
I do think she has a point here, especially about the heirarchy of oppression.  I know that's not how intersectionality is supposed to work, but in practice that is sometimes what happens.  Where do you go with creating a cohesive, campaigning movement when you have a lot of disparate interests and identities?  Sometimes you end up with campaigners shouting down those not as enlightened as they are and refusing to engage, in a similar manner to both.  Again, this is an issue more with people than with the theory itself, I think.   I would be interested to hear Moore's reasons as to why the theory itself is fundamentally unsound.

Then again, I absolutely believe that feminism must take into account racism, ableism, ageisim, homophobia, biphobia and so on.  So I think this means I am stuck in an ideological rut, unsure how to reconcile the two views I have.

It makes me ill that meritocracy is the ruling-class myth, that policy is not about economics but rancid ideology.  
So here I think she's saying she's less traditional feminist and more economist (with a feminist leaning).
Well I can't argue with that.

I wanted to say again that feminism is not a white, middle-class concern: look at Sierra Leone, Egypt, India.
Correct.  But unless you decide she is not primarily a feminist, this conflicts with her earlier comments about intersectionality.  It does fit with the idea that she's more marxist economist (or perhaps Lockian?  Is it Locke who developed the idea of the social contract?  No matter, for the next couple of points let's pretend I'm right in calling her a Marxist economist).

When I say "women", I don't much care if you were born or became one. I am with RuPaul: "Honey, we are born naked, the rest is drag." What I do care about is something that is deeply old-fashioned: solidarity. I may not be your colour or your culture, or share your sexual preferences, but open your eyes to what we need to do. This is not some glitch in the uber-sexual matrix; this government makes Thatcher look like Shirley Williams. The boot is in your face if you are not one of them.
Correct.  See my comments above about her being more of a Marxist economist than a feminist.

So to be told that I hate transgender people feels a little ... irrelevant. Other people's genital arrangements are less interesting to me than the breakdown of the social contract. I am asking for anger and for alliances. Less divide and rule.
Yes, well, the problem with this is that when you use the word irrelevant it gets up people's noses.  People start thinking you find them irrelevant.

As for the comment about genital arrangements, well, trans people are far more than their genitals, and if Moore had done any research or put any thought into trans people's lives she'd have realised this.  Again, she's reducing trans people to their genitals.

Regarding the comments about the social contract, I refer you back to my Marxist economist comments.  If you do not take an economic viewpoint of the problems of society you will not agree with her.  One of the many criticism of Marxism is that it does nothing to help women.

On the other hand, she is quite keen on the social contract.  Under the social contract government has a responsibility to care for it's citizens.  In return citizens pay taxes and agree not to riot.  Now under this concept, government should care for everybody and protect them from harm.  That includes it's trans citizens.  And come to think of it, under the social contract government *must* understand intersectionality or it cannot fully protect everyone.  Hmm, I'd not thought of that before.

Lastly, I wrote this bit at the start of the post but don't know where to fit it.  So it gets bunged on the end.

Some people are offensive and will always be offensive - I don't know that I expect all of them to apologise, get over it, get better. I find the manner in which twitter continuously asks people for apologies and berates people for any mistake made quite venomous.  I don't think it works.  I don't find it agreeable.

I now think this post may be a bit of a mess.

Thoughts on the gender binary and religion

So, when looking up Beltaine stuff recently I came across something called The 13th Principles of Wiccan Belief which I found quite interesting.  As the webpage is blue text on a black background (whoever thought that was a good idea?) I will repost the principles here:

1.     We practice rites to attune ourselves with the natural rhythm of life forces marked by the phases of the Moon and the seasonal Quarters and Cross Quarters.

2.     We recognize that our intelligence gives us a unique responsibility toward our environment.  We seek to live in harmony with nature in ecological balance offering fulfillment to life and consciousness within an evolutionary concept.

3.     We acknowledge a depth of power far greater than that apparent to the average person.  Because it is far greater than ordinary it is sometimes called ‘supernatural’, but we see it as lying within that which is naturally potential to all.

4.     We conceive of the Creative Power in the universe as manifesting through polarity – as masculine and feminine – and that this same Creative Power lies in all people and functions through the interaction of the masculine and the feminine.  We value neither above the other knowing each to be supportive of the other.  We value sex as pleasure as the symbol and embodiment of life, and as one of the sources of energy used in magical practice and religious worship.

5.     We recognize both outer worlds and inner, or psychological worlds sometimes known as the Spiritual World, the Collective Unconsciousness, the Inner Planes etc – and we see in the interaction of these two dimensions the basis for paranormal phenomena and magical exercises.  We neglect neither dimension for the other, seeing both as necessary for our fulfillment.

6.     We do not recognize any authoritarian hierarchy, but do honor those who teach, respect those who share their greater knowledge and wisdom, and acknowledge those who have courageously given of themselves in leadership.

7.     We see religion, magick and wisdom in living as being united in the way one views the world and lives within it – a world view and philosophy of life which we identify as Witchcraft – the Wiccan Way.

8.     Calling oneself ‘Witch’ does not make a Witch – but neither does heredity itself, nor the collecting of titles, degrees and initiations.  A Witch seek to control the forces within her/himself that make life possible in order to live wisely and without harm to others and in harmony with nature.

9.     We believe in the affirmation and fulfillment of life in a continuation of evolution and development of consciousness giving meaning to the Universe we know and our personal role within it.

10.Our only animosity towards Christianity, or towards any other religion or philosophy of life, is to the extent that its institutions have claimed to be ‘the only way’ and have sought to deny freedom to others and to suppress other ways of religious practice and belief.

11. As American Witches, we are not threatened by debates on the history of the craft, the origins of various terms, the legitimacy of various aspects of different traditions.  We are concerned with our present and our future.

12.We do not accept the concept of absolute evil, nor do we worship any entity known as ‘Satan’ or ‘the Devil’ as defined by Christian tradition.  We do not seek power through the suffering of others, nor accept that personal benefit can be derived only by denial to another.

13.We believe that we should seek within Nature that which is contributory to our health and well-being.

As you can see, it's an American charter.  More info on the background regarding how it was drawn up etc can be found on the website.  I should also point out that wiccanism is a sub branch of paganism, so not all pagans refer to themselves as wiccas, but all wiccas refer to themselves as pagans.

Anyway, what particularly interested me was principle number 4 -
"We conceive of the Creative Power in the universe as manifesting through polarity – as masculine and feminine"

See, this is where I fall out with most pagan teachings.  So much reference is made to the polarity read: binary) of masculine and feminine gender.  What about intersex people?  Trans people?  Those who regard themselves as gender free?  This polarity doesn't seem to allow room for them.


I think that most pagans would argue that the masculine and feminine labels are ways of understanding human and divine nature and don't mean that only male and female people (or Gods) exist.  That, for example, a man can identify with feminine traits and a woman identify with masculine traits (or that many people will identify with both).  Certainly pagans believe that both the masculine and feminine are worthy, that one isn't superior to the other and that both are important facets of life and should both be embraced.


My issue is that we are only human and we frame our ideas and understanding with human values and experiences.  We cannot know the absolute divine truth because we are only human.  Along with that, we (in the West at least, I am not qualified to talk about different cultures) live in a patriarchal society which is obsessed with the gender binary and tries to rigorously enforce it.


So, when pagans talk about the masculine and feminine aspects of the divine, I can't help but feel that
they are feeding into this ciscentric view of gender.  It prioritises conventional gender presentation over other 'hidden' genders (intersex, trans, gender free etc).  Either/or.
Ok, so there are some Gods who are a mixture of both sexes, Hermaphroditos (the son of Hermes and Aphrodite) comes to mind.  However, this God is mostly referred to by the male pronoun and often is presented as being more about a mixture of sex (and sexuality) than gender.  Of course the confusion between sex and gender and their linkage tends to confuse most cis-gendered people (I include myself in this) and I think helps feed into this obsession with the male/female binary.


I am just not comfortable with that.  This creates a conundrum in my mind and I have trouble rationalising where I fit amongst these beliefs.


In my (limited) readings I've come across some authors who state that past pagan societies weren't sexist, women were revered and not treated as second class citizens and part of the evidence for that is the worship of the Goddess.  It will surprise no one to read that I think this view demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of history, culture and gender relations.  Having said that, I haven't found another religion which has as much pro-feminist leanings as this one.  Plus, the lack of structure and ability to choose your own way is very appealing to me.


I don't know, if anyone reading this considers themselves pagan and has thoughts on this masculine/feminine binary I'd be really keen to read your thoughts.  Please no one comment to the effect of paganism being wrong, or cisgendered people being the only real people.



Note: I really hate the way blogspot's spellcheck doesn't recognise 'cis' or 'cisgendered' as words.  Rubbish.

My heart hurts

Found this on Ragnel's' tumblr page:
---------------------------------------------------

justaguywitharrows:

kiriamaya:

[TRIGGER WARNING for murder and trans-hatred]
[Image is a black-and-white picture of Tyra Hunter, a short-haired black woman, wearing what appears to be a turtleneck with a necklace]
abbyjean:

It was the morning of Aug. 7, 1995, and Tyra Hunter, a popular African-American hairdresser, was on her way to work in Washington, D.C. Suddenly, the car she was in was broadsided. In this situation, one would expect that Hunter would have promptly been taken to a hospital, where she would have received whatever medical care she needed. But tragically, and outrageously, that is not what happened. When emergency personnel arrived on the scene, they helped the barely-conscious Hunter out of the car and began treating her, but only until one of them realized she was transgender after cutting open her clothing. At that point, they backed away from her, began laughing at her and taunting her with anti-transgender slurs. They stopped treating her in a life-threatening situation. In what world does someone sworn to help others in emergency situations stop treating them to attack them? When she was finally transported to a hospital, her ordeal didn’t end. Doctors refused to treat her, and by the time she was finally granted medical care, it was too late. Hunter was pronounced dead the same day. (via COLORLINES)

Mandy Carter, “Still No Freedom Rainbow for Transgender People of Color”

may actually start weeping

What the fuck is wrong with people?
-------------------------------------------------------

I'm speechless.  Fuck I hate people sometimes.

12th International Transgender Day of Rememberance

Is today.  I copy the below text from Helen G's article on The F Word:

Every two days, somewhere in the world, a trans person is murdered.

Another year has passed and in the last 12 months my community has lost almost 180 people - that we know of - to acts of transphobic violence. And even though many cis people seem, finally, to be coming to terms with the idea that trans people do exist, it’s a process which is frustratingly slow. Trans people still have a long way to go before we are recognised as the full members of humankind that we know ourselves to be.
While we walk our individual paths through this world, many of us continue to grow, to change, to find ourselves. And many of us may also continue to be marginalised and stigmatised, living on the edges of a society in which we already know we have as much right to take part as any cis person.

Yet so many cis people continue to make snap value judgements about us, to label us outcasts and pariahs, freaks and perverts, less than human in every way they can think. And having made that judgement, many will act on it with a myriad forms of violence, from the everyday microaggressions they inflict on us, the jibes, the slurs, the hate speech, the rapes, the beatings - every form of oppression available to them - and for some, that includes murder.

This is transphobia writ large, the manifestation of cis privilege as an irrational fear of, and/or hostility towards, people who are transgender or who otherwise do not conform to cultural stereotypes of what is meant by ‘male’ and ‘female’.

One of the effects of living in such beseiged circumstances in cis society is that we learn to survive - assuming, of course, that we are fortunate enough to get through each day in one piece. But each and every attack on us leaves another scar, even if it’s not visible on our physical bodies.

Then there are those of us who don’t make it through another day, another month, another year; those who don’t survive. And it is those people, our trans siblings, our family, our friends, our partners, who we remember and mourn each year on this date.

Around the world today, there are many vigils and memorials taking place - if there is one near you, and you can make it, please go along. Spare a few moments to remember those we have lost, to pay your respects - and to remind yourself and cis society at large that trans people are somebody’s children, somebody’s parents, somebody’s friends, somebody’s neighbours, somebody’s partners, somebody’s lovers.

More than anything else, today and every day, please remember that trans people too are part of the human race - and we’re as entitled to life as any other member of humanity.

A list of events and locations of vigils and memorials for the 12th International Transgender Day Of Remembrance can be found on the TDoR website.

I did a review for Prism Comics!

And they published it :D.
It's the Secret Six: 6 degrees of separation book.  You can read the review here.  I had fun writing it up and I hope to submit more reviews to them in the future.  They're a great site - they basically promote all sorts of comics with LGBT themes or characters.

Readers with good memories might notice I also reviewed the book for New readers... a while ago.  Being totally honest, I put together the Prism comics review from the New readers... one but tried to give it a different slant as it's for a different audience.  I hope it worked.

Transphobic crap strikes again

Crossposted from A.E.Brain's blog:
-----------------
 From the UK Equality Act 2010 :

Equality Act 2010 (c. 15)
Schedule 3 — Services and public functions: exceptions
Part 7 — Separate and single services

Gender reassignment
28
(1) A person does not contravene section 29, so far as relating to gender reassignment discrimination, only because of anything done in relation to a matter within sub-paragraph (2) if the conduct in question is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.

(2) The matters are—
(a) the provision of separate services for persons of each sex;
(b) the provision of separate services differently for persons of each sex;
(c) the provision of a service only to persons of one sex.

Equality Act 2010 (c. 15)
Schedule 9 — Work: exceptions
Part 1 — Occupational requirements
(3) The references in sub-paragraph (1) to a requirement to have a protected
characteristic are to be read—
(a) in the case of gender reassignment, as references to a requirement not to be a transsexual person (and section 7(3) is accordingly to be ignored);

So what does that mean? It means that there is one "protected" class where protection is explicitly removed, not granted. It means that a gender recognition certificate is not worth the paper it's printed on. Rather than being a recognition that they are of the target gender, it's a nullity, as the law states that they're not, not really. This is made clear in the explanatory notes.:

Gender reassignment: paragraph 28

749. This paragraph replaces a similar provision in the Sex Discrimination Act
1975.
Example
A group counselling session is provided for female victims of sexual assault. The organisers do not allow transsexual people to attend as they judge that the clients who attend the group session are unlikely to do so if a male-to-female transsexual person was also there. This would be lawful.
...
Schedule 9: Work: exceptions
Part 1: Occupational requirements

A counsellor working with victims of rape might have to be a woman and not a transsexual person, even if she has a gender recognition certificate, in order to avoid causing them further distress.

The provisions of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 that over-rode that 1975 act have now been repealed. There is a distinction between "women" and "transsexual persons with (or without) gender recognition certificates" now.

Now of course, who could reasonably object to a councellor whose appearance might be upsetting to a rape survivor? In such cases, we cannot afford to be too precious about rights of employment, we must consider the victims first and foremost.

But it's not about appearance. It's not about the victims and their feelings. It's about transphobic prejudice. It's now legitimate to refuse help to victims who are "transsexual persons" because of the transphobia of others. There are other consequences too.

Good	Bad
Noted "Womyn born Womyn" Female At Birth founder of the New Radical Lesbian Feminist Front, dedicated to keeping Trans women out of women's space, including rape crisis centers. A "real" woman who it is illegal to discriminate against.	Not a woman, but a transsexual person. Someone who it is explicitly legal to discriminate against as their presence - either as councellor or as victim - may be too upsetting to other rape victims.

As for those women transsexual persons with gender recognition certificates who have been raped... I guess they're out of luck. The "Equality Act" is anything but.
----------------------------------------------
From The F Word's coverage:


So apparently, even though I have a full GRC, and all my other documentation shows my gender correctly, I will no longer legally be a woman when this Act comes into force in October; I’ll be a “transsexual person” and that means I can forget it if I think I can count on UK law for any protection of my civil and human rights.


I’m already seeing a groundswell of outrage and anger amongst some of my trans sisters online; I think it’s entirely understandable, even justifiable. Because, when you get right down to it, cis society is transphobic, by default and to its core; there is precious little respite for trans people and, like most humans, repeatedly backing us into a corner isn’t going to put us in the best of humours.

But anti-trans prejudice is so deeply embedded in cis society that all the legislation in the world is never going to change anything for the better, least of all the attitudes of cis people. There’s no logic, no acceptance and certainly no justice. There never really was - all this legislation will do is formalise a state of affairs which already exists.

Cis people may, rightly, feel aggrieved about the low proportion of reported rapes that end in a successful prosecution - but has anyone ever seen statistics for reported rapes of trans people? Has anyone ever heard of even one trans person who’s seen a successful prosecution? And there may well be too few rape crisis centres available to cis women - but how many of them will even let a trans woman through the door, let alone offer help and support?

The fact is that the law - like many other aspects of society which the majority of cis people take for granted - is simply not accessible to us. Trans people are routinely dehumanised and demonised, excluded and harassed, attacked and even murdered with impunity by cis people from across the entire class spectrum - and, be honest, would you trust a system in which nearly everyone you meet treats you as less than human?

As the old joke goes: it doesn’t matter which way you vote, the government still gets in. And as far as I’m concerned, with this legislation, the government looks set to do a far better job of morally mandating people like me out of existence than Janice Raymond could ever dream of.

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I don't care which goverment was responsible for this, it's bullshit.  And calling it Equality?  They've got a bloody cheek.

Venus Envy

So, I started reading Venus Envy a few days ago, a webcomic about a transgendered teen, her high school life, home life, and friends.  It's pretty good and funny.  And not at all about superheroes.  I mean, Zoe (the protagonist) wears a Batman vest once but that's it.  And then I came across this awesome strip.

And I was roaring with laughter because it's just so damn unexpected.  And funny.

That's not the usual style  of the comic btw, that particular strip is a fill in one, but the humour is spot on and matches the rest of the series well.  Anyway, I highly recommend reading Venus Envy.

Coming out in comics: The DC offices

The Januay 13th (or thereabouts) DC Nation column featured what I thought was a rather interesting story.  5 students from the Harvey Milk High School in New York got to visit the DC offices as part of the school's careers day, intended to, and I quote, highlight and promote positive gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender role models in the workplace.  The column mentions that the kids met Paul Levitz and David Cole.

Now I have no idea if Levitz or Cole are identify as LGBT, but I think that this visit is hugely important in terms of acknowledging diversity at the DC offices.  I would assume from the article that there are folks at the DC offices who identify as LGBT, and for DC to publicly go out of their way to court the queer vote and promote themselves as being open to LGBT kids, well I think it's bloody great.

Obviously I would hope this would rub off on the creative output and we get to see more LGBT characters* within the DCU, but I appreciate this may take some time.


*There are some LGB characters in the DCU, if you're interested, I've started chronicling them.

Jimmy Olsen

It's LGBT History month in the UK and someone recently pointed out to me that Jimmy Olsen rather enjoys dressing up in ladies clothes.  Here's the evidence.  Having not read alot of old Superman stories I wasn't aware of this, but as the linked site has scans up, I think I may go read them.

The website featuring these is the Transgender Graphic and Fiction archive.  The comics section is reasonable, and features Hawkwoman being body swapped, Superman being bodyswapped, and everybody's favourite, Gal Gardener.  Except I haven't read that story yet...

We're trying to celebrate LGBT history month over on New readers too... starting with me reviewing a yaoi title.

Events! Comics and LGTBTI Deaf and Disabled ones!

Bristol Comic con, right.  I only found out about this a few months ago and was reminded of it again in the last few weeks.  This year they have actual real DC creators there.  Guess who?

Phil Noto of Batgirl and Ramon Bachs of Red Robin.  Both do the art for their titles.

Waaaaah I can't go :(

It's slap bang in the middle of my next BSL course and I can't afford to miss a day.  Waaaahhhh.  Could you imagine Supergirl as drawn by Ramon Bachs?  And Phil Noto I'd just want to compliment on Stephs new costume.

If anyone reading this is going do you fancy getting me a comission?

And in other news, something else I can't go to.  Glasgow Museums have an exhibition on titled A Spot of Bother: LGBTI Deaf and Disabled cultures.

Norfolk's a wee bit far away from Glasgow.  The exhibition is on until the 21st Feb.  If anyone reading this does go would you mind coming back and telling me how it was?

Let me point you somewhere excellent...

Lucy over at Catspaw has written an excellent post dissecting Julie Bindel's transphobia.  Here I shall crosspost the first few paragraphs and then urge you all to go read the rest of it:

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Just when I was hoping that Julie Bindel had moved on from being actively transphobic, she's appeared in an, at-best, centre-right magazine called Standpoint (What the heck is a feminist, especially a self-proclaimed radical lesbian feminist, doing cosying up with the right?) with an article entitled "The Operation That Can Ruin Your Life".  Three guesses as to what operation she's referring to and the first two don't count.  I hate being a puppet dancing to strings being pulled by Ms Bindel, but I also can't let this sort of hate pass by uncommented.  I'll mostly be snarking, so fair warning.  I'm skipping large parts of the article because a full fisk would be interminably long.  It's also worth noting that in many ways this article is sort of her "greatest hits" on trans stuff in that she's stitched together material from previous articles she's written.  She even includes the quote about trans people and Grease that she later apologised for, showing just how insincere she can be when apologising.  That said, let's get to her article.

Almost immediately one has to wonder what world Ms Bindel lives in.  Referring to last year's Stonewall awards she says that "I, along with a police escort, walked past a huge demonstration of transsexuals and their supporters, shouting 'Bindel the Bigot'."  This should concern everyone.  In that I mean it should concern everyone that a protest of about 150 people is a huge demonstration in Bindel's eyes, that she remembers a chant that was not chanted, and that she also remembers having a police escort while others don't.  Of course since she also refers to the demonstrators as a "powerful lobby" who have been "hounding [her] for "five years", the real point here is to establish that: a) trans people are possibly dangerous, b) there are a lot of trans people, c) trans people are not activists trying to assert their rights (as feminists might be described) but are like industry lobbyists, and d) trans people are personally out to get her.  Notice how this is reinforced at the end of the same paragraph: "I now find that a number of organisations are too frightened to ask me to speak at public events for fear of protests by transsexual lobbyists."  Trans people are boogeypeople that scare people away from Bindel with their lobbying, ehr, protests.

"Feminists tend to be critical of traditional gender roles because they benefit men and oppress women."  Yes, yes, we do.  I couldn't agree with you more, Ms Bindel.  Glad we could find common ground.  Of course, then she completely rips that ground away by immediately following up by saying that "[t]ranssexualism, by its nature, promotes the idea that it is 'natural' for boys to play with guns and girls to play with Barbie dolls."  By talking about the "nature" of transsexualism (as though it somehow exists independent of actual transsexual people) and what is "natural", Bindel is trying to hit us over the head with the usual "You naive fools, you don't understand it's all socially constructed!" thing.  Just in case we were unclear on that she goes further with: "The idea that gender roles are biologically determined rather than socially constructed is the antithesis of feminism."  Again, I couldn't agree with her more since I am a feminist.  Gender roles are socially constructed.  How could they not be?  Of course the problem is that as a feminist and a transsexual woman, I see a difference between gender identity, gender expression, and gender roles.  For Bindel, like other radical feminists, gender identity, if it even exists, is the result of the imposition of gender roles as is gender expression.


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Please go read the remainder of the post, and the comments.

11th interntional Transgender day of remembrance

Is today.  For those who have been killed for being (or perceived to be) trans.

Memorializing 2009.

Other sites have said it better than me.  May I direct you to:

The F Word


Catspaw

FWD/Forward

Rebellious Jezebel

UPDATE:
Ami Angelwings

Seeking Avalon

Debate on trans people/cis privilege/excluding women

On the F Word. The post didn't start as that, it started as a comment on the gender pay gap. However, it used trans people experience to illustrate the point, without quoting any women.
What follows is essentially a debate surrounding cis privilege. Except that by saying that I'm cutting out trans women voices aren't I?.
Umm, lets start again. It's a debate that amply demonstrates cis privilege and the ease at which trans women's voices and views are excluded and rendered invisible in media and society.
It took me a few reads before I properly understood what Alyssa was saying, and now I think I get it. Recommended reading and a good wake up call.

Butch women to be sex tested at the Olympics

Women who look too manly may have to go through sex tested at the Olympics.

Suspected athletes will be evaluated from their external appearances by experts and undergo blood tests to examine their sex hormones, genes and chromosomes for sex determination

Wtf? You just know that this will only apply to women, and I betcha anything there will be physical tests involved too. Wtf is wrong with people? Who thought this up?
Interestingly, male to female transsexuals won't have to undergo the test.

How about intersex people? Where do they fit? Actually that's the wrong question to be asking.
How fucking dare they* take it open themselves* to ascertain and second guess who isn't womanly enough? As the F Word article says what parameters are they going to use to choose who to test? Hips and Arse not round enough? Boobs not big enough? Too lean? Too muscly? They're athletes for fucks sake, they're meant to be lean. is the implication that you can't be a real woman if you're an athlete?

I can't help but think that is meant to put women in their place and publicly humiliate them for not looking like good little wifeys. (I don't mean that this was done on an explicit conscious level, but I think that anyone reading this blog will realise and know about the subconscious effects of living in a patriarchal society that produces and encourages many subtle codes and methods that criticise women for not adhering to the proper model of femininity.)

I think that if Ami reads this she'll go justifiably mental.

On a funny note, read this taken from the Guardian article:
'It is believed that as many as 10,000 East German athletes were caught up in a nightmarish state-sponsored attempt to build a race of superhuman communist sports heroes and force-fed cocktails of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs.'

That's just hilarious - superhuman communist sports heroes! It's like a comic gone bad. And before anyone gets the wrong end of the stick (this being the internetz I'm sure I'll find someone to offend) I am well aware that's it's not funny for the individuals involved, and it's a deplorable thing to do to someone, but the idea is very funny. Which is where it should have stayed.**

*No I'm not quite sure who 'they' are. The morons who thought up and then agreed and then put in place the facilities to do this stupid test I think.
**Whew. back covered.