‘Transgender’ Could Be Defined Out of Existence Under Trump Administration

[Ev1l0rd]

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/21/us/politics/transgender-trump-administration-sex-definition.html

Couple of highlights:

the department argued in its memo that key government agencies needed to adopt an explicit and uniform definition of gender as determined “on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable.” The agency’s proposed definition would define sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with, according to a draft reviewed by The Times. Any dispute about one’s sex would have to be clarified using genetic testing.

“Sex means a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth,” the department proposed in the memo, which was drafted and has been circulating since last spring. “The sex listed on a person’s birth certificate, as originally issued, shall constitute definitive proof of a person’s sex unless rebutted by reliable genetic evidence.”

The move would be the most significant of a series of maneuvers, large and small, to exclude the population from civil rights protections and roll back the Obama administration’s more fluid recognition of gender identity. The Trump administration has sought to bar transgender people from serving in the military and has legally challenged civil rights protections for the group embedded in the nation’s health care law.

For the last year, the Department of Health and Human Services has privately argued that the term “sex” was never meant to include gender identity or even homosexuality, and that the lack of clarity allowed the Obama administration to wrongfully extend civil rights protections to people who should not have them.

--

My take: so yeah, this is uh... Bad. With the capital B. This would pretty much eradicate someone being trans in America on a legal perspective. The act seems driven by little more than pettiness and religious pushing. (America is totally secular guys.)

Fuck Trump and the group of idiots that came with him.

 

[Jayro]

As someone who thought long and hard about transitioning, I also find this stupid.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

This is just retarded and I feel like a lot of people are going to be moving elsewhere as a result.
Everyone has different opinions on the whole trans thing but just pretending it doesn't exist is not the solution.

 

[kuwanger]

"the department argued in its memo that key government agencies needed to adopt an explicit and uniform definition of gender"

Ah, yes. Just like key government agencies need to adopt an explicit and uniform definition of race, creed, sexual orientation, and favorite flavor of ice cream. Because without that sort of information on each individual citizen, the government cannot function.

 

[WD_GASTER2]

small government... except when you know, you have to tell other people how to live their lives.
This is so wrong.

 

[Taleweaver]

Sigh... I could've predicted something like this in advance. With that mid-term election coming up, the population needs to be distracted once again (the thing circulated since spring .. How come this is only public now?).

Other than the timing being good in an evil way, it shows how little the current government knows. It's there really no one who might have thought that this pisses all over transgenders rights?

 

[The Catboy]

This is the kind of government overreach that Republicans should be against. This is literally the government interfering with the lives of their people for no reason other than to be involved.

 

[Jayro]

I live under Tyrant Trump's rulings, and he's truly awful. Clueless about how the world actually operates from any perspective that isn't a business deal shitting all over everyone. I have many trans friends, and this actually breaks my heart that my country's shitty leader is trying to erase their identities. I took Obama for granted, and I miss him deeply.

 

[Deleted User]

1984:
"They first started by subverting the language... For if you control the language, you control the people."

My God, he genuinely wants to overthrow the government. He wants to create a totalitarian society with him at the top.

 

[ItsMetaKnight]

That would actually finally be something good.

 

[Deleted User]

To be fair, though, unless I'm misreading this, they only want sex to mean 'biological yada yada'. Which honestly I think is fair. The male and female body are wildly different. If a doctor mistakes you for a girl and gives you medicine designed for a girl, it could really mess you up.

This comes from first hand experience, btw. Not trans, just very feminine.

 

[The Catboy]

To be fair, though, unless I'm misreading this, they only want sex to mean 'biological yada yada'. Which honestly I think is fair. The male and female body are wildly different. If a doctor mistakes you for a girl and gives you medicine designed for a girl, it could really mess you up.

This comes from first hand experience, btw. Not trans, just very feminine.

But it's still an extreme overreach. This isn't something the government should be involved with, both the medical field side and the definition of the word side. Sex, gender, sexuality, and such shouldn't be defined by the government. This also goes for medical malpractice, that's something that already has it's own thing.

 

[kuwanger]

If a doctor mistakes you for a girl and gives you medicine designed for a girl, it could really mess you up.

That'd be a valid point...if the health care system was part of the US government. Meanwhile, there's things like intersex or ethnicity which also can have medical implications, but that doesn't justify the government knowing anything about it. Health records are specifically one of the things that are meant to be confidential precisely because they're potentially very abusable.

Really, if I want to tell one part of the government I'm 2 foot tall, blue, and one of my parents is literally from Venus*, it's really none of their business to refute me. At best for limited identification purposes, it might make sense that the government may take a picture and may give their subjective impression of my appearance. The other 99.99% of the time, though, it's entirely irrelevant.

* As long as I was born in the US or have one US parent, it should be irrelevant in all cases. In many cases, it wouldn't matter if both my parents were from Venus and I was born on Mars.

 

[Deleted User]

But it's still an extreme overreach. This isn't something the government should be involved with, both the medical field side and the definition of the word side. Sex, gender, sexuality, and such shouldn't be defined by the government. This also goes for medical malpractice, that's something that already has it's own thing.

I do agree that it's a step too far too fast(That's why it screams 1984 to me). But at the same time, I hesitate to say it was entirely wrong in principle. There are serious dangers in getting sex mixed up in the medical field.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

And besides, doesn't this only apply to 'key government departments?'

 

[ItsMetaKnight]

Shallow minds have shallow thoughts.

Why are you getting personal and insult me? I just have the opinion that there is only male and female, and that you have to deal with what you are born with. Going against it is like fighting nature. To me it looks like a psychological disorder, not a "gender variant" or whatever.
This is a discussion thread and if you don't tolerate different opinions, you should not be here.
Insuting me just for saying my opinion is really uncalled for.

 

[Ev1l0rd]

To be fair, though, unless I'm misreading this, they only want sex to mean 'biological yada yada'. Which honestly I think is fair. The male and female body are wildly different. If a doctor mistakes you for a girl and gives you medicine designed for a girl, it could really mess you up.

This comes from first hand experience, btw. Not trans, just very feminine.

The problem is that this is how it's listed on official documents. Realistically outside of medical documents (which I suppose is either already covered or just takes a second to clear up), there is zero reason to specify someone's biological gender on official documents. This is the reasoning as to why changing this on a government document (so say, your passport or drivers license) is considered to be permissible (unless the document is in use bc you got in trouble w/ the legal system, in which case, though shit, gotta wait that out).

The problem that this creates is that it gets "rid" of people being violent against people who identify as trans (quotation marks since the violence still exists, it's just no longer considered a crime specificially because they were trans, which would be a hate crime), gets rid of the rights trans people have needed to get in order to not get harassed (and even then in America that's still an issue.) and just gets rid of trans peoples existence in general. Make your "can't commit crimes against trans people if you make sure they don't legally exist" jokes, but realize that this is literally the end goal with this.

It basically prevents people from IDing as trans and having said status recognized by a legal body in cases of say:

• Getting send to jail for comitting a crime (you'd end up being send to the jail which your legal document recognizes, which would mean you get locked up as the sole female in a jail filled with males or vice versa.)
• Having a defense against people starting harassment campaigns or comitting violence against you for being trans and having this recognized as a hate crime.

 

[Taffy]

Not to sound insensitive, but where do most people stand on the subject of gender changing? Like, do most people who change identify as what they changed to? Or do they identify as something in-between?

I see nothing wrong with it... if somebody wants to be a girl or a boy instead of a boy or a girl then so be it.

but I mean, make up your mind. don't be constantly changing your gender all the time...

 

[Jayro]

Why are you getting personal and insult me? I just have the opinion that there is only male and female, and that you have to deal with what you are born with. Going against it is like fighting nature.
This is a discussion thread and if you don't tolerate different opinions, you should not be here.
Insuting me just for saying my opinion is really uncalled for.

Not trying to, that's just a very shallow way of thinking. It's not open-minded like society needs right now. I didn't mean to offend you directly.

 

[The Catboy]

I do agree that it's a step too far too fast(That's why it screams 1984 to me). But at the same time, I hesitate to say it was entirely wrong in principle. There are serious dangers in getting sex mixed up in the medical field.

But that's something that shouldn't require this kind of approach. Medical malpractice should be handled on a case-by-case basis. As well I don't see how this kind of approach would be related to malpractice.

 

[kuwanger]

Going against it is like fighting nature.

I don't know. Nature spent a lot of time and effort burying all those life forms, putting them under extreme pressure and temperature, and then converting them to a soup of hydrocarbons. I guess we should leave well enough alone and not fight nature by pumping/digging it up and burning it. Same thing for an earthquake knocks down a building. Or rain leaking through a roof.

I mean, the whole progress of technology heavily hinges on exploiting nature precisely to fight nature because nature sucks*.

* Watch enough documentaries on parasites and you'll probably agree.

 

[Ev1l0rd]

Why are you getting personal and insult me? I just have the opinion that there is only male and female, and that you have to deal with what you are born with. Going against it is like fighting nature. To me it looks like a psychological disorder.
This is a discussion thread and if you don't tolerate different opinions, you should not be here.
Insuting me just for saying my opinion is really uncalled for.

So instead of considering that a good solution to "hey, maybe person x is uncomfortable in their own body and feels much happier by being the opposite gender" is "let them identify as to what gender they want to be" (since yknow, that makes them happy, Occams Razor means that this is the easiest solution to the problem) you'd rather go on directly and force them to be uncomfortable and unhappy by denying any right they could have when it comes to these matters or protecting them from close-minded individuals that refuse to recognize them and would commit violent acts against them for wanting to be happy.