The Future of Legal Gender - Should state law withdraw from registering and assigning sex?

[NonnyMouse1337]

There are a number of events being held every Friday by The Future of Legal Gender which seems a spin off project by something called L/G/B/T.

futureoflegalgender.kcl.ac.uk/events-and-public-and-policy-engagements/

The next one is Should state law withdraw from registering and assigning sex? The feminist politics of decertification and prefigurative law reform, 11 Nov 2020 at 4pm.

Seems like you join via the Zoom link. Might be of interest.

Abstract
This talk explores decertification as a speculative law reform proposal. In decertification, the state withdraws from registering, assigning, or guaranteeing a person’s sex and gender, giving one shape to the growing momentum towards their informalisation. Reforming how state law
responds to sex/ gender has become a highly controversial issue. In this talk, I explore three questions, drawing from research conducted as part of a feminist ESRC funded project, The Future of Legal Gender. They are:

1. Why might decertification be a good idea?
2. What concerns does it raise; and how might they be addressed?
3. What are the strengths and challenges of prefigurative law reform research, which rehearses and attends to a proposal not yet on the law reform table?

The project seems part of a group / org that goes by the name L/G/B/T or Law/Gender/Body/Texts.
www.lawgenderbodytexts.com/

Other events (register at Eventbrite):

Fri, 13 November 2020
16:00 – 17:00 GMT
‘Ultra-Texts’ Beyond Gender. Multimodality, Intertextuality and Transmediality as Resources to Contest Gendered Binarisms

Fri, 20 November 2020
16:00 – 17:00 GMT
Gender variant bodies : stories of spaces and places

Fri, 27 November 2020
16:00 – 17:00 GMT
Rethinking gender through disability

Fri, 4 December 2020
16:00 – 17:00 GMT
Prefiguring the law

Fri, 11 December 2020
16:00 – 17:00 GMT
Dismantling the false dichotomy between women’s rights and trans' rights

[Vermeil]

Some of those sound like parody, only I know they’re not.
Anyway, it’s a ridiculous idea, and would only work in a country with a very small state apparatus, and no socialised medicine, so any gender reassignment would have to be paid for by the individual concerned.
I’m sure there’ll be lots of wokesters nodding along to the idea, but I’ll be surprised if the inevitable negative repercussions will be considered at all. For instance, if there’s no gender in law, then anyone is free to discriminate against anyone else on those grounds with no repercussions?

[Whatsnewpussyhat]

It's just bollocks.
We all fucking know that males will continue to use, abuse and oppress females even if they pretend there is no such thing as sex. We just won't allowed to point out that it's the ones with the penises doing it.
Because we ALL know sex exists.

[YetAnotherSpartacus]

I suspect this will be their next move ...

[NonnyMouse1337]

Bumping up - next week on Wednesday at 4pm.

[MichelleofzeResistance]

Having just read some of that blurb on the links...

ffs. Go and conceive of whatever you want and explore your navels to your heart's content. Just stop dismantling everyone else's world to better fit your very special visions. Fuck off with that. And with your 'false dichotomies'.

You are pissing on my leg, it is not raining.

[RuffleCrow]

Let's all sign up and show this nonsense up for what it is.

[Antibles]

@Whatsnewpussyhat

It's just bollocks.
We all fucking know that males will continue to use, abuse and oppress females even if they pretend there is no such thing as sex. We just won't allowed to point out that it's the ones with the penises doing it.
Because we ALL know sex exists.

This.

A couple of years ago another poster said that they thought this was one of the end goals of this whole movement. Remove legal demarcations of male/female and you can oppress 50% of your population again on grounds of their sex as much as you like but it's not legally visible anymore.

Ban us from referring to our class identifier 'woman' and we can't talk about our oppression as members of that class anymore.

It's literally George Orwell's Newspeak, in which words to describe things and concepts are outlawed one by one by the Party so nobody can talk about their oppression. It is actually happening in front of our eyes! It seems unbelievable but it's actual totalitarian (and very male) control emerging twistily from a supposed democracy like a cobra from a basket.

[Ereshkigalangcleg]

These people have approx 750k public money to carry out this ridiculous "project".

[Ereshkigalangcleg]

Here they are whining about the responses they got to their poorly constructed, confusing survey

futureoflegalgender.kcl.ac.uk/2019/09/20/engendering-criticism-reflection-on-feedback-to-our-attitudes-to-gender-survey/

[howonearthdidwegethere]

These people are absolutely twonks.

[NonnyMouse1337]

@howonearthdidwegethere

These people are absolutely twonks.

Yeah I figured attending their talks will be a test of endurance, but I'm going to give it a go.

Only going to two of them. Not sure I could handle all of the gobbledygook....

[FWRLurker]

I think it’s a good idea to take sex off of drivers licenses to help passing trans people not be outed when they buy a drink. I can’t think of any good reason for sex to be on a picture ID but maybe I’m missing something. In any case, changing (falsifying) a birth certificate shouldn’t be allowed. In addition someone’s sex shouldn’t be required for quite as many documents. I’m not sure about passports.

Beyond that I think it’s still a good idea to keep record of (bio) sex because there are some times when it’s important to verify it. For example which prison people should go to, what sports they are eligible for, etc.

Keeping track of whether people are male or female, and whether they are gay or trans is important for some health and equality related circumstances as well - but that can be done via privately asking people in those contexts, and via census and related survey.

[TigerBrite]

But state law doesn’t assign sex. You’re just born with a sex, it isn’t assigned to you.

[NiceGerbil]

Don't get it.

Do they think that babies who were born in the past before registration had no sex/ no one knew what it was?

What about tracking if sex selective abortion is happening? Or conditions that are sex specific?

Do doctors have to pretend they don't know the sex of anyone under 18 or whatever, how does that work then?

In schools in summer how will teachers I'd those at risk of fgm?

I mean there's loads of stuff.

What is gained? Especially when everyone knows what sex the sodding baby is anyway, the vast vast majority of the time.

[ByGrabtharsHammerWhatASavings]

If we're supposed to be believe that transpeople are people with a "gender identity" which is different from their "gender/sex assigned at birth" and we stop legally registering people as the sex that they are, does that mean trans people stop existing? The only possible definition of a Transwoman could then be someone who thinks their female but is actually male, rather than the current attempt to define it as someone who is actually female but was registered as male. Legally it would collapse any difference between TW and women which I guess is the goal, but how then will they be the most oppressedest people ever? I'm sure at some point they're going to want to demand transwoman only awards, funding, scholarships, shortlists etc. How will they argue for this if being trans doesn't exist any more? Or maybe we'll enter a sort of schrodingers trans identity twilight zone, where a man is able to be a Transwoman when he wants special treatment, and a woman when hes stealing our stuff or trying to hide his violent crime. I mean, I know that already is the world we're leaving in, but at least there's some vague legal basis for the distinction. And how will they bitch endlessly about "cis" women if being "cis" doesn't exist anymore? I just can't see it working personally. Not enough victim points or room for manipulation and abuse towards women.

[BettyDuKeiraBellisMyShero]

I think it’s a good idea to take sex off of drivers licenses to help passing trans people not be outed when they buy a drink. I can’t think of any good reason for sex to be on a picture ID but maybe I’m missing something. In any case, changing (falsifying) a birth certificate shouldn’t be allowed. In addition someone’s sex shouldn’t be required for quite as many documents. I’m not sure about passports.

Sex on a U.K. driving license is hidden in a numbered code (ie, there is no F or M to change) so bar staff or off license staff wouldn’t be likely to notice it anyway.

It’s important to have F or M on a passport because international travel can involve body searches and detention centres.

Obviously, this makes less sense when it’s as easy to change your sex on your passport as it currently is. Would be better if it was made more like driving licenses (maybe only have the sex market show under a specific light so it’s there for border control when necessary?)

But not recording sex at birth is utter madness. How would we know if baby girls were aborted en mass without that data? Or if significant numbers of girls were being trafficked out of a country or dying before reaching adulthood?

No actual feminist would advocate for such a possible, only a ‘genderist’.

[FWRLurker]

Ah ok. That makes sense. Here in the States we have sex on all picture ID as far as I’m aware.

I tend to agree making sex less visible on passports and other documents would be helpful for well meaning trans people who “just want to get along” while not harming women.

This is clearly not the same thing as being proposed by the end of legal gender people, who would indeed like to pretend sex doesn’t exist. It’s just like colorblindness - everyone will still know who to oppress.

[RealityNotEssentialism]

I think the women involved in this project are nearly all white, middle class and have never had a job outside academia. I have followed this project and know a bit about it and the people who are part of it. Academia is one profession where it’s actually fairly equal at the top, well in the field that these people work in. A good few of them became profs at a young age too and may struggle to imagine some of the sexism that many women endure (nearly all the participants are in same sex female relationships too, which are more likely to be equal than heterosexual relationships). I know I am generalising somewhat here but my point is that I think this is an example of ivory tower syndrome. This is fine for them because, in their relatively privileged bubble, they haven’t really had to face a lot of the things that less privileged women face. They just aren’t interested in issues to do with refuges or prisons or the experiences of survivors who have said how important single sex spaces were to their recovery. It doesn’t fit with their narrative so they discount it.

Also, none of the FLAG group is stupid but I do think they are disingenuous. They pretend not to understand the very logical objections to what they propose. They got a LOT of money for this (especially for one of the disciplines they represent, where big grants are not very common) so they have to toe the line.

And I agree. The law doesn’t create legal sex. You can remove all law and all societal structures and still you’re left with a material body that will be either male or female. Go figure. We brought sex discrimination laws in because women were being discriminated against. Now there idiots want to take them away for little apparent reason.

[Ereshkigalangcleg]

I know I am generalising somewhat here but my point is that I think this is an example of ivory tower syndrome.

From what I've seen I completely agree.

[CharlieParley]

A couple of years ago another poster said that they thought this was one of the end goals of this whole movement.

2017 The Yogyakarta Principles plus 10
Additional Principles and State Obligations on the application of International Human Rights Law in relation to Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, Gender Expression and Sex Characteristics to complement the Yogyakarta Principles

Principle 31

THE RIGHT TO LEGAL RECOGNITION

Everyone has the right to legal recognition without reference to, or requiring assignment or disclosure of, sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression or sex characteristics. Everyone has the right to obtain identity documents, including birth certificates, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression or sex characteristics. Everyone has the right to change gendered information in such documents while gendered information is included in them.

STATES SHALL:

A) Ensure that official identity documents only include personal information that is relevant, reasonable and necessary as required by the law for a legitimate purpose, and thereby end the registration of the sex and gender of the person in identity documents such as birth certificates, identification cards, passports and driver licences, and as part of their legal personality;

B) Ensure access to a quick, transparent and accessible mechanism to change names, including to gender-neutral names, based on the self-determination of the person;

C) While sex or gender continues to be registered:

i. Ensure a quick, transparent, and accessible mechanism that legally recognises and affirms each person’s self-defined gender identity;

ii. Make available a multiplicity of gender marker options;

iii. Ensure that no eligibility criteria, such as medical or psychological interventions, a psycho-medical diagnosis, minimum or maximum age, economic status, health, marital or parental status, or any other third party opinion, shall be a prerequisite to change one’s name, legal sex or gender;

iv. Ensure that a person’s criminal record, immigration status or other status is not used to prevent a change of name, legal sex or gender.

Every legislative effort aimed at introducing self-id that I've seen directly references the Yogyakarta Principles as the underlying human rights document.

The abolition of sex as a legal category from all laws worldwide, the erasure of sex from all policies and practice worldwide is indeed one of the goals of the movement.

An open, publicly declared goal.

This is not a conspiracy theory and all legislative efforts from the GRA onwards are considered stepping stones on the path to achieving this goal.

Whether the consequences for women are incidental or fundamental to those pursuing this aim is a separate question, but that these consequences are indeed harmful to women and girls and already materialising is undeniable by now. So far, that has not been acknowledged by the authors of the Yogyakarta Principles.

[stumbledin]

Just goes to show if you have the funding you can keep a project going even though everybody says its complete bs!

Loads of threads about it and how the ESRC should be challenged on continuously funding projects that base their "findings" on totally flawed questionnaires.

Here are a few of the links, no time to make them live, as it took me so long to track them down. FWR really needs a proper indexing system!

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3401337-Attitudes-to-Gender-a-survey-being-used-to-write-a-new-gender-bill-in-the-UK

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3274586-Big-research-project-to-decide-if-we-still-need-sex-as-a-legal-category

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3709775-Evening-London-event-LSE-Dept-of-Gender-Studies-30-October

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3825365-Future-of-Legal-Gender-Survey

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3732308-Future-of-Legal-Gender-academic-talk

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3913843-Future-of-legal-gender-and-mumsnet

[stumbledin]

oooooooh - what a nice surprise at the end of a shitty day!

Mumsnet converts text links into live links - yeah!!!

[Antibles]

This is not a conspiracy theory and all legislative efforts from the GRA onwards are considered stepping stones on the path to achieving this goal. Whether the consequences for women are incidental or fundamental to those pursuing this aim is a separate question

That separate question is the swirling mist conspiracy theory bit then. What are the real reasons for wanting to erase legal recognition of the inescapable fact of binary biological sex? Would it really be pursued with such unswerving determination - and have got so incredibly far - if it were merely about rationalising cross dressing or affirming a body dysmorphia? I mean I know humans have got form for widespread batshittery, look at religiosity, but movements tend to mushroom when somebody co-opts an idea in order to seize (or seize back) power: see organised religion.

[itsor]

Should state law withdraw from registering and assigning sex?

Oh my goodness, what a brilliant idea! Someone pitch this to India and China, it would be a fantastic way of rebalancing their sex ratios if they simply don't assign as many people male at birth!

[highame]

A good few of them became profs at a young age too and may struggle to imagine some of the sexism that many women endure (nearly all the participants are in same sex female relationships too, which are more likely to be equal than heterosexual relationships). I know I am generalising somewhat here but my point is that I think this is an example of ivory tower syndrome. This is fine for them because, in their relatively privileged bubble, they haven’t really had to face a lot of the things that less privileged women face.

Is there a case for fixed term Professorships?