Slovakia is set to implement a law that will stop men from legally becoming women, and vice versa

Excellent news. Incredible that only weeks ago Spain did the exact opposite!

Sorry, misread. Aren't all EU countries compelled to offer gender recognition?

It's a good thing.

I'm sure there are some other laws that maybe I wouldn't like as much. Doesn't mean this law won't protect women and children.

Ah. The Iranian solution.

If they don't have same-sex marriage, that seems to me pretty indicative of institutional homophobia and, probably, misogyny. I'm not sure I'd be too keen to welcome it, if it doesn't have same sex marriage.

Kind of like all the TRAs getting excited about Malta as some liberal paradise but Malta bans abortion.

I would post, but @JarByTheDoor I agree with every word of your posts so I don't have to.

The only anti-LGB legislation that I can see in Slovakia is no same sex marriage. I think this is quite a big thing. They appear to have created a catch-22 situation over gender recognition. It is allowed if one has undergone SRS but SRS is banned because of the inherent risks.

Yeah exactly @bellinisurge, I don't know nearly enough about Slovakia to be able to understand the context.

That's good news. I wish it would happen here in the U.K.

Slovakia

Which is in the EU

Good for them. Common sense. The truth.

@JarByTheDoor , that was kind of my concern. We don't want to replace one form of gender stereotype law making with another.
Before I celebrate what looks, on the face of it, a thing we all want, I need to be sure it's not a smokescreen for anti-LGB legislation, anti-choice legislation and some kind of batshit introduction for enforced gender conformity.
I don't know enough about Slovakia and, perhaps unfairly, worry that it is taking its cue from Viktor Orban or some of the stuff happening in Poland.

This is what annoys me about the liberal left being too fearful of extremists within its ranks to actually talk about this and work it out better. No Debate really did stultify liberal/left thinking. And right wing misogynistic, homophobic scumbags think theirs is the voice we want to hear.

Slang. If someone or something is 'based', they are sticking to their principles without being swayed by social pressure or silly political fads. They are ruthlessly recognising reality.

e.g. "I just came out as cakegender but my mum laughed at me and refused to use my neopronouns!"

"Huh. Based mum."

I guess for me it depends why they're doing it. I couldn't celebrate living somewhere that rolled back being able to change your sex marker, if doing that was just part of a movement towards enforcing stereotyped sex roles, removing women's rights, denying legal protections against discrimination and harassment to people who consider themselves transgender, or broader conservative changes like anti-homosexual or other discriminatory laws.

In other words, why do the people changing the law want certainty on who's male and who's female, and to emphasise that you can't change that?

Is it because they want law and statistics to reflect reality, and to ensure that sex-based protections and rights are upheld (and, additionally, trans people's rights, since "trans" ceases to have meaning if people don't have an underlying immutable sex)?

Or is it because they think people belong in nice neat gendered boxes, assigned on the basis of their sex, which dictate what kinds of jobs they should do, what role they should have in the household, what part they should play in public life, and whether they should be allowed control over their reproductive system, and that people shouldn't be allowed any route out of those boxes? That it's abhorrent that someone with the good luck to be a man should want to degrade themselves by becoming a woman, or ludicrous that someone born female would have the temerity to pretend that they're a man?

I guess this is what Pluvia was getting at by checking out the political environment there.

I suppose you could argue that a good change is a good change regardless of the political impetus behind it, and that if we get what we want because our opponents (TRAs) drive some of our enemies (sexist, homophobic conservatives and traditionalists) to back the thing we want, and many formerly neutral people to start backing our enemies because our opponents are so extreme, we can take the good and fight the rest later, but it's a risky game to play. The traditionalists will hurt us, and they'll also cause harm to our political opponents on this issue, harm that we don't want and they don't (IMO) deserve.

It's heartwarming to know there is at least some sanity left in the world, beautiful Slovakia

I guessed you probably did but wasn't sure 😅

@JarByTheDoor , I mean in Slovakia.

Do you mean in Slovakia? In the UK it's covered in the Equality Act under gender reassignment (tho I'd argue it might need updating or at least looking at again, because it was written to reflect a different set of social circumstances).

Slovakia knew who a woman was when they were sterilizing Roma women.

https://amp.dw.com/en/slovakia-issues-apology-for-forced-sterilizations-of-roma-women/a-59926198

Is there anything similar to making being transgender a "protected characteristic" even if it falls short of allowing you to change your legal sex?
As much as I find AGPs abhorrent, I don't think a bloke in a skirt and makeup deserves harassment/aggro in, say, a men's public toilet. Or is it covered by general public order law?

I can't think of a single good reason why how girly someone feels they are should be recognised in law.

Well done, Slovakia. I had a quick check of the political background: majority conservative, but in coalition with the liberals and the populist far-right, IIRC.

When is the penny going to drop with the left that supporting GI and transgenderism drives voters to the right?

Fair enough Hyena; my memory was wrong — I think I was thinking of my driving licence, which as you say doesn't have an obvious sex marker. It's obviously been too long since I went on holiday

As you say, it can occasionally be important what sex somebody is, but I think we have a longstanding cultural habit of also assuming it's important in situations where it isn't. Which makes it difficult when trying to change the way we do things, because an all-or-nothing "sex never really matters (so you should be able to pick which category you want)" stance is a lot simpler to argue and campaign for than a complex "sex doesn't matter except when it does and then it really does" position.

I think there are very few documents that really need to contain sex, but part of the problem is that, with no single official ID card system, UK people need to be able to use other things like their driving licences as ID, so even though there's probably no good reason for a driving licence to encode the holder's sex, it may be the only ID someone can present, so needs to have sex for the important reasons you mention like being searched or detained.

The campaign to repeal the UK GRA makes me really nervous. Labour are likely to get in at the next GE, and will then use the campaign as cover to repeal the current GRA and replace it with something worse. "What are you complaining about, Women? This is what you said you wanted."

The GRA is a shite piece of law, but it's better than any likely alternative under Labour or (shudder) a Labour-Libdem-Green alliance, if a hung parliament.

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