Transgender person elected as Deputy Mayor in Sydney

For it to be discrimination, at least in the UK, someone has to have suffered a detriment. Saying a deluded person is not suited to public office is not a detriment and is accurate. Ni way would I ever vote for someone who denied their reality.

Obviously it is not unreasonable to assume that since he uses 'she' pronouns he is going to have some expectation that others go along with this make believe too? That his 'trans identity' is going to be the most significant thing about him. If it is not such a big deal, then why is everyone lauding him as a sign of how 'progressive' Australia is imagined to be?

We know Australia has fatally undermined women's rights and protections in pursuit of what it sees as some sort of anti-colonial act of "liberation for marginalised identities", blah, blah, blah. It is still quite galling to see it in action though.

None of that has any bearing on what I said. Trans people ARE no different to anyone else, I agree.

They can be elected to public office, they can be your boss, your colleague, your tenant, your bus driver, whoever.

None of that means anyone has to "buy into" their belief.

We can respect them as people without having to share their belief.

And being 'nice' doesn't mean you are suited to public office either.

Should transgender people then be excluded from public office? I reserve my right to look at a trans woman and see a man, whether he is representing the community or emptying the bins. But my thoughts are my thoughts. It doesn’t change how that person does their job. I object to him using women’s toilets (if he does.) I don’t feel compelled to use the so-called ‘appropriate’ pronouns. But those are separate issues from whether or not he makes a good Deputy Lord Mayor. As a human being. And all the cheerleaders saying how great it is to be so progressive and inclusive - well that’s irrelevant too in respect of how he actually performs his duties.

If someone believes that some men should be able to use female single sex provision, they do not have the best interests of all the people they represent, at heart.

But you could say that about nearly anything a person believes.

Whether it's benefits, taxes, going carbon neutral, healthcare - there will always be winners and losers in all policies.

If anyone were as blatant about their priorities on those things, I would have the same issue with them.

I suppose a difference is that we could freely interrogate all of those differences in policies without being accused of 'hate speech'. Questioning the right of some men to use female-only spaces is in a different category.

This individual raises some interesting questions for the 'TWAW' brigade though. 3 years ago he was 'Mitch Wilson', very much male. 2 years ago, when elected, he was still Mitch although now 'they/them', but very much presenting as male. I don't think anyone just looking at a picture of him would think he was anything other than a man. He is now a 'woman' with a new name. He may not believe TWAW. He may be happy to just be considered a 'transwoman', but if he starts to espouse policy 'as a woman', there are issues. I still would like to understand in what sense the TWAW people believe Olly is a woman.

No issue with a transgender person doing any role, as long as they’re upfront about it and it doesn’t impinge of other groups rights (ie women). I wonder is he lauded as a ‘female deputy mayor’ and will he be recorded in history as one?

It's the sexism.

I can't see how a person who believes some ways of thinking, feeling or behaving are only right for one sex, so if you have the "wrong" ones for your actual body you must be the wrong sex somehow,

and who believes that the female half of humanity don't need their own name, history or cultural existence but can be rolled into a single social group within who believe they are/feel whatever it is they assume all women must be or feel and this doesn't impact women at all, or at least the impact on them isn't an important enough reason not to do it,

is going to be capable of being clear-eyed and fair when it comes to the actual needs and challenges of his female population.

There isn't an issue here. Threads like this just demonstrate that a large element here aren't just GC - but are openly transphobic. (Obviously this will be denied despite being blindingly obvious to anyone who can read).

Tell me you haven't read the thread without telling me you haven't read the thread.

Of course sexist people can, and often do, run for public office. Same as racist people. Depressingly, they also get elected sometimes.

I wouldn't vote for them though, because I don't think sexism or racism are qualities that make for good policy-making.

Do you believe that a man who DOESN’T think he is a woman would necessarily be ‘clear eyed and fair’ with regard to the needs of his female constituents? Or, for that matter, a woman? Not all females put the rights of women front and centre of their thinking. I have been utterly shocked at the attitudes of some women in public office. I guess a person’s track record is the only guarantee. That’s how I usually try to make my decision on who to vote for. But they have to start somewhere in order to prove themselves.

As a Feminist I recognise sexism runs throughout society, often in ways that are so deeply embedded in our everyday norms and expectations that it is hard to recognise the sexism underneath. Fish have no word water and all that.

So no, sexism is absolutely not limited just to those people who express their sexism through a transgender identity.

However after thinking about this very deeply for a long time, I have come to the conclusion it is impossible to conceptualise a transgender identity without sexist ideas about how men and women think, feel and act, and it is impossible to require social accommodation of trans women as "women" without the sexist assumption that the trans identity matters more than female realities and needs. So to that end, I do consider a transgender identity to be clear evidence of sexism.

Of course I also acknowledge it's possible there are exceptions I'm missing and I'm open to listening and assessing individuals. However a trans person would have to express a very unusual and nuanced understanding of the intersection of sex and gender identity to be able to claim a transgender identity without some level of sexist belief, and as yet I have never cone across it.

Odd question really. As I said, I wouldn't vote for anyone I believe to be sexist or racist. Why would anything I said suggest I'd make an exception if the sexist person wasn't transgender?

I don't think liars are nice, and they're all liars.

Most politicians are liars sorry to say, so this person is no exception. Many politicians are also sexist, see them prioritising mens beliefs over womens rights.

However, if the reason he was elected is now being used to say something is 50:50 men and women and he is being counted as a woman, yes, then I do have a problem with the election. That is not fair representation. Is that what happened?

Good! And that means there should be no expectation of others using false pronouns - and all that tends to accompany that. If people want to imagine themselves in certain ways then that is up to them; we all do it. That is entirely a private matter - and not a matter for public celebration which seems to be the case here...with people making a big thing out of the fact that he has a trans identity; as if it is some sort of progressive act or symbol.

It will be interesting to see if he chooses not to centre his trans identity in his actions whilst in office.

You see, i take question with the very concept of a 'trans person'. Nobody is the opposite sex to that which they are. We are all male or female. I prefer to use the more accurate phrase of 'man/woman/person who has adopted a trans identity.

Using this correct definition in no way trying to position that person as something they are not, or suggest that people can somehow be the other sex to that which they are. It places the emphasis on the assumption of a certain type of social identity (which has become formulated and 'on trend' in the last couple of decades) but which not everyone must pay lip service to.

Identity politics tends to place the emphasis on the social identity of, rather than on the actual character of the person.

I agree. I think for me, this is the issue with a person in authority being trans - the sexism is baked in to their personal belief system. Its a feature, not a bug. Their entire belief system is predicated on there being a right way (and therefore a wrong way) to be male and to be female. How can that not affect their policy decisions?

In theory, it should make no difference whether or not the candidate is trans. But its not the same as any other belief and I can't 'respect the person while not sharing their beliefs' - because they'll inevitably expect me to participate in those beliefs / inflict them upon me to a degree. I would feel the same if a public official was a fundamentalist religious person, or a militant animal rights activist - I'd be concerned that their overt beliefs would impact on their policy making in a way that I don't agree with.

That's not to say the other candidates don't have beliefs but if they keep them to themselves, we can't comment on them - we can only comment on what we know. A man might have sexist beliefs. A TW definitely does.

As a pp said upthread, we would be permitted to freely discuss these other aspects of a public official and their potential affect on their policy stance without being accused of hate speech.

Regarding 'discrimination' , it has rather become a dirty word but it just means 'to notice a difference'. I have just ordered a flat white, and in doing so have discriminated against tea! Some forms of discrimination, mainly to do with how people are treated with regards to employment and services are illegal and rightly so. But its not illegal discrimination (yet!) to notice and discuss the difference between elected candidates. Voting is like dating - the ultimate non equal opportunity activity. Anyone should have the right to stand, nobody else has to vote for them.

I don't agree that we should police discussion on this forum in case some hard of thinking people think badly of gender critical people because they can't tell the difference between hate speech and discussion. That's heading towards purity spiral thinking. This is one of the only corners of the Internet where discussions around gender and sex are permitted, more specifically, their impact on women. Long may it continue.

They don't generally pretend to be the opposite sex though.

There was no mandate for a 50:50 sex split, AFAIK.

But a PP noted it is being reported that Sydney now has a 'gender balanced' council. This 'fact' will be taken up by search engines and AI and repeated when its not true.

These 'false facts' based on incorrect sex reporting mask the progress still needed on women's equality by making it look as though it's already been achieved . it hasn't.

I'd have much less of a problem with a trans identified woman (trans man) being elected for this reason, although the question of sexist beliefs remain.

It's vaguely interesting to see how much Sydney City Council is confusing Google's AI. The Mitch/Olly change alone has got it thinking they are two different people.

That is a fair and interesting point. Terminology certainly matters. I have seen TIM, as in Trans Identified Male, used. I think that’s a whole separate debate though, in terms of whether a person who identifies in this way should be permitted to hold a public position. There would have to be a societal shift away from the current terminology (a good thing, I reckon.)

With regard to a point made by other posters, I agree that recording this man as a woman in the council would have the serious consequence of misrepresenting the male/female balance, which I definitely don’t agree with. But the OP plopped on here with a title and a link, with absolutely no context. No explanation as to why they had posted. Had they given a reason, that could have been debated. Otherwise it’s just someone who is pissed off with a trans person in Australia for reasons unknown. Or perhaps they don’t give a toss either way and just wanted to start a bun fight, which is what usually happens on these threads.