Self-certification in other countries

[WineCheeseSleep]

I was listening to Paris Lees on Ed Miliband's Reasons to be Cheerful podcast and she talked about the fact that self-certification for trans people (like the policy currently being discussed by our government) had happened in a number of other countries (including Ireland) without issue. Does anyone know what the impact has been in these countries?

I was discussing this with DH and he has previously been in agreement re the concerns discussed here, but was quite persuaded by the podcast that it's happened elsewhere and been fine.

Ireland interests me too and I don't know. Hopefully some Irish people will be along shortly. Canada seems to be an example of what not to do, AFAIK.

Would we know if there were any issues because it would be illegal for media to include in their report of a crime that the perpetrator was transgendered?

Good point Kitty. I also wonder whether people/women's groups in these countries are able to protest and name the problem without it being labelled as hate speech.

I wonder too. However, I think things have been changing so rapidly that the legislators even a few years ago had no inkling of the deluge of transitioners coming their way.
This excellent blog post referenced in another thread sets out just how rapidly things are changing:

notthenewsinbriefs.wordpress.com/2017/11/26/when-womens-rights-are-notadebate/amp/

Ireland only legalised self-id in 2015 and it's a tiny population so hard to say. I've posted about it before but transactivists are very strong and aggressive here and have even centred themselves in the Repeal the 8th movement (campaign for legal abortion), succeeding in making all language about female reproduction gender neutral. Anyone who questions the ideology or brings up potential conflicts with women's rights is smacked down and called a terf, there's a lot of ignorance and very little debate. I do some work for a major women's charity I won't name- I really hope the lunacy won't filter through as its major focus is keeping women safe.

Didn't mean to say major twice!

Not quite as bad as you say cuirderussie? Although there is a nod to TW right on the front page, "woman" and "women" are used throughout www.repealeight.ie/

Kitty I'm talking about my own experience and that of other people I know who have long histories of involvement in the movement but happy to discuss.

Our local swimming pool recently had to put up signs saying that no adult men were allowed in the women's changing rooms. I asked and apparently a couple of random men thought it was ok to just wander in with their daughters and change ( it's an open area. I wondered if recent legislation had emboldened them in some way or if there are just men who will try and violate women's boundaries. Either way, it's bad.

Ireland may be the UK's closest neighbour but I think culturally we are far closer to Canada and then to a lesser extent the US. I say that as a brit who has spent a fair chunk of time living in (rural) Ireland but not lived in either canada or the US, so I could be completely wrong.

No, I really don't think so. At least- rural Ireland is very different to urban areas, just as the UK varies by region. But overall the UK and Ireland are very intertwined historically and culturally and are far more "familiar" to each other than with the US.

The population of Ireland is much smaller thus the number of those identifying as trans is much smaller. I'm not aware of any major incidents that could be deemed a negative impact of the act as yet. Certainly the whole issue does not appear to be as prominent in the media or in political terms as it is in the U.K.

My feeling is that the laws were changed for in advance of any serious engagement or debate on the issue, and that things are proceeding the other way in the UK (as they should). So no one considered it or had time to go 'hang on a minute' in the rush to be 'progressive'.

While there are a few openly trans people who would be known to many, mostly through media articles, eg Lydia Foy and the newscaster who announced he was trans but that he would 'go back and forth' between male and female in terms of his presentation (not sure if he has fully transitioned at this stage or it still depends on his mood that day....), there aren't very many prominent trans people in Irish society and no attempts as yet to seriously impinge on women's spaces e.g. Scholarships etc have come to light so it's relatively uncontroversial at the moment.

I was a a recent march to appeal the 8th amendment and saw a sign that made me very 'Support your Sisters, not your Cis-ters '. The point of it being biological females who are affected by the 8th amendment having been very much missed by that individual. And I know some biological women would wish to be identified as trans men and many women hate the concept of 'Cis', a feeling I am more and more in agreement with, but I still had a instinctive 'oh for fucks sake' moment.

I would hardly hold Ireland up as aspirational in terms of women's rights and women's voices, tbh.

Looks like a referendum re the 8th amendment will be held next year. How on earth can trans women claim that this affects them in the same way as women? It's utterly delusional.

My instinct is that the trans activists would on the whole support the conservative non-repeal line using 'some of those embryos might be trans and that would be another trans life lost' rhetoric, and reasserting their desire to control women's experience, although I hope that I'm overly cynical and wrong.

"but was quite persuaded by the podcast that it's happened elsewhere and been fine."

But what does 'fine' mean? That women gave the ground quickly and quietly? That the pesky feminists were silenced very effectively by a majority terrified of being seen as bigoted? That public debate is a bit rubbish? What?

We need defined terms. "Fine", to me, is women still having their own sport, their own DV and rape services, their own changing rooms, their own loos, their own internships and scholarships.

My instinct is that the trans activists would on the whole support the conservative non-repeal line using 'some of those embryos might be trans and that would be another trans life lost' rhetoric, and reasserting their desire to control women's experience, although I hope that I'm overly cynical and wrong.

I do think you a wrong here. In line with what I posted above about the repeal march it's my sense that instead it's more along the lines of inserting themselves/centering themselves in issues that are not relevant to them, as they will never be pregnant, at least in the case of trans women anyway.

Thatescalated, if you were at the march you may have seen a confused young person, a woman who identifies as male while being clearly and recognisably female, recite a long rambling poem of hers where Ireland's disgraceful history re women and children (citing the Tuam babies scandal) was related to her own identity problems ("pronouns crashing like stained glass" or something), to loud cheers from the young crowd. That angered me. Feminism has always been a collectivist communitarian movement, but this shit is all about narcissism and individualism. Similarly, there's another MTT who loves to centre himself in the movement because apparently women's rights to control their fertility is related to his rights to take hormones and modify his body. It just fucks me off. It seems as though there's a constant attack on a movement that's for and by and about women, and so many people seem incapable of recognising that.

I didn't see that cuirderussie as I was not at the most recent march, so might have missed it if that's where it happened?

I was struck at the number of young women at the march. I don't have any issues with that, they are as likely to be affected by the 8th as any other woman. But it did make me assume that a very lib fem approach would be leading the movement to repeal. I noticed few women my own age, more likely to have a more radical perspective.

It was at the big one in early October. I could post a link but I don't want to be unkind or singling her out. I guess it's bound to be dominated by young women, they tend to have more spare time. It's a kind of unhappy irony really, that we older women who see the full extent of the shit we're up against - the expectations that we will be carers for children and elderly parents as well as working, the inadequate maternity services and childcare, the pension issue - are often too busy doing everything to have time to change things. I certainly was for years.

I agree, I think older women have a lot more commitments and obviously student life lends itself to activism and a limited view of the implications of certain policies. Having little experience of the working world, child rearing, years of small (and large) instances of discrimination based on biology - well they just don't get it in the same way.