Today's article by Dr Hayton, this time published in The Spectator
'Hungary offers a lesson in crying wolf on ‘transphobia’'
(extract)
"While Britain has been embroiled in a heated debate over proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act, which allows people to change their legal gender on the production of medical reports and a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, in Hungary, Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz government has swept such rights away.
On 19 May, the Hungarian National Assembly voted 133 to 37 to ban transgender people from changing the gender on their identity documents. The word 'nem' – meaning sex or gender – was replaced by the unambiguous term, 'születési nem', meaning sex at birth. Hungary's government's communication office explained that this did not stop people living according to their identities. This might be true. Yet it did mean that their identity documents would expose these people as transgender and put them at risk of discrimination, harassment and abuse.
While English speakers may routinely conflate sex and gender, the fact we have two words allows us to give them different meanings. Sex is biology, while gender is a vaguer term that links to expression or identity. That has allowed English speakers to talk about our gender, while avoiding the harsh realities of biology. Sex is not 'assigned at birth' by something akin to a Hogwarts Sorting Hat. It is observed, often well before birth, and is immutable. Male or female we were created, and male or female we will stay.
It is rather harder to separate them in Hungarian, where there is no second word but exactly the same biology. So Orbán’s government may have a point. But while some campaigners welcome the return to reality, Hungarian transsexuals who have gone through gender reassignment surgery and pass reasonably well as the opposite sex will be forced to carry ID that fails to describe them and exposes them every time they use it. As a small minority they are very vulnerable. " (continues)
But for now an uneasy compromise is maintained in the UK. Under the GRA, transgender people change the sex marker on our birth certificates, but only on production of medical evidence. Meanwhile the marker in British passports can be changed with a letter from their GP. Records held elsewhere – by banks, libraries and the like – can be changed on demand, though it does raise the question why such organisations need to record anyone’s sex in the first place, other than for equal opportunities monitoring.
Unlike the authoritarian politics of Hungary, UK legislatures are largely socially liberal. Social conservatives in our country have no credible equivalent of Orban’s Fidesz party. But social liberals must not be complacent. (continues)
We would be wise as a society to take note of this sooner rather than later. Maybe the Government will be able to oppose the excesses of gender identity ideology, restore confidence and all will be well. But they cannot stand by and do nothing. If social liberals don’t take action, social conservatives will."
www.spectator.co.uk/article/hungary-and-a-lesson-in-crying-wolf-on-transphobia
I'm unsure which lesson Dr Hayton is teaching here & who the intended students are. A LO (learning objective) would be most useful.