been sick this week and haven't felt like typing much, here's a comment i posted on xtra.ca when one of their journalists questioned the value of Toby's Law...
"symbolism adds strength - with explicit protection in the codes (federally and provincially) it would be much tougher for health care systems to get away with discriminatory policies and procedures that inhibit the ability of trans people to access timely and affordable hormone treatments and surgeries. also, it would make it much tougher for governments to justify inacting legislation such as transport canada's gender-variant trans flight ban. what's even worse is that implying that sex= gender and that the government has a right to classify gender based on sex, opens risk for the erasure and elimination of trans issues. we need gender recognized as distinct from sex and we need a definition in there that clearly states that gender is a state of mind of the individual, and that nobody else can or should have legal rights to classify one's gender based on sex or any other identifiable trait. legislation might not change everything over night, but it has proven to be the most powerful tool in terms of moral suasion to society.. Jennifer McCreath, St. John's Newfoundland 02/23/12 11:41 AM EST"
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment