How does your religion/secular philosophy view the right of transgender people to identify as a different gender from their natal sex?
This topic has been brought to my mind by recent discussions - both in national and devolved parliaments as well as the press - regarding proposed reforms to the
Gender Recognition Act 2004 here in Britain (which were supported by both former Prime Minister Theresa May and the current Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon).
The reforms, if successfully implemented, would make it easier for transpeople to legally change gender by making the process less reliant on medical examination, and removing a lot of the bureaucratic red tape that many trans men and women find intrusive. This would involve the right of '
self-declaration' without the need for psychiatric report.
While similar transgender reforms have already taken place in many Western countries (i.e. Norway, Republic of Ireland, Denmark and Norway, Malta, Portugal, Belgium and Canada), the GRA reform agenda in Britain is facing grave backlash from politicians and newspapers, both on the right and the left.
The UK is famous - or indeed, infamous depending on your pov - for having an extremely vocal, well-organised and powerful lobby of so-called '
trans-exclusionary radical feminists' (as their opponents label them), most of whom are intellectually of the 1970s 'second wave feminism' and have never embraced the 'intersectional' third and fourth wave feminism that is normative/mainstream in the United States, Canada, South America and continental Europe.
Because they believe that 'sex' is an immutable biological reality but that 'gender' is socially constructed - and because they also, applying Marxist class analysis and materialist dialectic to sex, regard 'men' (entirely) as a "sex/gender
class" that oppresses
all women through 'patriarchy' - this sub-school of feminists refuses to regard transwomen as their legally acquired gender.
An example would be the English feminist (and former lesbian-separatist) Julie Bindel:
JULIE BINDEL: Like JK Rowling, I was trolled just for daring to speak my mind on trans issues | Daily Mail Online
"I was one of the very first feminists to speak out against extreme transgender ideology, in an opinion piece back in 2004."
Trans-exclusionary radical feminism - RationalWiki
Julie Bindel
is a prominent feminist writer, including many years for The Guardian. However she has been attacked for her hostility to trans people, with CL Minou accusing her of "dangerous transphobia" that denies trans women their bodily autonomy and ignores misogyny against trans women
The issue has caused a serious rift in the feminist movement on both sides of the Atlantic (and Irish Sea/continental Europe), with British feminists largely being 'trans-exclusionary' whereas feminists from other Western countries are 'trans-inclusionary':
Opinion | How British Feminism Became Anti-Trans
Why is British media so transphobic?
So serious, actually, that Irish feminist organisations have sent a warning to their British counterparts:
"Stay away from Ireland," British anti-trans feminists told | IrishCentral.com
Irish feminists have hit out at a group of British trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs) who have organized a meeting in Ireland as part of their campaign to oppose Britain’s proposed Gender Recognition Act (GRA).
The proposed GRA would end the requirement that trans people obtain a doctor's diagnosis before they can officially change their gender. In 2015, Ireland passed a similar act that allows self-identification - namely gives an individual the right to change their gender and apply for a new birth certificate without medical treatment.
At the time Ireland was hailed by Human Rights Watch as a “global transgender leader” but as the British Government considers whether to pass similar legislation, TERFs have decried what they view as the abolition of gender.
A number of Irish feminists have penned an open letter to the group which touches on trans rights and Ireland's experience of colonialism.
“Trans people and particularly trans women,” they write, “are an inextricable part of our feminist community. The needs of trans people are part of our campaigns. There is no difference between ‘feminists’ spreading transphobic and transmisogynist ideas or spreading racism or homophobia. We want no part of it, and we don’t want it here.”
They also hit out at what they labelled the indifference of the British feminist movement to Irish feminists campaigns.
“Do you have any kind of concept of what a feminism in a country shaped by struggle against Empire looks like?... We have had enough of colonialism in Ireland without needing more of it from you.
“We neither want nor need your lecture tour. You’re not welcome here,” they conclude.
So how do you personally look upon the issue?