Gender Identity and the Law
 

So I made the unfortunate mistake of watching the news in 2017...
It would seem that in some places it is now becoming illegal to refer to someone by the wrong gender. This is starting on college campuses and is slowly bleeding out into the real world. (Seems it is starting in Australia mostly)

What is your opinion of this? Should we be forced by legislature to call someone by the correct gender term of their choosing? (There are 31 so far last I heard)

Personally I think it's all rubbish. While it is respectful to refer to someone's pronouns, it does not make sense to make it illegal not to. On top of that, I feel that it is important that freedom of speech continue to be unrestricted by laws, as that will only lead to loss of free speech.

As for gender identity, I never really understood the importance of it. Someone calls me he or she or it or they, and I will respond.
Use of the correct gender identity pronoun is I think associated with respect not law.

What do you think?

I don't know.
I feel like it's overkill to have someone fined or put in jail for calling someone by the wrong gender, but at the same time, I know people (in my family) who would flat out refuse to call a transgender person by their correct pronouns because they are so pent up religious that they believe you are whatever gender you were born.

So... people like that, I feel should be fined because it's harassment to keep calling a transgendered woman "Sir" because you know that they were born a man. Especially after they ask you kindly to call them "ma'am" and you REFUSE. :| That should definitely be punished by law. It's offensive, hurtful and just makes that person look like an ass.

At the same time, if it were an accident, I think that shouldn't be a punishable offense.

True there are people who actively spite transgender people, but expecting us to actively remember 31 different pronouns is not readable.

The best route would be 3. Male, female, and a gender neutral. The single gender neutral would span to width of anyone falling in the spectrum of transitioning.

My biggest issue with it is my being a medical professional. If you lie to your doctor and he gives you the wrong medication he can screw you up very bad.

But the issue is it is protected under law while every single other thing is not. I have the legal right to call someone "pickle" because I have freedom of speech.

The problem with "accidents" is how heavily it has already been abused. It's only going to be abused more and more.
Especially as mentioned with doctors and emts. They don't care about political correctness when you are dieing. They need to know your current biological makeup and a gender neutral term will not help them.
Fortunately they are currently protected by the good Samaritan law.

I think that making it illegal to refer to a person by the "wrong" gender ID is pretty ludacris, actually.
Kids do it all the time...they see a woman who looks like a man and say "Look at that man!"
It can be embarrassing for the woman and the kid's parents, but no offense was intended...the kid is just calling them like they see them!
Adults can make the same mistake unintentionally.
The only solution I can see for a law that would make this illegal is to either consistantly refer to all persons by their name, if known, or by "that person," which would take some getting used to for old-timers like me!
"When I was at the store, there was a person who slipped on a puddle on the floor and hit that person's head on the floor. That person was taken to the hospital because that person might have a concussion. I felt really sorry for that person."
I could find that rather tedious and lacking of description.
I can also understand where a doctor could accidentally give medication designed for one gender that might be harmful for the other gender if they went on their appearance and trusted the patient's word on their gender and hadn't checked their genitals to make sure what gender they really were!
"The doctor gave John Smith medicine that was not to be taken by females and John Smith died because that person was born a female, but that person looked a lot like a male person and that person's name was John Smith."
I would never intentionally offend someone based on their gender ID...but I am human and prone to make mistakes...and to think I could be found to have broken a law for calling a man "her" because I thought he was a woman seems unreal!

Inzane - another thing to consider is what if someone calls a man a gender neutral term? Can they get offended too? Or is this like feminism where only gender different people can be offended.

As for drugs causing death perhaps not but I believe infertility can be caused by many drugs, especially cancer drugs. There is one at work the women aren't allowed to split because of how volatile it is for them.
To split it if a man is not present they have to get a gown, a mask, gloves, etc until everything is covered. I think it can cause a woman to go sterile.

i think it's disgusting tbh. yeah, people are assholes and say asshole things sometimes; since when was that illegal? on what planet should that ever be illegal? jesus christ... actual abuse and harassment are already illegal. misgendering someone, whether intentional or not, is not abuse. it can be part of abuse, but you have to look at the whole picture. just like insulting people, a putdown should not be illegal, but a pattern of emotional abuse most certainly should.

How can someone be called an incorrect gender if their gender has not actually changed? When a man puts on women's clothing how is that suddenly his gender has changed?

Why am I no longer afforded the right to believe as I choose, but rather I now have to conform to how someone else thinks their gender is at that particular moment?

As far as looking like an ass goes, isn't it my First Amendment rights to say as I believe?

---------- Post added 09-18-2017 at 12:49 AM ----------

Here's a fun question open to all: Can a man who dresses in women's clothing who addresses a woman in a condescending manner still be guilty of "mansplaining"? Hmmmm. [:?]

Mr. Wrong - It is your first amendment right. However there are exceptions. But those exceptions must pose a danger to others. Such as inciting a panic.

That's a very valid question... I wonder what the answer for that would be. As if you are gender fluid you could simply switch genders to explain something.

It's not your right to harass others.
There are laws against that, and in my opinion, calling someone by the wrong gender on purpose, when they've told you what their proper gender is, then that falls under the category of harassment.

Gender is so much more than just the clothes we wear. If someone wants to be known as a different gender than what their physical appearance would lead us to believe, who are they possibly harming? I don't understand why it would be acceptable for someone who is just wanting to live their lives to be subject to harassment by people who think that gender is fixed.

If a woman in a man's body tells you that she is a woman, her gender NEVER changed. She was always a woman, she just so happened to be born male. It's not like transgender people just wake up one day and say, "Hey, I'm going to be the opposite gender today!" They usually struggle with their self identity for years before learning that they are transgender.

And a crossdresser could be considering mansplaining or whatever that means because he is still a man. A transgender woman is a woman.

Ava - but there is the issue of learning. Not everyone can adapt to learning 30+ different genders. I know for one would get them mixed up very bad.

The key here is not that it's good or bad. But that people have and will abuse this.

Being called the wrong gender in my opinion doesn't matter. If you met me irl, called me he or she, it or they. I'll respond.
If you call me by some weird gender neutral term I'll just ignore it.

But a person's internal gender does not matter to society. It does not matter to anybody but you.
However if this trans person has not transitioned then they are their first gender to emergency responders. Is that also harassment?
Calling a dieing patient he when they prefer she?

Just because someone else is confused about their identity doesn't mean I should have to be forced by the threat of jail to go along with their confusion. THAT is harassment. Thankfully I don't have any interactions with these confused folks who are confused by a penis and a vagina, but aren't confused about sending you to jail if you don't play along with their gender charade.

When a transgender woman gives birth to a baby is when I will believe that transgender woman is a woman.

The Wandering Poet: what is the name of the drug?

Mr. Wrong - I think a person becomes a woman when the hormones are that which a woman has. As medically speaking that is all that matters.

Salvete - one I know is called Finasteride. It and several others can cause a woman to go sterile.

Also please don't ping me to my own threads. I already post here

I love how the relevance of this quote never seems to dissipate.

More than a woman. More than a woman to me. Sing along, everyone!

I don't get the relevance.

Can you please clarify what the laws say?

If someone unintentionally calls someone the wrong pronoun, do they get fined? jailed?

or is it only if someone purposely and persistently calls someone the wrong pronoun?

or is it only if employers or people of power do that?

I believe it is a fine, which if you can't pay equals jail time.

I'm not sure if it specified anything about who it had to be. It could be a classmate or a teacher. I wouldn't be surprised if children could be fined for it too.

And that is a problem. We live in a highly immoral and promiscuous civilization right now and have for some time. Promiscuity is promoted and glorified everywhere you look. Newspapers, tv, magazines, the internet, and even the Royal Mail in England. I was surprised to see nudity on junk mail when I visited England in 1996.

As you can see, rampant promiscuity and it's promotion and glorification are so widespread that it's simply become the norm in the world in which we live. And the longer it goes on the worse it becomes. The biggest problem I see is the sexualization of children and the normalization of homosexuality. This is evidenced in books presented to elementary school school presenting a same sex relationship as mainstream.

As this mainstreaming of alternative lifestyles progresses, backlash is encountered. This is why laws punishing those who don't agree with the agenda of homosexuality are gaining momentum. While you may believe mainstreaming homosexuality is the way to go, there are consequences to this.

Seeing oneself as the wrong gender is not a "social construct". It is a gender disorder called Gender Dysphoria.
Homosexuality could also fall into this category of a form of Dysphoria. They are not something you can "Cure" when they are legitimate cases.
Though many cases of gender dysphoria are not long-term and can sometimes grow out of it with puberty or other sources, there are instances of permanent gender dysphoria.

It is one thing to force people to conform to your non-biological identity. It's something else entirely to condemn someone for being themselves. So it's not really all that relevant to bring up nudity.
If you look into the history of this world it has always been immoral. There is simply a bigger audience.

It's definitely not a "charade" or "confusion". Transgender people know well enough what their gender is, it is just the opposite of the one they were born into.
It's possible for people to be born with something "wrong" with them. Not everyone who is born is 100% perfect in every way.

And not all transgender people (let alone people in general, especially millennials) want children. So to say that they are irrelevant and not really a "woman" because they haven't given birth is demeaning and ignorant. It's basically like saying I am not a real woman because I haven't given birth yet. What makes a woman a woman and a man a man? Biology, yes, but psychologically?

It's very possible for women and men to be born in opposite gendered bodies. I don't agree with the whole "otherkin" thing and all the other random ass genders out there that people seriously expect you to remember. But I mean, it's just like I ask you to call me Ava, and you call me Ava. Why? Because I asked you too. You wouldn't say, "YOU'RE WEREN'T BORN WITH THE NAME AVA, SO I WILL CALL YOU BY YOUR BIRTH NAME!" You'd simply call me "Ava" because that is what I asked and if you respected me, you would do as I asked.

I agree with that. 30+ different genders is a lot to remember and I would try my best to be respectful if someone asked me to call them whatever, but I may not always remember (especially since I have a proper shit memory) so I would hope that whoever is asking for me to call them by some weird ass gender doesn't mind if I mess up a few times.

I can agree with that. As I said before, if someone asked me to call them something, I would do my best to remember to call them that, though, because I respect them and believe that they are valid.

In that particular situation, I am sure that the dying person couldn't care less what you called them as long as you saved their lives.

In the hospital, when we had transgender people they got their own rooms and the hospital staff called them by their proper gender. We even had a transgender woman in the hospital staff. (I have an embarrassing story about how she had to clean my menstrual blood off me and my roommate's shared bathroom) I mean, in that situation, I think it's okay for hospital staff to be respectful and call people by their proper gender. If someone were dying, I really, really don't think that they would get up in arms about being called the wrong gender.

Bigger audience, bigger consequence. As you can imagine, I don't buy into that pseudo science nonsense about social constructs and dysphorias and people just being themselves. Ever heard of a group called NAMBLA or have you even given a glance to pizzagate? These kinds of people aren't simply being themselves. Now, this isn't a blanket statement labeling all homosexuals as child touches, but I most certainly do view homosexuality as sexually deviant behavior. Looking at the way things are, I see homosexuality as being mainstreamed via tv sitcoms and other cultural outlets. With this foothold in place, homosexuality can now be legitimized through favorable legislation.

History. A boring subject must choose ignore, but it tells us much about where we are going based upon where we have been. Point is things tend to become worse and worse. The bible gives many an example of cities and people's being wiped out because of corrupt behavior. But, you are a God denier who believes the bible is a book full of fables. Never mind that in the book of Ezekiel God promises to wipe out Egypt and lo and behold, there is no longer an ancient Egypt ruled by pharaohs. There is still an Egypt, but it's nothing like it was in biblical times. The Mayans. Gone. The Aztecs. Gone. The Incas. Gone. Probably due to human sacrifice.

In the 20th century, many seemingly viable nations were wiped out by neighboring states that became more and more warlike like the Austro-hungarian Empire and Kaiser's Germany. 20 years later, Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Tojo, and later Mao, would bring about the worst of humanity. And so that's what we have to look forward to; humanity becoming worse and worse. The bibles states that the end times will be like the days of Noah. If you don't know what that means you would do well to educate yourself about the subject. And the same goes for anyone who reads this.

Well mr wrong you have shown a complete lack of scientific tolerance I'm general, so as a medical professional I find it difficult to comprehend the hints you say as valid.
I've done extensive research into many of the things you falsify, such as gender dysphoria.

Homosexuality is legitimate because it exists in nature. Are you implying that these species who survive because of it (in some cases it attracts more females) that they are unnatural?

I am not actually a "God denier". That is an assumption because I believe that if a divine figure were to create a world he wouldn't half-ass it. He would detail it down to the way an atom moves. Your God based theories simply do not align with fact.

Promises to wipe out huh? Amazing how that happens. Do tell of a civilization that's been unchanged since the bible?

Like the days of noah. Means we have quite a ways to go.

Ava - the issue with that is that your repeated mistakes could result in a fine. Can you afford a fine every time you talk to them?

I really don't believe anyone who is otherkin or transgender would be THAT pent up that they would call the police on me for making an honest mistake.

That's like me calling the police on my uncle for calling me Avi instead of Ava or something. I could understand if he was like, "FUCK YOU AVI I'LL CALL YOU WHAT I WANT TO CALL YOU" but if he literally just made a mistake... Like, I wouldn't call the police on him for that.

People aren't perfect, we make mistakes. I really doubt a police officer would fine you for making an honest mistake too. They'd probably just be like, "don't do it again". Kind of like, when you're caught speeding, but you honestly just didn't notice the speed signs, sometimes police officers will give you a break and a slap on the hand and say, "don't do it again".

Hey so I am just googling the laws right now and wanted to share some quotes relevant to this conversation:

Not using transgender pronouns could get you fined | New York Post

Canada: Using the Wrong Gender Pronoun is now a Hate Crime - Marriage Alliance

California Proposes Jail Time for Using the Wrong Pronoun for Transgenders | CBN News



---------- Post added 09-19-2017 at 09:05 PM ----------

I disagree. Also, medically speaking, their anatomy is also extremely important regardless of hormones. A trans woman can still get prostate cancer, for example. A trans man can still get cervical cancer. Additionally, medical professionals are supposed to respect the gender and pronouns of their patients.

---------- Post added 09-19-2017 at 09:13 PM ----------

Bill C-16 - Government Bill (House of Commons) C-16 (42-1) - First Reading - An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code - Parliament of Canada

I don't even see pronouns specified in this bill...but pronouns do fall under gender expression and identity that are mentioned