(no subject)

[dreamer_easy]

A new Australian law leaves transitioning transgender women and men stuck with their birth sex on their passport, making them vulnerable to suspicion and harassment when they travel overseas, as well as being just plain humiliating. It's a bit of bureaucratic nonsense which serves no purpose other than to add hassles and misery to peoples' lives.

Comments

[thegameiam.livejournal.com]

Is the law set up so that the person who changes gender changes their ID only once they're post-op?

I could imagine that a transitioning person who had the new gender on the ID could be accused of falsifying their data if s/he were ever strip-searched in a foreign country, but that's got to be a rare occurance.

How many people would this law affect?

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

I think that's it, yeah - you have to have had the op to change your passport. According to that news item, the woman was warned by the government she could be subject to "strip searches and harassment", so it sounds like a real and ugly possibility. :-(

I dunno how many Australians there may be transitioning at any given time - I'll see if I can find out.

[thegameiam.livejournal.com]

I suspect that whenever the ID shift is made, there's a jarring risk of humiliation - either in being exposed as having ID which does not match biology, or appearing to be cross-dressing.

TG stuff, to me, is pretty much heartbreaking from start to finish - the legal system in general isn't the most sympathetic, and lacks the ability to treat individuals as individuals.

[crossoverman.livejournal.com]

That is madness. Exactly what purpose does it serve to force people into listing their birth sex? What do the government think people can get away with if a sex is not listed at all? What the hell difference does is make???

[swordznsorcery.livejournal.com]

What do the government think people can get away with if a sex is not listed at all?

Exactly! Why this fascination with making people list their gender anyway? And always only the two options to choose from. I always refuse to tick either box in forms, but right now the government in the UK is trying to make us all carry ID cards with gender specified. Transsexuals, they say, will have to have two - one for each gender - at a cost of some estimated £100 each. Why?! I don't know about anybody else, but I'm not a gender. I'm just me. What is this fascination with trying to put us all in neat little boxes?

Sorry - long term lurker here. Hope nobody minds me cutting in. It's just that gender issues really tend to bug me.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

I wonder, quite seriously, how useful gender is when you're a security dude. At the library, where students aren't supposed to use each others' borrowing cards, it was sometimes useful in a very crude way, assuming you could correctly guess the card owner's gender from their name. But now we have photo IDs, just as a passport or an ID card would have a picture - surely that's about ten thousand times more useful and accurate in checking someone's identity than an M or an F. And anyway, how likely is it that someone Up To No Good would attract attention to themselves with an ID showing the "wrong" gender?

[swordznsorcery.livejournal.com]

Good point. I don't know how Australian passports work, but in the UK the new thing is for "bio-metric" ones. The ID cards are also intended to be bio-metric. Fingerprints and retinal scans included. And with all that, they really feel they need an M or an F as well?!

I have my great-grandmother's wartime ID card, and it doesn't mention gender at all. Bearing in mind that this was from the days when the country was seriously under threat, it has her name and address on it, and not even a photograph. That was felt to be enough. What's changed?

Love your trilobite, btw. :)

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

With all that biodata, maybe they should just put "46XX" or whatever on the card. :-)

[stevencaldwell.livejournal.com]

Well, our government won't be happy until we are all white, Evangelical Christain, conservative, straight and dress to the right.

Time for a revolution.

[purrdence.livejournal.com]

Who can we write to?

[vindaloo-vixen.livejournal.com]

I'd thought this law had come in ages ago because I'd heard of people having problems for ages. But from as much as I hear about this coming in now, I guess they must have been specific cases (or rotten luck).

What's the point, anyway? I mean, I can see the obvious issues of getting a name and appearance accurate on a passport, but why the gender?

The article doesn't say: Does this apply to post- and pre-operational people?

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

IIUC it's just people who are pre-op. My impression is that a sensible law was passed to allow transitioning people to list their "intended" gender, but then that law was revoked. I'll see if I can get more details.

[the-cockfighter.livejournal.com]

Whilst a government should be a few steps ahead of the public and lead, the political process on a day to day basis involves dealing with the media and the public image. Writing to MPs is a step, but I think efforts should be directed to engage and convince the community that this is the direction the community should be heading towards.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Whatchu got in mind, Richard?

[(Anonymous)]

Street theatre?

I'm impressed how a film like An Inconvenient Truth really changed things in this country. I can't imagine more than 5% of the community saw the film, but it really took off. I think it has to be done through film and tv, but it also needs to be peppered through newsprint and radio.

I don't think on this particular issue, one could do this, I don't think there's an interest, but if one could generate a concern in the community for gender-sexuality based issues then that's how progress can be made. And I'll name some recent ones flagged in the media - a rise in violence in and around Oxford St, same-sex defacto legislation to be brought before the Cabinet now that Turball has flagged it for his electorate. Darren Hayes interview on Sunday program, Anthony Callea's outing, the popularity of Priscilla, Ray Martin's report on 60 Minutes last Sunday (transcript can be read here (http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=286822)).

The important thing in this process is not to tell how other people how they should behave or what to believe in. The trick with the Australian public is for them to know that its perfectly normal to think that is okay to allow same-sex people and trangender people to be who they are.

[the-cockfighter.livejournal.com]

Street theatre?

I'm impressed how a film like An Inconvenient Truth really changed things in this country. I can't imagine more than 5% of the community saw the film, but it really took off. I think it has to be done through film and tv, but it also needs to be peppered through newsprint and radio.

I don't think on this particular issue, one could do this, I don't think there's an interest, but if one could generate a concern in the community for gender-sexuality based issues then that's how progress can be made. And I'll name some recent ones flagged in the media - a rise in violence in and around Oxford St, same-sex defacto legislation to be brought before the Cabinet now that Turball has flagged it for his electorate. Darren Hayes interview on Sunday program, Anthony Callea's outing, the popularity of Priscilla, Ray Martin's report on 60 Minutes last Sunday (transcript can be read here (http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=286822)).

The important thing in this process is not to tell how other people how they should behave or what to believe in. The trick with the Australian public is for them to know that its perfectly normal to think that is okay to allow same-sex people and trangender people to be who they are.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Bring out that Aussie laissez faire attitude, yes.

(I haven't read the paper for so long, I've got next to no idea what's been going on in any of the areas I used to monitor, so I appreciate the update.)