There should indeed be more flexibility in law. Sad that Ireland is so hung up on traditional gender roles.

For instance, the recently introduced genderquota laws entirely ignore the T in LGBT. There we’re all defined by what’s between our legs, and nothing else, even if we try to be public representatives. Sad. And wrong.

+1 on Middlesex, a great read.

She, as the Minister for Social Protection, is mentioned in the fourth paragraph.

Thank you niamh for your rational response…

zzzz

well said

Gender ‘reassignment’!!!

Why isn’t John here for the lads soccer game?

Sir, John has been reassigned.

Chris,

Thanks for the support. However I just want to address the whole “choice” thing. As you say, no-one ever gets gender reassignment for a laugh. No-one ever “chooses” it either! At least, it is no more a choice than the choice to put a broken leg in plaster.

It is, indeed, a hugely difficult and challenging thing, and that very fact surely speaks of it not being a choice.

Thanks again.

“Oh boy”. I feel so honoured that you broke your tweeting virginity on my post. Glad to see you have the anonymous courage of your anonymous convictions.

best of luck today!

Mine isn’t.

Apologies James. Yours is more soul-less than faceless…….

So if someone doesn’t agree with you there soulless and a troll? Cop on to yourself! In my opinion what ever is on your birth cert should stay on it, I could give a f#ck what they get up.

*couldn’t

“Whatever is on your birth cert should stay on it” – even if it is wrong?! Doctors aren’t always able to determine even your biological gender at birth – let alone your gender identity. If your birth cert said “female”, would you be happy to see it never corrected?

But it’s a historical record of the your sex when you were born not your gender so I think it’s a bit of a joke to be honest. I don’t care about passports or ids but your birth cert as I said is a historical record of your sex at birth. Simples!

No it is NOT a historical record of your sex at birth. It is a historical record of what the doctor THOUGHT your sex was, and is often wrong – for medical, biological and other reasons. It is also occassionally used as a primary document of CURRENT identity. If it was purely historical, then I’d never need to produce it to get e.g. a passport.

If the doctor made a mistake with YOUR gender, would you be happy to leave it alone?!

Dierdre – don’t confuse sex and gender. The vast majority of people are born with a fixed sex, they have male or female sexual organs. Gender is something very different, I think. That’s the “who you are inside, really” part. But to be born with neither male nor female sexual organs, or both, is extremely rare.

There is a difference between sex and gender or do you just choose to ignore that? As far as I’m concerned if you put down one sex and you have the genitals of the other you are making a false deceleration. Look at your passport, it says nothing of gender but only sex. i.e. the reproductive organs in or on your body. Can’t get any clearer than that. And before you cry ‘my rights’ please explain where it is your right to make false deceleration a about your sex?

James, why do you even care what is on somebody else’s birth cert. The opponents of this can’t put up any argument of any negative effects on the public or country. All objections appear to be based on bigots trying to exercise control over other people based on their ignorant opinions. What is on somebody else’s birth cert has no effect on anybody but the actual person referred to on the birth cert.

On another note, hope the demo is going/ went well!!

Colin if you are narrow minded enough to think that this wouldn’t be exploited by people for personal gain and law breaking then you should really keep your thoughts to yourself.

James, it is legal in almost all of the rest of Europe. There has been no widespread exploitation, whatever that would even constitute is beyond me but hey I’m the narrow minded one so has probably gone right over my head.

Whatever the birth cert is or isn’t, the fact of the matter is that it is used as an indicator of my current GENDER IDENTITY when I e.g. go to get a passport, and hence it is WRONG.

Also, it is really hard to see how someone could go through a 6, 12, 24? month process of changing their gender for the purposes of committing fraud!!! I mean, COME ON!!!

If all Argentine needs to reassign gender from a documentary perspective is an affidavit what happens when that person travels or enters athletic competitions. I’m thinking about someone who may not have had any surgical reassignment and remains physically in their original gender state. Would that person for example be put on an Argentine Olympic weight lifting team as a woman when they were born male? Or how would US Immigration at Miami International Airport deal with the situation if the same person turned up from a flight and had to body searched for one reason or another.
This so called enlightened approach in Argentine doesn’t seem to resolve anything.

I think you will find that trans people have the same degree of dress sense as non-trans (cis) people. Which isn’t a whole lot, but we are generally in no more need of Gok Wan than anyone else.

Part of the problems we face is due to this stereotype of trans people as people with no dress sense. Yes it’s difficult to develop a dress semse when you’ve been dressing for the wrong gender all your life, but we get there!

@dierdre… Was tongue in cheek

James,

The trans community is calling for one’s LEGAL gender to be a matter of simple declaration.

First – to address your Usain Bolt question. The IOC, and other athletic bodies, use a different test for gender than your legal gender. The test they use has to do with hormone levels (as it is testosterone that is responsible for men’s greater performance), so Usain could indeed change his legal gender to female, but wouldn’t be able to compete as a woman after (I believe) 2 years hormone treatment.

But what about people changing their LEGAL gender left, right and centre and changing it back again?! Well – what about it? What difference does it make? Note we are talking about legal gender here – we are not talking about hormone treatment or surgeries – the call is for legal gender to be disconnected from such things.

I mean, who in their right mind would change their legal gender for a laugh? Would you? Would any of your friends? Trust me – changing your legal gender is, by its nature, very difficult, and has a ton of implications right throughout your life. Tomorrow is the 2nd anniversary of me changing my name by deed poll, and there are still aspects of my legal gender that I haven’t changed that I’m required to change by law. Changing your legal gender is no fun – even for those of us who have to do it.

Shut up Mike!

Mike , the problem is that people like you bully them and do not accept they want to life the way they want!! Have u got any gay friends!??? Do u insult them or tell them they are sick or have mental problems!?? They are normal people like you, and I don’t think it will ruin your “perfect” life so if it’s going to make them happy leave them alone! They have rights the same you fight for yours!!

Mike , the problem is that people like you bully them and do not accept they want to life the way they want!! Have u got any gay friends!??? Do u insult them or tell them they are sick or have mental problems!?? They are normal people like you, and I don’t think it will ruin your “perfect” life so if it’s going to make them happy leave them alone! They have rights the same you fight for yours!!

@mackie mans. Gay is not transgender. You’re ignorant.

Oh dear someone else who doesn’t understand the difference between sex and gender.

Well said Sharrow. Mike doesn’t seem to understand that, unlike a person’s sex, gender is not a physical fact.

Gender is the exact same thing as sex just different words.

Here’s an interesting video i came across- you need to listen to the end to hear his REAL point that hit you and highlights what gay/ transgender people are experiencing now with referencing to the past. Very clever man.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=A8JsRx2lois

The sad truth is that the word “gender” was only a grammatical term ( masculine, feminine nouns ) , and the word “sex” was for living beings – male and female. The only reason that the word gender got used for people was due to a Victorian style prudishness. That said, it could be said that sex is a physical fact, but gender is defined ( gender roles, etc. ) words are complicated.

Why? Because we must all be rapists or something?

Because if in havin a slash and the fella beside me says he’s a woman I’d be shittin it

Yeah? I would have thought you’d be shittin it (as you say) when you saw someone with tits come into the mens toilets.

Also – why would you be shittin it? Because you are afraid of people who call themselves women?

Ah I’m sorry Deirdre I support you guys of course. It’s good to humour these things so that it moves away from being a stigma. Hope today goes well.

OK – thanks. We get so much of the toilet thing being thrown at us that it can be difficult to tell if someone is taking the proverbial piss. :)

Haha – yep – it’s waay over punned

Nice Mike. Did you wake up crude and ignorant (and unable to spell) or have you always been that way? All people deserve their identity, and for it to be legally marked. I can’t even begin to imagine how difficult someone’s life must have been for them to need to undergo such a life changing procedure. Try showing a bit of compassion.

It’s because of people like you Mike that equality is still a battle in the 21st century. Thanks for your input, it’s been a pleasure. Not.

It’s because of people like you Mike that equality is still a battle in the 21st century. Thanks for your input, it’s been a pleasure. Not.

It’s because of people like you Mike that equality is still a battle in the 21st century. Thanks for your input, it’s been a pleasure. Not.

Why even respond to him? He and his troll buddies are going for the highest red thumb number.

Damn! I’ve just replied also!!

What’s different is that being a cocker spaniel and a man are two totally unrelated things as opposed to being male or female. That’s why there’s a whole bunch of intersex disorders and why it’s genuinely possible to be biologically neither fully male or female, both in terms of genitalia and chromosomes. If anything intersex disorders point to the fact that sex is a spectrum. If that happens on a physical and genetic level then I don’t even think its too much of a stretch to see the “mental disorder” of being transgender as having a biological basis too.

Yes some Trans people end up with problems related to mental illness, this is mainly because of the stigma attached to be Trans and not because we are Trans. it’s because of idiots like you who have no idea of what Trans people go through that we end up with problems. Your vile comments on articles like this or your taunts in the streets make Trans people afraid to leave their homes. We don’t accept that anymore, we have a right to be ourselves and to live in peace without fear of idiots like you. Get used to us as we are here to stay, we are good SANE people with careers, families, etc etc. No one in my family, friends or work colleagues would ever say I’m mentally ill.

Yes some Trans people end up with problems related to mental illness, this is mainly because of the stigma attached to be Trans and not because we are Trans. it’s because of idiots like you who have no idea of what Trans people go through that we end up with problems. Your vile comments on articles like this or your taunts in the streets make Trans people afraid to leave their homes. We don’t accept that anymore, we have a right to be ourselves and to live in peace without fear of idiots like you. Get used to us as we are here to stay, we are good SANE people with careers, families, etc etc. No one in my family, friends or work colleagues would ever say I’m mentally ill.

Cian,

What’s different is that there are, for example, no known cases of men with cocker spaniel DNA, but there are recorded cases of men with women’s DNA, and vice-versa.

Humanity is a well-defined biological species. Gender is not well-defined biologically. Humans are constantly being born with ambiguous gender, but no human is born as an ambiguous species.

Current scientific thinking suggests that there are differences in men and women’s brains, and a trans woman has a woman’s brain in an otherwise male body. Because her brain is that of a female, and because the brain is the seat of one’s identity, she CANNOT identify as male, in spite of her male genitals etc.

Of course, there are also people who have a gender identity between male and female, or outside of the gender binary altogether. Welcome to the world of diversity.

@ Dierdre – I agree which the vast majority of what you’re saying, but I have to pick up on this “women’s DNA” and “men’s DNA” point. There’s only DNA. Yes, men have a different specific chromosome pair than women, but this doesn’t mean that there are two specific types of DNA, just as a person who has brown hair has a different type of DNA to a person with ( naturally ) blonde hair. The chromosome combinations might differ, but DNA is just DNA. I’m not saying this to attack you position, I’m saying it so you can strengthen your position and not open yourself up to criticisms of pseudo-science.

Yes – I was referring to XY women and XX men – i.e.genetic women who are actually, naturally men and vice-versa

John,

Actually all I am “owed” is the right to have the same opportunities as everyone else.

There isn’t a SINGLE RIGHT that I’m looking for that YOU DON’T ALREADY HAVE.

Also, I most certainly don’t look idiotic. The reason why I can’t get a job is partly because of the economy, and partly because of idiotic attitudes towards trans people like yours.

Finally, yes, I am different to you. Frankly I’d hate to live in a world where everyone was the same as you. And so would you, believe it or not.

Look Deirdre , there are unfortunate cases where a Childs gender is in doubt, and d parents choose d wrong one to ID the Child. But you must admit there are persons who go out of their way to present themselves as obvious Trannies, and enjoy the attention as a fetish.

John,

Yes there are such people, though I don’t think it’s always a sexual fetish. So? Your point being?

I am not one such person. There is NOTHING sexual for me in my gender presentation. I most certainly don’t want attention – I’m at my happiest when I blend in, unnoticed.