Is it the most radical proposal for change? It was developed under a Tory (the party of Marget Thatcher and Boris Johnson) government and would join a host of other European countries with similar policies.
On top of that, the only other way out of this particular catch-22 for trans people would be removing the years-living-as-gender requirement, which would if anything be more radical/a bigger victory.
Portugal, Belgium, Ireland, Denmark and Norway is a host?
Gender self-id does remove that requirement as I understand it, so I’m confused by what you are saying.
Say Helen Lewis supported easy legal recognition of gender change without a long waiting period that nevertheless did involve some element of state judgement (so not gender self-id), but significantly less onerous than the current need for a dysphoria diagnosis, purely to prevent open abuses of the system. Would that be acceptable?
(I don’t know her true position because her writings on the subject are in various places and paywalled.).
Honestly, kinda yes? The only reason the list isn’t longer is that just changing your name is more of an ordeal in many places and the processes generally run very similarly.
My understanding was that self-id applied only to changing your documentation- not access to medical transitioning. In that case the other horn of the catch 22 would be the un-ideal but better-than-now situation where at least transitioning people could present however they wanted in the meantime without jeopardizing their medical transition.
And yes, its theoretically possible this person might reject self-id but support some different ‘state-judgement’ option. But… what would that even look like? At least the dysphoria diagnosis has the pretense of applying some professional expertise and being based on the well being of the subject. I have a hard time imagining a more superficial ‘state-judgement’ option that lands in some space between the US asking people entering the country to check this box if they are a terrorist, and a process that rejects people who need it.
But more to the point its really the fixation on ‘abuses of the system’ that belays the underlying prejudice. In the self-id countries discussed above, there is extremely scant evidence of such abuses, where as the hardships of transpeople without those options are extremely well documented. It reminds me a bit of Republicans being so into strict voter ID requirements- you can always point to 0.001% voter fraud outliers, but they hardly seem a pressing concern, so why exactly are they so excited about keeping out the thousands upon thousands of ‘suspicious’ potential voters?
It depends entirely on the proposal and the issue, I think (not specifically about the topic in this thread, just in general). There are cases where ideas are presented as less radical, which actually serve to prevent any meaningful change at all. Case in point, virtually every option short of outright abolition that people offered during the antebellum period in the US when talking about slavery.
She criticised a law, on the grounds of public safety for cis women. The law currently requires a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and 2 years living within a gender. It’s certainly broken in that it further marginalizes and fails to uphold the dignity of trans people as you rightly say.
However, there are also legitimate issues around safety, like that of Karen White, who was a sexual offender, placed in a women’s prison where she went on to rape and assault cis women prisoners.
The government’s proposals may well be the right policy, and Helen Lewis’ criticism misguided, but there are legitimate and difficult issues for us as a society to navigate. The culture of closing down debate fails us everytime it is invoked. We are capable of compassion for trans members of society, and eradicating discrimination the unjust hurdle’s they face in daily life, while also addressing, proportionately, the issues of concern for cis women.
Our culture shouldn’t split into intransigent camps, and devolve into the grotesque, broken, divisions we see in the USA, which elected and almost reelected a manifestly unfit man for the role of President. In large part due to exploiting cultural divisions.
Hold on a second, as far as I’m aware White in the end actually went a long way down the road to transition, making her case pretty irrelevant to self-id in general. If there is any argument against self-id its in screening out people that are ultimately not serious about transitioning. And that’s aside from the fact its not really a trans issue at all, if a cis woman were convicted of the same crimes, the prison would be just as culpable for putting her in a position to do more of the same in prison.
Here is the thing though, people can feel real genuine fear that is both wholey unjustified and unfair to those it targets. When that happens, the responsible thing really isn’t to nod and accept both sides feel strongly. Maybe you don’t think this is one of those cases, but those cases are certainly common enough- consider for example huge swathes of the immigrant community and the fear they face.
At any rate ‘shutting down debate’ would certainly look a lot different from current circumstances, if anything whenever anyone faces these kinds of consequences it ignites new rounds of debate, and even for the person in question for all the doors that close a dozen new ones open from all the incensed people with similar views.