The B.C. government today passed first reading on a bill which will permit trans people to change the gender marker on their birth certificates without surgery; and will enable children to change their gender markers.
This is a disappointing half measure. It is of course exciting that trans people can now have their gender changed by a simple declaration of their affirmed gender confirmed by a doctor or a psychologist.
But the government missed the opportunity to correct the pain and vicious discrimination that gender variant and intersex people experience. Though the government has made it easier to change gender, it has maintained the oppressive gender binary: everyone has to have either an M or an F.
It is hard to understand why the government did not simply cure the discrimination experienced by all trans people by taking gender markers off birth certificates. They could have done so while still collecting information about which babies were born with apparently-male genitalia and which were born with apparently-female genitalia, on the registration of birth forms.
Harriette Cunningham, an 11 year old transgirl in Comox, currently has a human rights complaint pending with respect to birth certificates, to have gender completely removed. That complaint is set for mediation in May. If mediation fails, the matter will be referred to a hearing at the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal.
Stay tuned!
The complete text of the proposed amendment can be found here.
This is a disappointing half measure. It is of course exciting that trans people can now have their gender changed by a simple declaration of their affirmed gender confirmed by a doctor or a psychologist.
But the government missed the opportunity to correct the pain and vicious discrimination that gender variant and intersex people experience. Though the government has made it easier to change gender, it has maintained the oppressive gender binary: everyone has to have either an M or an F.
It is hard to understand why the government did not simply cure the discrimination experienced by all trans people by taking gender markers off birth certificates. They could have done so while still collecting information about which babies were born with apparently-male genitalia and which were born with apparently-female genitalia, on the registration of birth forms.
Harriette Cunningham, an 11 year old transgirl in Comox, currently has a human rights complaint pending with respect to birth certificates, to have gender completely removed. That complaint is set for mediation in May. If mediation fails, the matter will be referred to a hearing at the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal.
Stay tuned!
The complete text of the proposed amendment can be found here.
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