There is no greater strain on the bounds of credulity than the claim that biological fact is a fiction and birth sex doesn’t exist. In the topsy-turvy world of transgender politics, nature is an obstacle to the fabulous fiction that a man is a woman if he feels so inclined.
Instead of countering the fiction with biological facts, the state has begun to demand that we conform to a lie. We are being dragged into a state of mass delusion to avoid offending a state-protected minority group.
Taxpayer-funded bodies are demanding acceptance of the delusion that birth sex is optional. Law reform commissions and non-government organisations are keen to advance a transgender rights agenda so radical it requires the denial of biological fact.
In Tasmania last week, Labor and Greens MPs in the lower house passed legislation to make gender optional on birth certificates. It was prepared by Labor and the Greens. The casting vote came from Liberal Speaker Sue Hickey.
In response, Scott Morrison tweeted: “Labor’s plan to remove gender from birth certificates in Tasmania is ridiculous.” He called on Bill Shorten to put a motion to the ALP federal conference to “outlaw it”. The federal Opposition Leader has said he doesn’t intend to change the way birth certificates are filled. His party seems to have other ideas.
Transgender activism featured in the consultation draft of Labor’s national policy platform. It included proposals to establish a commissioner for gender identity and sexual orientation, as well as a national gender centre. It suggested the need to “strengthen” laws and expand programs for sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex and queer. Under the draft, the ALP would “promote resolutions to support human rights protections for lesbians and gay men and bisexual and transgender and intersex people at the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly of the United Nations”.
The Daily Telegraph reported on a leaked final draft of Labor’s policy platform that advocates for the adoption of the Yogyakarta Principles on the application of international human rights law in relation to sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics. The principles include the recommendation that states remove gender from identity documents.
The Yogyakarta Principles include the following definition: “Transgender, or trans, people are individuals whose gender expression and/or gender identity differs from conventional expectations based on the physical sex they were assigned at birth.”
It is curious to believe that birth sex is “assigned”. Who or what is supposed to have assigned birth sex? About 99 per cent of human beings are born male or female. The degree to which men are masculine and women are feminine depends on a range of factors, but atypical gender expression has no bearing on the biological fact of birth sex. A notable exception is people born intersex.
The 2016 census was the first Australian census that produced statistics on sex/gender diversity. It found that 0.17 per 100,000 of the population reported they were intersex or of indeterminate sex.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics clarified that: “Compared with medical estimates of frequency at birth, ‘Intersex’ has been under-reported in the 2016 census. The American Psychological Association suggests there are one in 1500 (66.7 per 100,000) where the genitalia are ambiguous, and there are other intersex conditions which do not show in the external genitalia.” Nevertheless, the percentage of people born intersex remains low. Most people are born male or female. No amount of social engineering or politically correct posturing can alter the general biological fact of birth sex.
If transgender activists argued simply that gender exists on a continuum, there would be plenty of evidence to support the case. However, the call to codify the lie that someone born male can become a woman, or vice versa, is absurd. Politicians who support making birth sex optional on birth certificates are insulting the intelligence of the public.
There are many questions about why numerous surveys in the past decade have shown public trust in government and democratic institutions is declining. The transgender issue is a case in point. When politicians, lawyers and doctors say male is female and female is male, people are inclined to believe they are fools, liars or both. Despite the obvious absurdity of the claim, trans activists demand taxpayer money for wholly unnecessary medical interventions.
In Tasmania politicians have cheered the triumph of politically correct fiction over biological fact. The proposed legislative amendments will face debate in the upper house but include the control-free thought and speech by extending anti-discrimination law. The Department of Premier and Cabinet defined transphobia as “any action, attitude or behaviour that has the potential to limit people because of their gender identity”.
Imagine for a moment the censorial might of a state empowered to prosecute an incorrect attitude. Transgender activists are giving the state a licence to enforce PC speech on the basis of not offending queer ideologues. We have entered the era of forced speech.
When the lower house passed the amendment to make gender an opt-in option on birth certificates, Hickey lashed out at dissenters from PC culture. She stereotyped Liberal colleagues who disagreed with the transgender legislation as “extreme Right”.
According to Hickey, the Prime Minister needs to “do his homework”. It is the pioneering self-confidence one comes to expect from a jolly big fish in a small pond.
Feminists could hardly be described as extreme Right, yet they too dissent from Hickey’s agenda. Bronwyn Williams of Women Speak Tasmania wants biological sex to be a protected characteristic under law to prevent men claiming a right to access women’s services.
Feminists point to many cases where men claiming transgender identity have abused women verbally and physically. Such examples include men attacking feminist speakers who dissent from transgender politics, or accessing women’s public lavatories, showers and rape crisis centres.
The stifling orthodoxy of the PC state must be opposed. We cannot tolerate the descent into a dark age where truth is suppressed to appease state-anointed minority groups.
By Jennifer Oriel
Source: The Australian