I think gender identity as a civil rights issue actually gives us the best chance we have legally to secure civil rights for all and it’s also going to be one of the most difficult feats to achieve.
The US legal system will never admit that it does not have the power to classify people according to two legal sexes.
Read that again. Won’t *admit*.
We see small changes like offering new gender marker options to folks on their IDs and people tell us it’s progress, ignoring all the historical precedents that indicate this new “freedom” can be easily turned into a registry.
Anyone who has gone through the process of changing their gender marker or their name knows there are standards to be met in order to have this approved: gatekeeping. There will always be gatekeeping around gender identity and the US government because they cannot admit they do not have the authority to determine your sex or gender. If you need a letter from a doctor, the US government is just outsourcing that gatekeeping to a medical provider who is limited by the laws that same entity puts into place. Medical standards, requiring procedures or medical transition in order to change legal documents – it’s all gatekeeping that maintains the myth that any government knows who you are better than you do.
Ironically the precedence for legal recognition of gender divergent people is actually modelled more often through history than solutions for other identity based evils. There is a strong history of gender divergent people being not only tolerated by society, but celebrated as a group. It just isn’t Western white male chauvinist history. (Reminder once again that transphobia is racism.)
For a failing state to admit they have structured their legal classification system incorrectly or inaccurately – the fearmongers aren’t wrong when they say they worry about the breakdown of society. They are just trying to preserve a society that most of us don’t want around anymore. I celebrate and welcome the breakdown of that culture because it has lead us to this place of death and disconnection.
Admitting that we know who we are, that we don’t have to be told what’s right and wrong for us, that we are actually more capable than we ever feared – that’d be a change up from the ground up. We all know what it’s like, cisgender and transgender and varying degrees of melination, we all know what it is like to have the truth of ourselves denied by this state. We know what it’s like to swallow pain and hope it will turn out for the best later. We know what it’s like to move through a world that truly doesn’t give a shit about us because that’s the trade that we made for existential survival.
I give a shit about us. I think we can fuckin’ do this. Every day I hope more and more people will agree.
Queer Pandemic 