(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Attorney General Ken Paxton uses cis women as a shield for transphobia in new 'bill of rights' [1]
['Daily Kos Staff', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags']
Date: 2022-09-07
The bill of rights, unsurprisingly, is bursting with transphobia and bio-essentialism. For example, it declares that only cisgender women can become pregnant and give birth (not true—many trans men and nonbinary people can and do both of those things, for example). It also purports that cis men are “stronger,” “bigger,” and “faster” than cis women. (Again, this is untrue, as all genders come in all sizes and levels of strength and skill.) It also claims that “unique and immutable biological differences” between cis men and cis women occur not only during puberty but “before birth.”
They go on to assert they believe a person’s sex is defined only as it was determined at their time of birth. The document tries to define “female” as a person whose “biological reproductive system is developed to produce ova,” and a “male” as a person “whose biological reproductive system is developed to fertilize the ova of a female.”
It also argues that there are “legitimate reasons” to separate cis men and cis women when it comes to sports, prisons, locker rooms, domestic violence shelters, and so on. It even attempts to define “mother” as the parent of the female sex and “father” as the parent of the male sex.
Of course, intersex people don’t appear in the document at all.
I don’t generally love to dive deep into what specific transphobia folks are spewing, as I don’t think it’s always beneficial to the cause to center the specific language of hate. But given that Paxton has considerable influence in Texas (we covered, for example, how an opinion of his led to state agencies visiting the homes of trans youth with supportive parents), it is valuable to cover exactly what he and his supporters are in favor of. Why? So we better know what to fight against and how to prepare our language and strategy in order to combat this dangerous ignorance.
Discussing the language here is also important in that it reinforces what many advocates have been saying for years—reproductive health and “women’s rights” are not separate from trans rights. The fight for autonomy in abortion, for example, is the same fight for autonomy for trans folks (not to mention the fact that trans folks do want and need abortions, but I digress.)
All people deserve basic privacy, dignity, and protection from discrimination. Paxton and his lackeys just want to isolate and demonize anyone who doesn’t fit the ideals of the anti-trans extremists working on getting their voter base riled up just in time for the midterms.
The strategy is so apparent it’s almost funny… until we remember that literal lives are on the line, including those of kids.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/9/7/2121348/-Attorney-General-Ken-Paxton-uses-cis-women-as-a-shield-for-transphobia-in-new-bill-of-rights
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
