It is a campaign promise from Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon: the facilitation of the acquisition of a certificate establishing the gender that “is not the one assigned at birth”. The “Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill”, currently being debated in the Scottish Parliament, therefore makes it possible to claim a new birth certificate and to obtain recognition of the change of “gender” on identity papers, all without going through the medical box that diagnoses – or not – gender dysphoria. A simple declaration is enough to “start living in your new gender identity”. The problem with such promises of societal campaigns is that they are as easy to keep as they are light on the consequences to come.
It’s almost fascinating: as transsexuality raises more and more questions, as alarm signals finally resonate in the space of debate, never has there been so much eagerness to validate gender changes. by statement! As if in the face of climate, energy and democratic crises, in the face of war and autocracies in the power of empire, societal issues could serve as a screen for politicians to demonstrate their ability to get things done. Let’s understand each other well: transsexuality is a reality that we must recognize and we must fight the discrimination of which they may be victims as a minority.
But what about Kafkaesque consequences? In Canada, criminals serving a federal sentence can be incarcerated in the prison that corresponds to the gender identity of their choice, whether or not the offender has started a sex reassignment intervention or hormone therapy, sincerity of the criminal not under investigation. Results ? A dozen detainees “often with a very violent past” were transferred to women’s prisons where “some sowed terror there”, as we learn from an in-depth investigation Quebec media The Press. On the other hand, when the (logical) solution of creating specific wings in prisons for trans people is proposed, the latter cry out against discrimination. But isn’t it already discrimination to separate men and women for banal reasons of security?
Leave the kids alone
The question of minors thinking of themselves as transsexuals in the midst of a teenage crisis is a health scandal. The tragic case of Keira Bell, a 23-year-old woman who began taking puberty blockers at the age of 16, only to backtrack in the process, is emblematic. She filed a complaint against the clinic which runs the only gender identity change service for minors in the UK, and the court ruled in her favor. Reading the decision of the British High Court, we suddenly realize the levity, not to say the absurdity, which leads children, helped by unconscious and ideologized adults, towards a definitive path, at an age when hormonal upheavals, sexual and identity crises are all natural: “It is highly unlikely that a child aged 13 or younger would be competent to consent to the administration of puberty blockers or that ‘a child aged 14 or 15 can understand and weigh the risks and long-term consequences of such treatment.
Common sense prevailed, as in Sweden (finally), a precursor country which, in 1972, recognized “gender dysphoria”. But Sweden is overwhelmed by the number of diagnoses of this type: between 2008 and 2018, among young girls aged 13 to 17, the increase reached 1,500%! The National Directorate of Health and Welfare has come to the conclusion that “the risks of puberty-inhibiting and gender-affirming hormone therapy for those under 18 currently outweigh the possible benefits.” No kidding ?
How can one imagine, at an age where sexual relations are non-existent, at an age where doubt is driving force, questions plethoric, and where personality gradually takes shape from temperament, that one can definitely choose one’s sex? What if we had to leave the teenagers alone? Let them take their time, dreaming of an cosmonaut morning, a firefighter evening, a rock star the next day? What if adults in need of fighting stopped harassing children to assert their dangerous militancy?