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Anti-LBGT legislation affects inter rights too

The intersex flag (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex_flag). PD.

Among many other disturbing news, last week saw the revocation of trans rights in the US; the relevant document can be found here:

http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/national/departments-of-education-and-justice-roll-back-transgender-student-protections/2344/

This is mainly aimed against trans people, and rightly protested against for this reason. Forcing trans persons who have not (yet) changed their legal gender to use bathrooms of their gender as registered by birth means to expose them to violence – and sadly, one has not to speculate that trans persons (and those thought to be trans persons, for that matter) are likely to suffer verbal and physical violence.

However, as I have said earlier, the North Carolina house bill (and similar initiatives) if indirectly also affect the rights of intersex people. At the very least, the bill is based upon (annd indeed literally quoting) a bogus theory according to which bodily sex is strictly binary. While there are and have been many societies in which legal gender is strictly binary, most modern (and many premodern) theories of bodily sex take into account the variety of bodily sex. If you prefer to define bodily sex by one’s karyotype, as the NC legislation seems to do, the important fact is that there are many humans with 46,XX and 46,XY karyotypes but also others with different karyotypes including 47,XY (Klinefelter). Normally, one would think, legislators would not have to bother with karyotypes and definitions of biological sex; but normally, legislators do not try to define biological sex in anti-LGBT laws, either.

 

 

Christof Rolker

Prof. Dr. Christof Rolker, Historiker an der Universität Bamberg.

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OpenEdition schlägt Ihnen vor, diesen Beitrag wie folgt zu zitieren:
Christof Rolker (28. Februar 2017). Anti-LBGT legislation affects inter rights too. Männlich-weiblich-zwischen. Abgerufen am 4. Dezember 2024 von https://doi.org/10.58079/qdpw


Christof Rolker

Prof. Dr. Christof Rolker, Historiker an der Universität Bamberg.

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