As we reported in Volume 18 No 4, deliberately using the “wrong” title or
pronoun for a transgender person could attract a whooping fine of $250,000 in New York. Canada
also is taking steps to criminalize such acts under general hate crime. In the
latest reports, Universities in the UK are coming up hard on those who would
not fall in line and accept whatever reality transgenders would choose to live
with. Oxford
University has announced drastic steps to enforce its 2014 guidelines that
required that transsexual people be addressed using the gender neutral pronouns
‘zie’ or ‘ey’ instead of ‘he’ or ‘she’. Failure to do this, or persistently referring to someone’s
“gender identity history” could now result in outright dismissal for staff
members, or expulsion for students. Similarly, the University
of Sussex Students’ Union has released a new policy requiring that “the
gender-neutral pronoun ‘they’ should be used as opposed to ‘he’ or ‘she’”,
where an individual has not expressly stated their preferred pronoun.
In the United
States, under The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) health care providers that
receive federal funds are prohibited from discriminating against any individual
on the basis of sex, gender identity or failure to conform to stereotypical
notions of masculinity or femininity, regardless of the actual or perceived
gender identity of the individuals involved for purpose of providing health
services. That means for instance, that a gynaecologist cannot refuse to attend
to a man who claims he perceives “zie-self” to be female! See http://www.lambdalegal.org/blog/20140416_sues-doctor-clinic-for-denying-care-to-transgender-woman.
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