Real Talk 22nd October 2018 by Valerie Loftus

Cher And OITNB’s Laverne Cox Have Slammed Trump’s Potential Plan To ‘Erase’ Transgender People

"This is his code for 'make them disappear'."

Cher, Orange Is The New Black actress Laverne Cox and the stars of RuPaul’s Drag Race are among the celebrities protesting the Trump administration’s potential new anti-trans policy.

Yesterday, the New York Times reported that Donald Trump’s government is considering legally defining gender as wholly biological and based on the genitalia people are born with. The article reads:

The department argued in its memo that key government agencies needed to adopt an explicit and uniform definition of gender as determined ‘on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable.’ The agency’s proposed definition would define sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with… Any dispute about one’s sex would have to be clarified using genetic testing.

According to the New York Times article, if this goes ahead, about 1.4m transgender Americans would lose the right to be legally recognised as their correct gender.

The news has been met with widespread alarm by the LGBTQ+ community – actress Laverne Cox, who shot to fame on Netflix’s Orange Is The New Black, wrote:

We must not give up the fight. But in the face of this affront on my existence and the existence of my community, I choose love not fear. We exist and always have.

Legendary singer Cher tweeted her rage on behalf of her son, Chaz Bono, who is transgender:

Peppermint, the first trans woman to reach the final on RuPaul’s Drag Race, said she was “honestly terrified” by the news, while fellow drag queen Shea Coulée encouraged her followers to vote in the upcoming November elections.

https://twitter.com/Peppermint247/status/1054019331015749633

The fight for trans rights is in the news closer to home too – in the UK, activists were encouraging the public to submit feedback for the reform of the Gender Recognition Act (GRA), which controls how trans people have their gender recognised.

Applicants are required to hand over evidence proving that they have lived as their chosen gender for two years, and get a diagnosis of ‘gender dysphoria’ from two different doctors. A ‘gender recognition panel’ then decides if the person should be allowed to change their legal gender. The Act does not currently recognise non-binary identities.

The charity Stonewall is calling for the government to adopt a system of self-determination, as we have in Ireland – this allows trans people to change their legal gender by signing a form in the presence of a solicitor.

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