I'll shut up about this come the Ides of March

[mothwing]

So, I asked my family to sign this petition I keep harping on about and was told by my father that he doesn't really see the point because only so few people are taking part, so he doesn't see a reason to bother with it. Edit: but he did sign it in the end, yay! Leaves only my brother and my mother who are deterred by ... having to sign up?

That doesn't really sound all that logical to me, especially as a reason to not bother as well if it's something you even moderately care about, but it's true. It is doomed, really - to be seriously considered it needs to gather 50k signatures within a month - it has roughly 5k now, and it needs 45k more until March 3. Plus you need to - gasp- sign up to sign it and people are lazy and don't care whatever the fuck is in our constitution, so both the people who actually would be protected by this law and the majority can't really be bothered.

The third article of our basic law reads as follows:

Article 3: Equality before the law

(1) All persons shall be equal before the law.

(2) Men and women shall have equal rights. The state shall promote the actual implementation of equal rights for women and men and take steps to eliminate disadvantages that now exist.

(3) No person shall be favored or disfavored because of sex, parentage, race, language, homeland and origin, faith, or religious or political opinions. No person shall be disfavored because of disability.

Basic Law.

The changed version looks like this:

Suggested change:

(3) No person shall be favored or disfavored because of sex, sexual identity, parentage, race, language, homeland and origin, faith, or religious or political opinions. No person shall be disfavored because of disability.

as suggested by: Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, SPD, Die Linke, 05.01.2010 and aforementioned petition.

According to our government, the term "sexual identity" covers bisexual, lesbian, gay, intersexed, transgendered and transsexual people because all components of the LGBTI acronym are the same to them. For once, this might be a really good thing and generally A Step In The Right Direction, regardless of the weirdness of having all those different things subsumed under the term "sexual identity".

Well, before, back in November, people in our government thought that the other parts of our Basic Law already nicely cover all relevant aspects and voted it down, it's now being brought back to attention by major parties, and there is also this petition. But, well, you need to sign up. D=

People like our more conservative and sillier folks thought back in November that would will mean paedophiles would be protected under the law and there would be a need to change the legislation to include something they refer to as "bisexual marriage", which turns out to be polygamy. No, I'm not making this up, these people really are that dense, and judging from the comment section of the petition, they're not alone.

Now I am not a legal expert, but I am pretty sure that there are ways to define what exactly they mean by "sexual identity". Having to define terms that sound incredibly vague is a bound to be a central feature of a legislation in which the first article of the Basic Law is "Human dignity shall be inviolable. To respect and protect it shall be the duty of all state authority". What is this "human dignity", exactly? And how can state authority protect it? Maybe I'm being naive here, but I can't help but have faith in our lawmakers to get down a definition that says pretty clearly what they mean by "sexual identity".

As for the petition and this matter in general, it seems that there are three basic possibilities to view this - not to give a damn, to be for it with or without knowledge of the legal implications, or to be against it with or without knowledge of the legal implications. So to my mind, you either don't give a damn and I dislike you, you're on the side of the "bisexual-marriage-is-group-marriage"-people or have a more sane legal reason I'd really like to know about, or your name is on that list already or bloody well should be.

This petition, even if it doesn't lead to momentous changes, at least seems to be pretty good a way of showing on which of the three sides people are in this matter. I signed it because I'm still hoping against all reason that this could go somewhere and because also I want to show my support for this publicly, even if this does turn out to be futile. Sometimes that seems to be all I can do, really.

I'd also be much a happier person if more people I know were not completely failing to give a damn or against it, especially my own family, bloody hell.

Comments

[moonystone.livejournal.com]

I have to admit, much to my shame, that I didn't know about this renewed attempt to get the law changed. But I'm all for it. The arguments against it are so stupid, they make me want to bang my head against a wall repeatedly. And your dad's argument has me speechless.

Anyway, I signed it and sent the link to a couple of people, hoping for a snowball effect. It's all about hope and trying, now isn't it?

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Don't be ashamed - there has been nothing about this in the news anywhere - I only heard about it through the grapevine, then checked up on the sites that had been supporting this change last year (like this (http://www.artikeldrei.de/news/) one on the LSVD's page). It seems that apart from the party-internal news releases there's only been the official news page of the Bundestag and various blogs covering this so far.

Thanks a lot for signing and forwarding! You're right, I doubt there's much to do apart from hoping and trying, really, but it's good that there are people willing to do that. :)

(Eep, sorry about the million edits. Commenting ought to be disabled for tired people)

[bronnyelsp.livejournal.com]

I can't help but have faith in our lawmakers to get down a definition that says pretty clearly what they mean by "sexual identity".

Perhaps non-discrimination on the grounds of "sexual orientation or gender identity" would cover it, or does that miss anyone? "Sexual orientationn should cover LGB, and "gender identity" should cover T and I, with queer and questioning folk covered by either or both, depending on whether they are (for queer people) gender queer or queer in the sense of being a blanket term for LGB or pansexual; or (for questioning folk) whether they are questioning sexual orientation or gender identity. Maybe? Or am I completely wrong in my understanding and analysis of what is involved in each identity in the acronym?

I have a sinking that this is a 101 question. I'm really sorry if so.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

I feel a little out of my depths here, especially since I am not sure if the term "identity" is really the best used here in the first place, because in so many the respective part of the acronym it's more a label that's pushed onto people rather than a part of what they consider their identity to be.

I'm too tired to be very likely to have a lot of coherent thoughts on this matter right now, but I think "sexual orientation" does cover LGBetc. individuals. After that, my ability to estimate this becomes very shaky and is very much on 101 level, too. I do think that "gender identity" would cover trans* people, although, to my mind, these don't seem to offer much in terms of the protection of, say, intersexed people, because legally, we only have two sexes, period, even though intersexed individuals should be covered under the "due to sex" part - but don't seem to be, de facto. I am not fluent enough in legalese or firm enough in my knowledge of acceptable terms due to cis-blinkers to be able to offer a good solution here, though. Apart from the obvious and changing this situation where "sex" means two sexes, period, but that would be a different petition entirely, so I am not sure how to properly integrate possible issues there.

And I am too tired for this. I'll read through this and try to add something tomorrow.

[bronnyelsp.livejournal.com]

Yes, re-thinking it, I wonder if "gender identity" is a bit off-point, because it presumably means whether one identifies as a man, woman, genderqueer, other, or however one either engages with or rejects our societies' gender binary. And obviously preventing people from being discriminated against on the basis that they are not a "man" or a "woman" in the traditional sense is desirable.

But what we additionally want is to prevent people being discriminated against on the basis of being trans or cissexual, ie, on the basis of whether their gender identity aligns with the sex assigned them at birth, rather than on the basis of what their gender identity is, in isolation. If a trans woman is subjected to transphobia without transmisogyny, that means she's being discriminated against not because she identifies as a woman per se, it's because she's trans, ie, the person discriminating against her believes her to be "really" a man but she is and identifies as a woman. So it's kind of meta to "gender identity." Argh. This is difficult to work out.