dutchess-t:

Well, it was only a matter of time. On May 4th our minister of Law introduced a bill on behalf of our minister of Emancipation (the irony is painful), proposing to simply the procedure to change the gender on your birth certificate. A declaration by a licensed doctor or psychologist will no longer be required. Instead, someone will be able to file in writing to have their legal sex changed. Four to twelve weeks later they will receive confirmation. 

Furthermore, the minimum age requirement of 16 years to have your gender legally changed will be dropped as well. Children younger than 16 will be able to change their gender if they get permission from a judge. 

The impact of this on women’s rights, safety and well-being has not been considered. At all. The Council of State reviewed the proposed bill and only requested clarification on the justification for dropping the age requirement, and whether the weight of the decision for the individual is properly safeguarded when a professional no longer has to be involved. 

Answer to 1: sometimes children under 16 are clear about their “gender” being “set”, so not being able to have their birth certificate changed yet is “difficult. 
Answer to 2: this decision is up to the individual and the government should be involved as little as possible. Right of self-determination is the most important.

The Council of State agreed to these “justifications” and is now fine with this bill, which will now be debated in the House of Representatives. Again: no consideration at all for the impact on women. Maybe because women have already lost their legal protection to begin with. Unlike the U.K. and the U.S., the Netherlands do not list sex as a protected characteristic. Instead they’ve used gender (geslacht), and a few years ago they changed the law to add that gender identity and gender expression fall under the protected category of gender. So excluding a man with a womanly identity, or even expression, from female-only spaces is already forbidden.

@girlsfrommars@dutchradfem Sorry about the blunt @, but since you’re one of the few Dutch radfems on here, I thought you might want to know this. The proposed bill can be found here. I fear there is very little hope stopping this. So far the Netherlands ignore the more critical stances that have risen up in the UK and Sweden. And unlike the UK, we do not have any feminist organizations that haven’t been hijacked by liberal feminism and trans activism, except for Voorzijand they are very small.

Update:because Sander Dekker, our (still under resignation, by the way) minister for Law Protection is a useless ass, this bill is still underway without any precautions taken to protect the safety and dignity of women and girls. 

All concerns about the potential for abuse have been hand waved away with “We Don’t Think That Will Happen”. Despite the fact that those exact things are already happening abroad. Cases from the UK, Canada and the USA are conveniently ignored. Instead, Dekker defers to an investigation into self-ID in Argentina, Norway, Ireland and Malta, which concluded that Nothing Ever Happened. If anyone does have examples about trans abuse in those countries, I would love to hear them. I am aware of the number of female rapists in Norway increasing with 300% between 2015 and 2017, with self-ID being introduced in 2016, and of Barbie Kardashian in Ireland. Is there anything else known?

Apparently there was another vote on whether to mark this bill as “controversial” and postpone it, because the Netherlands still do not have a new government after elections early this year. But of course legalizing voyeurism and exhibitionism in women’s changing rooms and making all sex-based statistics unreliable and meaningless is still not deemed controversial, so on we go. The bill is now scheduled to be discussed in the House of Representatives on the 24th of January.

@womenfrommarsfyi.

Two weeks ago a lesbian was removed from a Zoom conference hosted by the Dutch branch of Amnesty International when she asked about respecting lesbians’ rights to exclude TIMs from their dating pool. Someone in the chat also told her she ought to reconsider why she didn’t think transwomen were women (and reconsider her sexuality because of it).

This was how Dutch Amnesty advertised their event for International Women’s Day last year (2020):

The attacks on women’s and gay rights are not just happening in the UK, Canada and the US. The impact is far greater than a select few “first world” countries.

Gender critical discord

Hello. I am mod of a gender critical/radfem leaning discord. We are always looking for new friends to join us. If you would like to join, please DM me, and I will shoot you a link. But if not, it really would help me if you reblogged!

every time someone says “andrea dworkin was right about everything” i cringe inside. consider:

dworkin’s arguments against the reality of sex

dworkin’s homophobia (for as much as y’all talk about “woke homophobia” from TRAs, did you know dworkin shared these same beliefs?)

dworkin, pro bestiality

dworkin, pro incest

dworkin, pro pedophilia

so every time i hear “dworkin was right about everything” i know one of two things immediately. one, you haven’t actually read much dworkin. which is okay! two, you’re pro incest, bestiality, pedophilia, and homophobia. but i usually give people the benefit of the doubt and assume it’s the first.

** and a disclaimer before i get angry reblogs… where in this post have i criticized dworkin’s writing on pornography and prostitution? thank you.