The
proposed Irish law recognising the rights of transgendered persons looks set to
be based on the law in the UK, which is one of the most radical in Europe. But
for some Irish activists, it’s not radical enough.

The law in
the UK is so radical it allows a person with male genitals to be officially recognised
as a woman and someone with female genitals to be officially designated a man.  It appears our law is going to follow suit.

However, on
two counts what we are proposing has been criticised. Writing in The Irish
Times last week, Leslie Sherlock said it is offensive that the proposals before
the Government classify as a ‘disorder’ the belief you were born into the ‘wrong’
sex.

 Secondly, she appears to believe that a
transgendered person should not have to rely on a doctor to pronounce what their
‘true’ sex is, and instead the person’s own “self-determination of their
identity” should be accepted at face value.

What this essentially
means is that if you believe you are a man then you are a man, and if you believe
you are a woman, then you are a woman, regardless of what the objective
physical evidence might indicate.

Therefore,
the definition of a man or a woman loses all objective meaning and is defined
in a purely subjective way. This is relativism brought to a new extreme.

The
proposal before the Government is radical and far-fetched enough as it is.
Presumably most people still believe that a person with male genitals and male
DNA is, in fact, a man? The Government seems to believe otherwise.

But the
Government will at least require (so far at least) that a person wishing to ‘change’
sex, or have their ‘true’ sex identified, must at least go through some kind of
medical process.

But for the
true radicals this is offensive and demeaning. If a person says they’re a man,
then they’re a man, regardless of outward appearances or objective reality, and
let that be an end to it.

Presumably
someday soon we’ll also be told that children must be taught that being a man
or a woman has no objective reality, and that you are the sex you believe yourself
to be.

This is very, very strange stuff.