Your Life is not Your Own

[clovehitched]

So now it's out - the world knows that both the victim and the suspect in the death of Sonia Burgess are transgender. In one of the most hateful pieces of alleged "journalism" I have ever seen on trans issues (warning, reading this reduced me to sobs and I had to resort to Valium. You have been warned), the Daily Mail casually strip both women of their identity, their dignity and their humanity.

Notice too how the legal system is doing the same. The police outed the victim, the judge apparently outed the suspect (I knew she was trans and who she was a few days ago - I was keeping quiet about it). Notice how the suspect was remanded in a male prison, notice how she appeared in court with significant male-pattern facial hair. Notice how the judge asked if Nina had "completed" her "sex change", which is, of course, code for "does she have a penis?". Notice how it's reported that Nina "wished to be referred to as Nina" (probably because that is her name). Wonder whether, in allowing this information to come out in this way, the state is allowing Nina to receive a trial which is fair and unprejudiced?

And, to reiterate, notice how this woman is currently in a male prison. Regardless of her guilt or innocence, she is now being punished beyond anything I dare to imagine. I can only hope that they have her in solitary confinement, because if she is exposed to the general male prison population ...

This then is what transgender people face every day of our lives - the possibility that on a whim of a policeman, or a judge, or a journalist, our identities, dignity and humanity can be stripped from us, and it can be done with impunity. Sure, in theory there is the Gender Recognition Act, the thing that supposedly protects us, only according to the explanatory notes for the 2010 Equality Act, it doesn't - not really. It should be noted that no case has ever been brought under the anti-outing provision of the GRA - zoeimogen checked using the Freedom of Information Act.

The Equality Act itself makes our precarious situation in society very clear, in perhaps its most chilling part for trans people. With respect to 8 of the 9 "protected characteristics", employers can create a position which requires someone to have that particular characteristic. You can, for example, require that applicants are female, or from a particular ethnic minority, or is a wheelchair user, or is gay.

For the last remaining "protected characteristic", gender reassignment you can't do this - it's not just that there is no provision in the Act to allow a job to require a transgender applicant. No, the sense of the Act is actually reversed at this point - you can only allow a job to require that the applicant is not transgender.

And if the explanatory notes are to be believed, the mighty GRA is, in this situation, irrelevant. That bit of paper that says I'm female, my birth certificate that says the same thing; the state apparently doesn't regard them as true, not really.

Imagine living your life faced with the constant possibility that who you are can be taken away from you, if you are a woman, that you can be dumped in a men's prison, and also that the thing that causes you the most pain in your life can and will be dragged through the press for the public's entertainment. That is what it is to be transgender in the UK in 2010.

There but for the grace of god go I, and all that.

Also posted at http://auntysarah.dreamwidth.org/248244.html - you can comment here or there.

Comments

[paradox-puree.livejournal.com]

I tried, but I can't read that article.

Is there nothing that can be done?

[sparrowpunk.livejournal.com]

That's disgusting. I hope things improve for her.

[phonemonkey.livejournal.com]

Fuck. Just mousing over the link I can tell how it's going to read.

[natacha kennedy (from livejournal.com)]

This is a good example of how the state owns our gender identities and how the state removes those identities from us with no regard for our integrity as human beings. The only other people who destroy people's identities in a worse way is the press. I have seen some appalling reports in the Daily Mail but this one is by far worse than all the others. But you are right, the trans community needs to be very careful, no doubt there are some creeps from the media sniffing around for any shite they can drag up. We can do nothing for the victim other than ensure that she is treated with the respect to which she is entitled, and which she is not receiving at the moment. For the alleged perpetrator, we need to ensure that her trail (both in court and by the media) is fair.

[hilarityallen.livejournal.com]

This whole thing makes me quite quite sad and angry. It might *just* be relevant to the court case - without a complete transcript I can't judge whether there were any compelling legal arguments that would rely on those facts. But it wasn't relevant to anything the Daily Fail had to say about the incident. The whole tone of their article was prurient in the extreme. (Er, can a tone be prurient? [/end pedant]) But it's all very typical of a world that wants to divide everything into two camps: male vs female and never the twain shall meet. Except in heterosexual marriage. There's no tolerance of a spectrum. (Actually, that seems to be pretty typical of the Daily Fail in other areas, notably their desire to categorise the world into Things That Cause Cancer and Things That Don't Cause Cancer. They just manage to fail at everything.) And of course we are completely defined by genitalia.

I feel very sorry for Nina. Solitary Confinement is pretty grim, but almost certainly better than the alternative.

Scripts and stuff

[janefae.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

I know I am not going to see eye to eye, entirely on this, because I think we need to be precise as to where we target and how we call people out.

Like Phoebe, I have some concern that in defending our own gender identities, we don’t appropriate those of others. I remain fairly puzzled as to how Sonia would have described herself, although the official line, taken from the BTP release, is that the accurate term for describing Sonia is cross gender or gender variant.

The BTP also stated – and I took issue with them on this use of the term "legal name": "While Sonia’s legal name was David Burgess, her family wish for her to be referred to as Sonia. She was known in her profession as David."

Hope that helps. In terms of the substance, the real villains here are the Press Association, whose initial release (details here: http://sexualitymatters.wordpress.com/2010/11/01/legal-abuse-of-trans-women/) explain why the obsession with facial hair. I asked them whether they felt that was transphobic – and they stated not: that they were only “describing”.

Thereafter, all reporting on Nina was bound to be fucked...because the very first that any of the press heard about her was that she was male and had stubble. I’d add: never attribute to malice what is often explicable by sheer ineptitude (or laziness). The Mail piece is bad, but in two halves, and very much a cut-and-paste job on a) the PA report and b) what they ran last week.

(Much of the rest of the press is the same, just going wth a close rewrite of the PA stuff)

And on that - the issue over sexual services – I hate that they did it, but I’d also ask for some recognition: any senior lawyer (and David Burgess WAS senior) who also sells sexual services on the side is going to be a media target.

I’ll repeat as often as people like, that I think that’s appalling – but equally state that I don’t see that as being motivated by transphobia (even if the end result was). If this story came to light any time, they’d have run it. It is just very very unhappy that it came to light as a result of Sonia’s untimely death.

jane
xx

A small crack

[janefae.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

Oh. Its only just sunk in. Obviously been too busy to think about this.

The tide might just be about to change ever so slightly. I would love to claim credit for getting the PA to rewrite their appalling release today, but i was second in the queue.

They didn’t get it totally right – but they did in the end sort out some of the misgendering.

So what’s changed? Er, just this: I was talking to the EHRC throughout the day and about half way through, the EHRC, no less, got on to the PA and read them the riot act.

That is important, cause I’m not sure they’ve done this before. And if they are prepared to do so in future, then that adds real weight to the cause.

Worth bearing in mind for the future.

jane
xx

[dsmoen.livejournal.com]

::facepalm::

I'm so sorry that, in this day in age, people are being treated that way in supposedly first-world countries.

[victoriacantons.livejournal.com]

I've just sent an email to The Independent editors about the "Scrabble" article.
I'll write about in my own LJ page.

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting this, much though I obviously wish it weren't necessary. I wonder how these so-called journalists live with themselves, peddling such belittling hate-filled tripe as they do.

[fragglechick.livejournal.com]

Oh my god! That article makes me feel sick and repulsed - what piece of shit reporter did they dig up to write that???

I am really, REALLY offended by so much in this article. Quite aside from using MAN in capitals in the headline for shock value, but to haul out Sonia/David's private profile info and comments of 'hot stuff' etc is deeply disrespectful to the family and to the victim's memory.

And yes, I also really hope that Nina is in solitary confinement, but I imagine just the mere fact of being put in a male prison is seriously fucking with her head.

Regardless of the case itself, and guilt/innocence, right/wrong etc - people are entitled to be accorded the same degree of respect during the judicial process as anyone else in the court room etc. It's a basic human right.

I do't want to jump on your bandwagon, but I feel so strongly about this - partly from having worked in the criminal justice servicew myself - that I'd really like to write a letter of complaint.