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Should "non-binary" people be given extra rights and protection?

So there's been a clip which the media have been playing constantly of a "non-binary" girl addressing Obama,to moan about not having any specific rights or protection in the media.

In front of a packed hall, Munir said to the US president: “I’m about to do something terrifying, which is I’m coming out to you as a non-binary person … In the UK we don’t recognise non-binary people under the Equality Act, so we literally have no rights.”

Should "non-binary" people be given protection in law? Or does the current all-encompassing protection suffice?

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"[...] we literally have no rights". That simply is not true.

For just being (born?) in the UK she has the same rights as anyone else here.
'Extra'? No. They need to be protected however and have the same opportunities as everyone else without the threat of being discriminated against. They do need protection laws and they should be specific so people don't have stupid loopholes allowing them to find a way of being prejudice in work-settings for example.
I don't even know if non-binary gender identities have any scientific basis. Until we do MRI scans to see if they have brain structures aligned with their gender identity (as has been done with transgender people), for all we know it could just be attention seeking.
The law doesnt give a sh!t what you identify as it protects what you biologically are. You were born biologically male or female, you can identify as an incorporeal potato for all it matters, you can be OtherKin or any other such ridiculous nonsense - but under law you are protected by the scientific fact of your gender being existent. Even if you're a hermaphrodite or any other type of person you're still protected.

Courts use something called relative interpretation. Often in law the word 'man' is used ie the 'reasonable man', if any man were to x etc but in common law this has been taken to mean any person regardless of gender. Courts arent machines where a slightly wrong input causes a 'does not compute' error, just because you claim to be non-binary or so on you are still a person and the courts will not look at the legislation and say 'the law says no. You dont identify as male or female so i cant help you'. This is patent nonsense. No judge in the land will decree in common law a person not to be a person because they identify themselves as different to the norm and to say this will happen is fearmongering to the nth degree, the only question is why these questions need to be asked and the answer is because of the people asking them.

So no they shouldnt be given special protection. They are equal in law to everyone else and thats how it should be. The fact that special protection is being asked for says a lot.
These people don't want equality, they never have, what this person and the large majority of Africans and Arabs/Muslims want are special privileges, a position in society superior to that of others because of their skin color and/or religion.

A salient point to make would be, if she wanted to be binary then this person could do us all a favor bugger off back to where she came from. Guess what, she wouldn't be allowed to express her opinion, she wouldn't be allowed to cry persecution.

Cries of persecution are indirectly proportion to how persecuted demographics really are, in really authoritarian oppressive states you don't hear these sorts of things precisely because the state doesn't allow it.
Original post by Dodgypirate
"[...] we literally have no rights". That simply is not true.

For just being (born?) in the UK she has the same rights as anyone else here.


This doesn't take into account how special she is, she needs special rights not equal rights, seems fairly obvious. She doesn't need proportional representation, she and her clan need special positions so that they can be over represented, it's the only fair thing to her mind, which should frighten the bejesus out of anyone sane, as people of her ethnic and political persuasion are going to be a majority soon in the UK.
0.018% of people are born intersex. There is no such thing as being "non-binary" outside of that. Even most ideas of different genders still exist within the binary (genderfluid/flux means alternating between being male and female, bigender means being both genders at once, transgender means identifying with a different gender to the one which traditionally is associated with your sex). It may be worth while considering these as different genders but they are still binary, as they exist entirely within the binary. The only people who believe they don't are "agender" or "neutrois" people and TBH I think that is a load of crap. The concepts of masculine and feminine behaviour and mannerisms are so permissive through pretty much every society and culture that I simply don't believe that they exist independently of genetics. These are concepts which are ingrained into us and the idea you can live outside of them is just rubbish.
Sadly, there is no protection under the Equality act for those of us who idenitify as attack helicopters either. The struggle is real.
The girl in the OP needs a psychiatrist.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Guardian end up signing her up as a columnist in order to further push the non-binary agenda.
nope nope nope
Original post by jambojim97
I don't even know if non-binary gender identities have any scientific basis. Until we do MRI scans to see if they have brain structures aligned with their gender identity (as has been done with transgender people), for all we know it could just be attention seeking.


Does that mean I can discriminate against people on the basis of religion/spirituality all I like until they provide scientific evidence to back up their claims?
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M14B
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Not in my humble opinion.
He didn’t even say the words ‘non-binary’, he essentially said someone in your situation, which to me implies that he didn’t truly understand what I meant.

“I think this is because of a lack of education around the issue. It’s almost perfect in a way that even the president of the United States isn’t fully informed on non-binary issues, because it really puts it home that so many people around the world need to be informed on this.”


He probably didn't know about it because the POTUS has better and more important things to do than read tumblr all day.

Do we really need to be educated about this? Why on earth do I need to know about this particular obscure personality trait? This is a genuine question.

Original post by RivalPlayer
The girl in the OP needs a psychiatrist.


This is often true, I think, and is often most vociferously denied by the same people who always tell us that we mustn't stigmatise mental illness.

I leave you to puzzle that one out for yourself, because I've no idea.
(edited 7 years ago)
Did she expect Obama to be an armchair expert on "non-binary" sexuality?

Honestly I don't know what it means, will google later. I'd have thought by now with how varied types of sexuality are that regardless of how "unusual" you are, you fit into the "gender binary". Seeing as we have the default, then transgender, agender, androgynous and bigender (I'd question as to how this isn't a form of androgynous behaviour), along with others that I don't know of. I'd have thought you'd fit in somehow. Unless non-binary is just a vague all encompassing phrase to say you're not cisgender or trans, but one of the above? In which case...more helpful to use a term to describe yourself more specifically.

Then what rights does she want exactly? Is this the whole ability to put something else than "male/female" on passports and the like, unisex toilets?
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by mojojojo101
Does that mean I can discriminate against people on the basis of religion/spirituality all I like until they provide scientific evidence to back up their claims?


Well to be honest, yes.

I feel sorry for employers who are forced into employing Muslims who have all sorts of difficult demands/ requirements of an employer just to fill arbitrary quotas.

Also, how far must we go with the whole 'trans' thing. I accept the fact that gender dysphoria is a mental condition with scientific research backing up its existence, and for many sufferers, changing their secondary sexual characteristics to match their gender identity is a viable solution. However, many post-op trans people suffer from regret and further mental illness, often leading to suicide.

It is therefore important that we look at alternative treatments i.e changing the psyche to match the body and not the body to match the psyche.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3043071/

And while I'm at it, here is a very extreme and dangerous example of trans-everything being taken too far:
[video="youtube;MbiAHnjHlHg"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbiAHnjHlHg[/video]
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by Greenlaner
Sadly, there is no protection under the Equality act for those of us who idenitify as attack helicopters either. The struggle is real.


Apache crew signing in :five:
Original post by GonvilleBromhead
The law doesnt give a sh!t what you identify as it protects what you biologically are. You were born biologically male or female, you can identify as an incorporeal potato for all it matters, you can be OtherKin or any other such ridiculous nonsense - but under law you are protected by the scientific fact of your gender being existent. Even if you're a hermaphrodite or any other type of person you're still protected.

Courts use something called relative interpretation. Often in law the word 'man' is used ie the 'reasonable man', if any man were to x etc but in common law this has been taken to mean any person regardless of gender. Courts arent machines where a slightly wrong input causes a 'does not compute' error, just because you claim to be non-binary or so on you are still a person and the courts will not look at the legislation and say 'the law says no. You dont identify as male or female so i cant help you'. This is patent nonsense. No judge in the land will decree in common law a person not to be a person because they identify themselves as different to the norm and to say this will happen is fearmongering to the nth degree, the only question is why these questions need to be asked and the answer is because of the people asking them.

So no they shouldnt be given special protection. They are equal in law to everyone else and thats how it should be. The fact that special protection is being asked for says a lot.


This is the defensive answer to this thread


Posted from TSR Mobile
No all they should have is EQUAL rights that is all

it does seem like it's a competition at the moment to get more rights because of an 'identity' than those without that 'identity'
I stopped reading at "non binary people is a term used to describe people who are not identified as male or female". FFS we will be expected to give human rights to extra terrestrial life forms and bacteria next! This stuff does my head in.

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