Last week, the Dutch House of Representatives discussed amending the Gender Recognition Act, involving an ‘expert’. This will go a long way to strengthening their self-determination and may actually go as far as preventing discrimination or even violence. There has been some criticism, which has primarily come from a small group of feminists and some Christians. This is unfortunate and unnecessary.
A few years ago, the Atria knowledge institute asked me to investigate how trans people are discussed in the Dutch media. During this investigation, my colleague Mir Marinus and I noticed that things were moving in the right direction. Whereas previously ‘transsexuals’ were rarely in the news, and were then primarily depicted as being hapless misfits, they’re now increasingly having their say and rectifying this image in the process. It turns out that they’re just regular people like you and me who could be your mechanic, your vicar or your neighbour.
A vulnerable minority
That the old cliché about being a fraud has resurfaced shows how vulnerable trans and intersex people are. However eloquent or resilient they may be, they remain a minority that has been afflicted by a long history of distorted and malicious perceptions, which seem to resurface all too quickly. I’m surprised that some Christians and feminists have been tempted to believe these unambiguous and unfounded perceptions and have even been responsible for creating them. This is evident from the support for the Gendertwijfel [Gender Doubt] platform’s questionable manifesto that has come from an organisation like Voorzij, which defends women’s rights and promotes equivalence, and from prominent Christians.
It’s on the basis of Christian faith and/or feminist convictions that you’d actually expect these very groups to reflect on the question of who has an interest in your distrust and your trust. On the basis of fundamental tenets from both groups (charity and compassion for outcasts; solidarity with women, especially from minority groups), loyalty should lie with the most vulnerable group of people, and in this case that’s trans and intersex persons.
Mariecke van den Berg is professor by special appointment in Feminism and Christianity at Radboud University. This opinion article appeared earlier in the Dutch newspaper Trouw. Photo: Alexander Grey via Unsplash