The only thing that bothers me about terms like “trans rights”, “women rights”, … is that there should be no need to prefix “rights” with anything but “human”. And human rights should apply to all humans indiscriminately, obviating the need to label any subset of human rights that shouldn’t exist. In my book, the slice of bread should read:
Humans have human rights. Trans people are humans.
And in a better world every bit of that should be so obvious that it wouldn’t need mentioning at all.
That’s the whole reason trans rights, women rights and so on are talked about. Some people need a constant reminder that trans people are human, women are human and all the other minority groups are human as well. Because somehow that’s not obvious to them.
That stance is fair enough. Though I’d like to point out that language can shape perception. And using terms like “trans rights” suggests that trans people are sufficiently different from “normal” humans that they require special rights. But, in my humble opinion, it would be so easy to formulate human/basic rights in a way that no subset specific rights are required, that the entire notion of X rights seems alien to me. Let’s assume we have four tiers of laws (true for some nations): constitutional law, common law, policy, and judicial precedence. Imagine the following subset of constitutional law:
Constitutional law applies to all humans residing in the jurisdiction of the nation.
Nobody has a right for unhurt feelings.
Nobody shall perform an act solely for the purpose of hurting someone else’s feelings.
Everybody has a right for individual bodily autonomy.
There’s no mention of race, religion, gender, … Yet, I’d argue that, for example, trans people are fully covered and protected by the wording. Required exceptions, for example limited accountability for minors, can easily be put into common law. If it becomes evident that some minority is factually disadvantaged, that could be addressed in policy without any need to extend the law because that is neutral and all-encompassing.
I feel like “we” (politicians/societies) are talking way too much about special laws for trans people, women, … when we should fix the root causes of overly specific laws/constitutions.
TL;DR: humans are humans, and imho human law should be for all humans and avoid special treatment of any subset, but be worded in a way that any special need is met as best as possible.
The only thing that bothers me about terms like “trans rights”, “women rights”, … is that there should be no need to prefix “rights” with anything but “human”. And human rights should apply to all humans indiscriminately, obviating the need to label any subset of human rights that shouldn’t exist. In my book, the slice of bread should read:
And in a better world every bit of that should be so obvious that it wouldn’t need mentioning at all.
That’s the whole reason trans rights, women rights and so on are talked about. Some people need a constant reminder that trans people are human, women are human and all the other minority groups are human as well. Because somehow that’s not obvious to them.
That stance is fair enough. Though I’d like to point out that language can shape perception. And using terms like “trans rights” suggests that trans people are sufficiently different from “normal” humans that they require special rights. But, in my humble opinion, it would be so easy to formulate human/basic rights in a way that no subset specific rights are required, that the entire notion of X rights seems alien to me. Let’s assume we have four tiers of laws (true for some nations): constitutional law, common law, policy, and judicial precedence. Imagine the following subset of constitutional law:
Constitutional law applies to all humans residing in the jurisdiction of the nation.
Nobody has a right for unhurt feelings.
Nobody shall perform an act solely for the purpose of hurting someone else’s feelings.
Everybody has a right for individual bodily autonomy.
There’s no mention of race, religion, gender, … Yet, I’d argue that, for example, trans people are fully covered and protected by the wording. Required exceptions, for example limited accountability for minors, can easily be put into common law. If it becomes evident that some minority is factually disadvantaged, that could be addressed in policy without any need to extend the law because that is neutral and all-encompassing.
I feel like “we” (politicians/societies) are talking way too much about special laws for trans people, women, … when we should fix the root causes of overly specific laws/constitutions.
TL;DR: humans are humans, and imho human law should be for all humans and avoid special treatment of any subset, but be worded in a way that any special need is met as best as possible.