Quote of the week
An ‘important purpose of section 34 [of the Constitution] is to guarantee the protection of the judicial process to persons who have disputes that can be resolved by law’ and that the right of access to court is ‘foundational to the stability of an orderly society. It ensures the peaceful, regulated and institutionalised mechanisms to resolve disputes, without resorting to self-help. The right of access to court is a bulwark against vigilantism, and the chaos and anarchy which it causes. Construed in this context of the rule of law and the principle against self-help in particular, access to court is indeed of cardinal importance’.The right guaranteed s34 would be rendered meaningless if court orders could be ignored with impunity:the underlying purposes of the right — and particularly that of avoidance of self-help — would be undermined if litigants could decide which orders they wished to obey and which they wished to ignore.
Victoria Park Ratepayers' Association v Greyvenouw CC and others (511/03) [2003] ZAECHC 19 (11 April 2003)
A man by any other name looks just as sweet…
Julio Cuesta on Tuesday became the first person in Spain legally to change their sex/gender description without undergoing surgery under a new law approved last month. Julio, who was born a woman, obtained the right to have his gender description officially altered to that of a man after taking hormones for at least two years.
In
(Disclosure: I have been advising the group Gender DynamiX, who is now assisting individuals to challenge the decisions of the Home Affairs officials.)
Of course, despite all the evidence to the contrary, society continues to essentialise sex and gender as fixed, unchanging and exclusive categories. Many people experience their sex or their gender in more fluid terms. Some do not physically conform to the categories of “male” or “female”, while others do not associate themselves with the sex or gender that their bodies are supposed to reflect.
Yet from the moment we are born, we are policed and disciplined to ensure that we conform to prevailing societal sex and gender stereotypes. This is deeply oppressive to all of us because it diminishes our ability to make choices about our sex and gender identity and behaviour. However, because sex and gender policing is so all pervasive in our society, it is difficult to bring across the human rights angle to this issue.
The law therefore helps to perpetuate the existing oppressive sex/gender regime, enforcing a certain cultural construction of the world on all of us. Why should it matter to the state or anyone else whether we call ourselves a “man”, a “woman” or anything else? Why is it important for someone with a penis not to be effeminate or for someone with a vagina to wear a dress? There is nothing inherently good about these categories and there surely is no need to limit our sex or gender identities to these two categories only.
It is time that human rights law take note of the oppressive nature of the sex/gender dichotomy and begin to seek ways to accommodate a wider variety of sex and gender identities in our society. A start can be made by applying the existing law properly.
