Belgium removes the mention of “gender” on identity cards
In Belgium, on a secretary of state for gender equality. It’s like gender equality, but without a bad word in it. Because “sex” is dirty, you understand: it immediately evokes parties of legs in the air and other non-admitted children’s amusements. While “gender” is innocent and inclusive: you go seamlessly from the alcove to the academy, and the kids can stop covering their eyes with their chubby little hands – yes, the contained ones they were looking through just before.
In short, our Secretary of State for Gender Equality, together with the Ministers of the Interior and of Justice, has prepared a particularly ambitious draft law for us in this area, aimed at removing the mention of gender on the identity card. And that’s weird, because I actually checked, and my “gender” doesn’t appear anywhere on my ID. On the other hand, it is clearly indicated: “Sex/Sex: F”.
But I feel that I am focusing on details: the intention, indeed, was to delete this F or this M, and this to respond to a judgment of the Constitutional Court of June 19, 2019, according to which one cannot force individuals who feel neither male nor female to accept a recording that does not correspond to their gender identity, as they feel it intimately.
READ ALSO :Nadia Geerts: “As mammals, we are male or female – not male, female or intersex”
And that, it is true that it is a strong argument. Besides, I would like the receipt to bear the note that my intimate resentment has very little to do with the cold and almost disembodied description of my person, as it appears on my identity card. Already, I draw the mouth – well obliged, since the law prohibits me from smiling -, which gives me an air of recovery of justice, whereas I am of a very smiling nature. More serious: I am attributed as “Belgian”, and it is even written in capital letters, as if this information was of capital importance, whereas my intimate identity, my lived country, would rather be the Republic, secular and indivisible.
But I understand that once again I digress, and that of course, it’s not the same. And besides, let’s be clear: I don’t care a bit about this story of sex – sorry: gender – on identity cards. What’s the point, anyway, if not for the clerk at the counter of an administration when he doesn’t quite know whether to say “Sir” or “Madame”, and who could hitherto s to avoid the embarrassment of asking by sneaking a peek at said ID card?
READ ALSO : Secular cafe tagged and accused of “transphobia”: “These behaviors are those of capricious kids”
But suddenly, what I don’t quite understand is how this will solve the problem of non-binaries and other fluid genres: the furtive glance will no longer reveal anything, or will have to go to the first name … hoping not to come across a Dominique, Alix, Nikita or Lou, which would require a less furtive, and therefore more intrusive, examination of the person in front of you, before daring a shy “Sir” or “Madame”, who will risk falling by the wayside, causing further suffering.
And that’s when we say to ourselves that our communist friends had genius all the same: let’s all call ourselves “Comrade” and let’s not talk about it anymore!