Tuesday, September 20, 2011

X Marks the Spot

Last week, I read from a local newspaper about this news, and so I checked from the internet.  I found a link on BBC’s website with the title New Australian passports allow third gender option.

 

The first two paragraphs of the news reads:

Australians have been given a third choice when describing their gender on passport applications, under new guidelines aimed at removing discrimination.

 

Transgender people and those of ambiguous sex will be able to list their gender as indeterminate, which will be shown on passports as an X.

 

In some websites related to this news, there was a comment praising Australia for this move and describing it as a “developed country.”  This move is highly probable to become a trend in the future, but I believe that this is definitely not a mark of progress.  Instead, it is a regress in terms of the way people think.  Just because they can’t identify the gender of a person by the way they look, then they create a third sex tag.

 

If its aim was to prevent discrimination, I think this will pave the way for a more identified discrimination towards homosexuals instead.  They may now be branded as an outsider of the Male or Female gender, just as their passport is marked as X.

 

I wonder what next people will think.  Will there be a move to have a different Comfort Room for X genders? Will they mark people with the color of their skin next time?

 

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