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Another thread on how 'gender identity' laws are far from progressive and are more often a sign something is badly wrong in a political system. If you listen to the Scottish government justifying its obsession with trans rights you'll hear a lot about Argentina.
2./ It was after all the very first nation in the world to do what the Scottish govt now wants to do and introduce a law allowing 'self identification' of gender. That means effectively any bloke can claim to be a woman. No assessment, no restriction. So let's look at Argentina.
3./ Human Rights Watch sums up its pioneering contribution here, saying "Argentina broke ground in 2012 with a law that is considered the gold standard for legal gender recognition". https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2016/rights-in-transition
4./ We saw before how little research had gone into Malta's embrace of self-ID. But surely if anyone examined the moral dilemmas and the risks of legislation like this it must have been 'gold standard' Argentina? Hate to break it to you. The new law was actually pushed through ..
5./ ...by President Christina Kirchner during a crisis. She started her second term in 2011 amid a whirl of corruption allegations about a fortune she'd received in dodgy property deals. And as national debt skyrocketed a series of rushed and ill-considered policies..
6./ ...backfired. Her attempt to increase taxes on grain exports paralysed the agricultural sector, and even as the Gender Bill made its passage it was accompanied by the sound of half a million people in the capital banging pots in protest at corruption which crowds blamed ...
7./..for crumbling national infrastructure. As the Guardian said at the time, the country was plagued by "increasingly bold home robberies, in which armed bands tie up families until victims hand over the cash that many Argentines have kept at home since the government froze..
8./ ..savings accounts and devalued the currency". Battling for trans rights is so much easier than actually sorting out the economy or infrastructure you see. Thing is though if you're assailed as Kirchner was you don't have time to ensure your gender policy is actually...
9./ ..researched. Or safeguards considered. Not that her ethics suggest she would have bothered. Kirchner just couldn't stop being implicated in scandals straight out of telenovelas. Here's one involving her chauffeur and bags of cash. Classy. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/17/cristina-fernandez-indicted-argentina-president-corruption
10./ ..Even on her way to be sworn in as Vice-President (an apt title perhaps) last month she took a quick detour to defend herself against charges involving millions in backhanders. She screamed at the judges "history will absolve me". Even classier. https://www.voanews.com/americas/argentine-ex-leader-angrily-denounces-graft-charges-trial
11./ But the darkest story about Christina, the great moral compass of our age and pioneer of the 'gold standard' is the one involving her secret memorandum with Iran. In the 1990s Hezbollah blew up a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires killing 85 people and injuring hundreds.
12./ As the investigations increasingly pointed to Hezzbollah's backer Iran, Kirchner, it's alleged, moved to protect Argentinian oil imports and line her pockets by signing a deal (worth $1.2Bn) to drop the investigation. All would have been well for her had not the special..
13./ ..prosecutor, Alberto Nisman, refused to pipe down. In 2015, just hours before he was to present his evidence of Kirchner's alleged cover-up to Congress he was found brutally murdered. https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/argentina-s-new-leadership-carries-old-baggage-corruption-conspiracy-allegations-ncna1103556
14./ Kirchner weighed in almost immediately to blame international secret service agents for feeding him false information. Nisman wasn't the only Jew she was soon linking to a conspiracy to undermine her government as she rolled out anti-semitic tropes. https://www.businessinsider.com/argentinas-president-is-now-resorting-to-anti-semitic-conspiracy-theories-2015-4?r=US&IR=T
15./ The other reason it's highly unlikely Christina and her government ever bothered to think critically about 'gender identity' is that she actually made a point of arguing the concept of 'objectivity' was absurd. The International Press Institute..
16./ .. censored her after she claimed "there is no independent journalism in Argentina or in any other part of the world because all journalists act on behalf of a certain interest". Kirchner developed a theory similar to that of the Junta before her.. https://web.archive.org/web/20160310081610/http://www.freemedia.at/home/singleview/article/ipi-condemns-argentine-governments-attacks-on-grupo-clarin.html
17./ (and for whom she had acted as a lawyer)..that any criticism of her government meant you worked for the enemy. This theory called 'Relato K' where K stood for Kirchner of course, insisted that objectivity was impossible. It was an illusion. Even criticism of the soaring...
18./ ..inflation rate, or her confiscation of private pensions was part of a plot to remove her from power. There was no such thing as a fact in and of itself. So ....what chance was there that facts about gender identity or the likely impact of her Bill on women's spaces would..
19./ ...ever get seriously considered? In 2012, the year the Bill was passed she began to interrupt all TV stations simultaneously with emergency video announcements just as Chavez had in Venezuala. You can read more about 'Relato K' here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relato_K#Neologisms
20./ ..Her govt even took to moving the timing of major football fixtures so critical news shows would have lower ratings. As her paranoia increased in 2014 she appointed one of her propagandists as 'Secretary of Strategic Coordination of National Thought'. Orwell would have...
21./...been proud. So if you were assuming Argentina did any of the analysis the Scottish govt hasn't I'm sorry to disappoint you. Kirchner was too busy trying to hide bags of money and reschedule football fixtures. But does all this matter? Of course it does. Bad laws...
22./..mean bad outcomes. Just one year after the Bill's passage the mother of a 6 year old boy wrote to Kirchner directly to claim her son was really a girl. Against the advice of the boy's clinicians, Kirchner agreed. He became she. Gold standard eh? https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/argentina/10339296/Six-year-old-becomes-first-transgender-child-in-Argentina-to-change-identity.html .
23./ ..The Scottish govt isn't proposing to enable parents who fancy having a daughter rather than a camp wee boy, or not yet. Trans lobbyists are urging them to remove age restrictions. But what Argentina proves is that self identification of gender isn't a sign of modernity.
24./ ....It just as often emerges out of dark, troubled political systems and is embraced by politicians who are desperate to be seen to do something (anything). So ignore the smokescreen of 'international best practise'. The politicians who promote 'reform' in Scotland..
25./ ..haven't done an iota of critical thinking. If they had they'd have been ashamed to mention Argentina. But the more they bang on about trans rights you begin to wonder what it is, like Christina Kirchner, they're trying to distract our attention from. Don't cry for me...
