Politicians are not always bad. Kudos is due to Thomas Hammarberg, the EU’s Commissioner for Human Rights, for this public statement released today. The key point is as follows:
There is no excuse for not immediately granting this community their full and unconditional human rights. Council of Europe Member States should take all necessary concrete action to ensure that transphobia is stopped and that transgender persons are no longer discriminated against in any field.
That’s nicely unequivocal.
(And to comply with the EU’s rather odd copyright policy: “Also available at the Commissioner’s website at www.commissioner.coe.int”)
That — is awesome!
Now let’s see how long before a statement becomes enacted into policy, especially for health care.
Deirdre:
Even policy can only go so far. As we are finding out in the UK, equality laws cannot force people to stop discriminating, they can only send positive messages. Indeed, events like ToiletGate suggest that creative bigots will just use new laws to come up with new ways of discriminating. In the end it is all about hearts and minds, but this is a wonderful step forward.