The Federal Council is conservative. He wants to stick to the male-female gender model and not create a third category for “diverse”. That’s gratifying.
The Federal Council says no to the third gender.
Apparently, Ueli Maurer is not the only Federal Councilor who traditionally thinks about gender issues. His statement when announcing his resignation that he didn’t want “It” as his successor caused resentment, but he anticipated the attitude of the Federal Council and in particular that of the previous Minister of Justice Karin Keller-Sutter: There should be no third gender in Switzerland. The Federal Council announced this on Wednesday. He wants to stick to the traditional gender order of man and woman and not create a third legal category for “diverse” – i.e. for people who do not classify themselves as man or woman.
Everyone should live as they please
One can only agree with the Bundesrat, and for several reasons. The first reason is the most obvious: the legal division of men and women is based on objective criteria, on natural characteristics, and the vast majority of the country has no problem with that. Therefore, there is no conclusive reason to move away from the traditional binary gender order and officially recognize another gender.
Second, the objection that non-binary people are being denied their place in society if they are not legally recognized is unconvincing. Every person is free to feel neither a man nor a woman, but rather something in between, something unique, a “gender unicorn” that defies any biological category. In a free country everyone should be able to live as they please.
On the other hand, another question is what role the state has to play in this and whether it has to provide gender fluids, agenders, bigenders and other non-binary groups with their own legal institution. No, it doesn’t have to: The state doesn’t have to interfere in private matters, but that doesn’t mean that it has to respond to every minority, no matter how small, and align its legal system to their needs. Sure: There are individuals who have difficulties with the traditional genders, but that’s not enough to give up the binary legal order. You can also overdo it with the protection of minorities.
Thirdly, the third gender is not just a mere formality, a harmless declaration, a third cross in the civil status register and in the passport that says “diverse”. Rather, the third gender would have far-reaching consequences for the substantive legal system. What about compulsory military service for Diverse? What about the widow’s pension? The language of the law also needs to be reconsidered. Last but not least, it would also be about the regulation of everyday life, access to public buildings, hospital rooms, cloakrooms, toilets and much more. Anyone who argues that the whole thing should not be unnecessarily complicated and should simply open all rooms to all genders is making it a bit too easy against the background of #MeToo.
obsessive preoccupation
There’s something else too: for some reason society, particularly in the “progressive” circles and the media, seems to be downright fixated on gender issues and identitarian navel-gazing – everything to do with gender, with man, woman and before everything to do with the deviations from it exerts an incredible fascination and takes on an importance that alienates. And one can ask oneself how it is in a society in which one is so obsessively concerned with researching sexual sensitivities. Probably not too good.