Interesting Links for 10-01-2015

[andrewducker]

• This is the unofficial brothel of CES
  (tags: sexwork LasVegas computers technology socialmedia USA )
• Russia bans transgender/transsexual people from driving
  (tags: lgbt Russia driving )
• What Happens to a Woman's Brain When She Becomes a Mother
  (tags: parenting brains hormones oxytocin )
• Clydebank man charged over drive-by potato attacks
  (tags:

Comments

[ext_2864067]

That thing with Russia is...deranged. Is Putin just deliberately trolling Western liberalism now?

[andrewducker]

I know!

It seems to come from "people with mental illnesses shouldn't be driving" + "gender dysphoria is a mental illness".

And is just plain ridiculous and awful.

[toothycat]

So, this is interesting.

If you read the actual piece of legislation here you will see on page 2 the list of conditions which are proscribed for driving.

Yeah, it's in Russian, but see those F01, F09 etc codes? Those refer to this WHO document

[steepholm]

One thing is that the problems with the WHO document, as with the DSM, are of long standing, and have been well known and campaigned against by trans people for years. This Russian law is new, and therefore news.

To be fair to the BBC the report doesn't say anything about gay people not being able to drive, though it does link the ban on trans people with the wider measures against homosexuality in Russia. Looking at the documents you mention, however (thanks for the links), you're right that the net does seem to be cast much more widely. The real intent behind the measures will probably only become apparent when we see who actually gets denied a licence: if trans people are denied but arachnaphobes or depressives are not, that'll be a clue.

There's already a pretty big clue that this has little to do with driving in that one group not covered are those with an addiction to alcohol or psychoactive substances.

[toothycat]

They do list F10-F16, F18, F19 - but not F17. So they cover alcohol and psychoactive substances but apparently deliberately exclude just addiction to tobacco.

I can only assume Underpaid Civil Servant #536 smokes. (And is inattentive / only bothered to read the IDC section titles; tobacco is also mentioned in F10, which is on the list!)

The BBC article is disingenuous because the implication is that the groups mentioned are somehow being singled out, whereas actually the law is a piece of incompetent crap for quite the opposite reason.

[ext_2864067]

I'm not sure I really buy that. To say that the Russian government simply copy-pasted the definitions from the WHO is to beg the question of why other governments aren't also that chronically inept with drafting their legislation. I would expect this phenomenon to be far more widespread if this were truly the reason.

My suspicion is that Russia's government are happy to use the WHO definitions as a rather flimsy smokescreen for their transphobic tendencies, just as they tried to claim that clamping down on gay rights publicity was an attempt to protect children. It's typical of Russia's current political tendency toward barely-plausible deniability.

[toothycat]

I'm not sure I really buy that.

I'm certainly not claiming the Russian government isn't transphobic, or doing lots of other awful things.

However, when the BBC's response to "people diagnosed with conditions in WHO categories F00 through F79 can't have a driving license" is "hey, you, yes, you, look, look, F64 is on the list!", LBGT people are absolutely being pigeonholed by someone for some purpose, but in this one case it sure doesn't look like the Russian government are doing the pigeonholing.

Just sayin'. YMMV, I guess.