Tuesday, May 27, 2014

To dream ... the impossible dream ...

To fight ... the unbeatable foe ...
To bear ... with unbearable sorrow ...
To run ... where the brave dare not go ...
To right ... the unrightable wrong ...
To love ... pure and chaste from afar ...
To try ... when your arms are too weary ...
To reach ... the unreachable star ...
That is what some trans-people in Europe are trying to do, they want to eradicate their past; to have “the right to completely wipe out their past identity as the opposite sex.” I feel that they are tilting windmills.
Why transgender people have the right to their past identity being forgotten
As a trans woman fights to get her previous life as a man removed from official government records, Ava Vidal talks to trans people about the difference it would make
The Telegraph
By Ava Vidal
27 May 2014

A trans woman is currently in court fighting a case that if she wins, will have huge implications for the way that transgender people are treated in the UK. The European Court of Justice recently held that a Spanish man was entitled to have items in the search engine ‘Google’ linked to personal data removed at his request. The EU ruled that they must honour the ‘right to be forgotten’.

On the back of this decision the woman known only as C has launched her case requesting that the Government (namely the Department for Work and Pensions) no longer retain or use the information that she was once considered male. She claims that her gender reassignment surgery is a private matter and is totally irrelevant to her ability to find work. She is requesting that the details of her previous life including her old name be removed from the records and ‘forgotten'.
I do not see how any of this is possible. I would think that just by requesting to have your history erased you are creating more records with your old name. Just by filing a request for all the records of John Doe erased and replaced with Jane Doe created a record linking the names.
"The DWP case is about a right to privacy for trans people in terms of government bodies and bureaucracies holding potentially harmful data. If there is no need for the DWP to keep details of this woman's previous identity on file – which there should not be if her benefit history can be tracked with her National Insurance number – then it really just creates an opportunity for prejudice, particularly in the context of a local Jobcentre."
What about when you change your name, there is a court record of your name change and to seal those records could produce so many complications. The first is to exempt name changes from the Freedom of Information laws and create secret court records. What about creditors, there would be no way to link you debt to you, while many will see that as a blessing it would be fraud and may also limit our ability to get credit. What about your credit report? Will you lose your credit history? How are you going to erase all your files from the all the companies that you do business with, I still get thing in the mail with my old name on it even after seven years.

I know for me sometimes having my old name on file was a good thing. When my father died his insurance policies and power of attorney had my old name on them and I needed my probate court order to collect on the policies. Also I got into a heated debate with my credit card company once because they didn’t believe I was who I said I was (I still think they were stupid, what identity thief would report that they were hacked?) and I finally got them to believe me when I told them to look at my file to see my name change when I transitioned. If it wasn’t for my old records they would never believe me if it wasn’t for my old records.

Good luck on eradicating your past.
This is my quest, to follow that star ...
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far ...
To fight for the right, without question or pause ...
To be willing to march into Hell, for a Heavenly cause ...
This was our high school class song,

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