“There are plenty of strategies to promote public health in the dietary realm that do not require the government to flagrantly target a persecuted minority,” said Liss.
Jerusalem, August 5 – Activists from the LGBT community called for protests today in response to a pending Ministry of Health regulation that would ban the use of trans fats in the manufacture of certain foodstuffs, a ban that the activists say constitutes discrimination against transgender individuals.
A new policy for food manufacturers requires that as of October 1, fast food establishments and many industrialized producers of food must replace trans fats with more healthful alternative lipids. Trans fats have been linked to heart disease and other disorders, and have in recent years attracted attention as a menace to public health, given increasing obesity rates and the rising costs to the public medical system. Organizations and individuals fighting for the protection and advancement of non-cisgender individuals, however, see a more sinister motive behind the ban, and fear an erosion of hard-earned equal rights they have worked decades to attain.
Clu Liss, a veteran activist for transgender rights, said a coalition of organizations would petition the High Court of Justice this week to put a stop to the implementation of the new policy. “There are plenty of strategies to promote public health in the dietary realm that do not require the government to flagrantly target a persecuted minority,” said Liss. “Israel, a country that is otherwise a beacon in a region suffused with deadly prejudice against non-heterosexuals, including the transgender, should know better than to flat-out declare that ‘trans’ fats should be eliminated, as if in ignorance of the effect that has on transgender people and on society’s attitude toward them.”
Arthur Facepalm, a noted commentator on social issues, explained that while many cisgender people might have trouble grasping the need for such sensitivity, words have an effect. “As a society we have taken great strides in excising hurtful terminology from our lexicon. Personally, I have taken on the practice of referring to the class of chemicals under discussion only as ‘lipids’ in acknowledgment that individuals with certain body shapes might not appreciate use of the more colloquial three-letter term.”
Facepalm also noted that it is important to note the positive developments on the same front. “For as long as I can remember, airlines and other business have seen transgender people as a legitimate market demographic in their own right: they offer transatlantic travel; transportation; blood transfusions – even in the paranoia of the HIV era – transistor radios, and much else. As a society we’ve done the right thing a lot more often than we might realize, and we can’t be discouraged by the occasional setback.” The constant use of such terminology helped normalize trans individuals, he said.
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