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Swiss Man Legally Changes Gender to Retire Earlier

Darat said:
In the UK - it used to be there was a 5 year difference with the longer living females getting to retire 5 years earlier than the shorter living males, only been regularised for the last couple of years.
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You'd think that women would have the later retirement age for the reasons you say, they tend to live longer and therefore would be drawing retirement longer.

Men seem to get screwed on both ends, dying sooner and having to work longer. Strikes me as strange.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Isn't this an urban myth? I'm pretty sure I heard this story years ago.
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I don't see any reason to believe it isn't true, it certainly isn't implausible. The question really is "so what?"

Since legalizing gay marriage in this country, surely there have been same-sex marriages that were little more than petty scams to acquire spousal benefits or other such gain.

There's really no reason to see some petty grifting as anything to be worried about that much, and certainly not in the way bigots want to use them as a pretext to strip minorities of their civil rights.

If the entire Swiss male population exploited this loophole it would have the practical effect of lowering the retirement age 1 year. Not exactly a crisis.
 
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arthwollipot said:
Meanwhile, do we have any evidence that this unidentified person changed gender in order to qualify for early retirement? Or is that an invention of this far-right, conspiracy-laden website?
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Not in the article, nor in the primary source referred to. The only thing made quite clear is that when a person wishes to change gender in Switzerland, it's legally easy to do, and that in this case, a pension benefit occurred.

I know it's unseemly of me, but I must say that, speaking as an emphatically cisgendered person, I suspect the security of anyone who thinks, or the motive of anyone who claims, that changing gender is a thing one might do casually. For most of is this would be a very big deal. You really could not pay me enough to do it.

I sympathize with anyone who must face this life changing, existential dilemma in reality, and I pity anyone stupid, clueless, indoctrinated, mendacious or secretly conflicted enough to think it's easy.
 
The Don said:
The thing missing from that article was anything to support the assertion that this was done to get their pension early and specifically to make a point that there were holes in the law.
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If we applied your standard of scepticism, half the stories in the NYT and WaPo would be discarded because they don't prove anything in a way we can verify. At least in this case they claim to be quoting the man rather than an anonymous source who is "familiar with his thinking". The local newspaper say he told them that is what he did. Do you expect a signed statement from his mother shown in the article confirming that he fraudulently took thousands of francs he wasn't entitled to? If you think he is lying that the change wasn't genuine, what criteria for genuineness would you apply?

The reason for the gender change was purely financial, as the Lucerne native, known as a provocateur, admits.
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https://www-blick-ch.translate.goog...tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc
 
bruto said:
I know it's unseemly of me, but I must say that, speaking as an emphatically cisgendered person, I suspect the security of anyone who thinks, or the motive of anyone who claims, that changing gender is a thing one might do casually. For most of is this would be a very big deal. You really could not pay me enough to do it.
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I'm the same with the idea of committing welfare fraud. If I claimed benefits for children I didn't have, injuries that didn't exist and so on... well, to begin with I don't know anybody who does it, so I'd have to figure it out on my own, and then the risks just don't make sense. I could lose my job, my family and community would certainly be shocked. It feels like such fraud must be almost unheard of given all of the reasons not to do it. It's the same with burglary. I think I'll leave my front door open tonight and put my son's xBox in the hall.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Just playing devil's advocate here. Even if the story, as told, were 100% correct, it's still a pretty lame excuse to **** on trans people.
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I think it's a pretty good reason to **** on the current state of trans-inclusionary policy.

It's great that Swiss law makes it easy to legally change gender.

It's weird that this legal change affects material benefits, rather than simply social perception and acceptance.

And it raises questions about the material benefits themselves. What property of Swiss women prompts a policy of earlier retirement benefits for them? Does a Swiss man gain that property simply by declaring they now identify as a woman? Should they gain that property? Is it a good idea for public policy to be vague about the physical properties of men and women, and the material benefits provided in law on the basis of those properties?

And this is not an isolated incident. It is one of a currently very small but still growing number of policy gap exploitations, where someone is able to gain social or material benefits not through any change in the properties associated with those benefits, but simply by changing their gender identification.

I predict that these exploitations will continue to increase in number. I predict that trans-inclusionists will continue to dismiss each one as a one-off anecdote. And I predict that trans-inclusionists will continue to vehemently denounce any attempts to close the policy gaps and regularize the definitions of sex-based properties and the material benefits attached to them in law.

For example, bruto's exegesis is consistent with a position that this is an unfortunate loophole, that it should not be exploited in this way, and that the only reason we shouldn't be concerned is because it's a very rare event, not a widespread thing. If it were widespread, bruto would see that as a problem.

But is that really the case? Does bruto really think this is a problem, mitigated only by its scarcity? Or do they actually think it's fine? Do they actually have no problem with the basic principle of citizens getting sex-based material benefits by changing their gender identity?
 
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Every company I have worked for has had programmes, management tracks and inclusion policies designed to help women get on. They currently are mandating a % of women on shortlists for jobs. Good luck with that in IT. I haven't heard of a requirement for a % of males on shortlists in HR and amongst the PAs. All that assistance that is given to women seems hard to sustain if people can change gender to get around them, and worse know that they could and that other people do and feel bitter about it. The rate of personality disorder is higher than the rate of transgenderism. There is no great shortage of people willing to manipulate systems and who don't care what other people think of them.
 
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shuttlt said:
If we applied your standard of scepticism, half the stories in the NYT and WaPo would be discarded because they don't prove anything in a way we can verify. At least in this case they claim to be quoting the man rather than an anonymous source who is "familiar with his thinking". The local newspaper say he told them that is what he did. Do you expect a signed statement from his mother shown in the article confirming that he fraudulently took thousands of francs he wasn't entitled to? If you think he is lying that the change wasn't genuine, what criteria for genuineness would you apply?


https://www-blick-ch.translate.goog...tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc
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Thank you, you've finally found a source that actually supports the assertion you have been making.

Now the story seems to be that some activist who seems to be against the ease with which someone can change gender has tried to make a point by changing their gender and claiming their pension a year early.

That doesn't mean that a lot of people have done it, or will do it for that reason.

ISTM that it's like the Republicans who try to demonstrate how widespread Democratic Party electoral fraud is by committing electoral fraud themselves - but because they get caught it demonstrates how robust the system actually is.
 
theprestige said:
I think it's a pretty good reason to **** on the current state of trans-inclusionary policy.

It's great that Swiss law makes it easy to legally change gender.

It's weird that this legal change affects material benefits, rather than simply social perception and acceptance.

And it raises questions about the material benefits themselves. What property of Swiss women prompts a policy of earlier retirement benefits for them? Does a Swiss man gain that property simply by declaring they now identify as a woman? Should they gain that property? Is it a good idea for public policy to be vague about the physical properties of men and women, and the material benefits provided in law on the basis of those properties?

And this is not an isolated incident. It is one of a currently very small but still growing number of policy gap exploitations, where someone is able to gain social or material benefits not through any change in the properties associated with those benefits, but simply by changing their gender identification.

I predict that these exploitations will continue to increase in number. I predict that trans-inclusionists will continue to dismiss each one as a one-off anecdote. And I predict that trans-inclusionists will continue to vehemently denounce any attempts to close the policy gaps and regularize the definitions of sex-based properties and the material benefits attached to them in law.

For example, bruto's exegesis is consistent with a position that this is an unfortunate loophole, that it should not be exploited in this way, and that the only reason we shouldn't be concerned is because it's a very rare event, not a widespread thing. If it were widespread, bruto would see that as a problem.

But is that really the case? Does bruto really think this is a problem, mitigated only by its scarcity? Or do they actually think it's fine? Do they actually have no problem with the basic principle of citizens getting sex-based material benefits by changing their gender identity?
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Interesting that you latch onto the trans rights angle as the source of the problem.

Why not abandon the entire retirement scheme altogether if you think a tiny amount of scamming is so intolerable? Or perhaps do away with the unequal way the system treats men and women (which seems odd considering it's only a 1 year benefit difference).

Are these elements non-negotiable? Why is trans rights something that has to be justified, but not these?

ETA: Some scammer chiseling out an undue benefit does not, to my eye, invalidate the larger project set out by the government. Even if such scamming were widespread to the point of requiring addressing, seems as likely as not a solution that doesn't roll back trans rights would be easy to implement.
 
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The Don said:
Thank you, you've finally found a source that actually supports the assertion you have been making.

Now the story seems to be that some activist who seems to be against the ease with which someone can change gender has tried to make a point by changing their gender and claiming their pension a year early.

That doesn't mean that a lot of people have done it, or will do it for that reason.
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It does, however, mean that any Swiss man who does it for whatever reason will gain that material benefit when they do it.

Is this really the first Swiss man to legally change their gender? I doubt it. Have the others also received this benefit? Should the next one to do it receive the benefit?

Should the Swiss women who change their gender lose the benefit? Is it really a good policy to attach the benefit to gender identity rather than biological sex?
 
theprestige said:
Is this really the first Swiss man to legally change their gender? I doubt it. Have the others also received this benefit? Should the next one to do it receive the benefit?

Should the Swiss women who change their gender lose the benefit? Is it really a good policy to attach the benefit to gender identity rather than biological sex?
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It's hard to answer this question unless one understands the reasoning behind a gender disparity in the retirement benefit scheme to begin with.

The fact that there's only a 1 year difference leads me to suspect it's largely a vestigial feature of a more sexist past.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Interesting that you latch onto the trans rights angle as the source of the problem.
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I don't think it's a source of the problem. I think that poorly-worded public policy has created a trans-rights problem.

Why not abandon the entire retirement scheme altogether if you think a tiny amount of scamming is so intolerable?
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I'm not even concerned about the scamming. I'm concerned with the trans-activist refusal to acknowledge that scamming is bad, and that policy should be amended to prevent it where practical. Or to articulate a reason why the benefit in question is such a fundamental trans right that some scamming must be tolerated in order to uphold it.

Or perhaps do away with the unequal way the system treats men and women (which seems odd considering it's only a 1 year benefit difference).
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I am certainly open to that alternative.

Are these elements non-negotiable? Why is trans rights something that has to be justified, but not these?
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These elements are totally negotiable for me. Both the trans rights and the gender/sex-based material benefits should be justified.

Indeed, I even asked:

"What property of Swiss women prompts a policy of earlier retirement benefits for them?"

So let's negotiate! Let's justify! If the Swiss can articulate some reasonable benefit to Swiss society from having different retirement benefits for men and women, what should that be based on? Their sex? Their gender identity? What does your trans-rights paradigm say in that scenario?

ETA: Some scammer chiseling out an undue benefit does not, to my eye, invalidate the larger project set out by the government. Even if such scamming were widespread to the point of requiring addressing, seems as likely as not a solution that doesn't roll back trans rights would be easy to implement.
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What rolling back of trans rights do you envision in that scenario? Do you think it is a trans right for Swiss men who change their gender identity to gain a material benefit intended for Swiss women? If so, on what basis?

If Swiss policy changes the benefit, attaching it to sex rather than gender, would that roll back trans rights?
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
It's hard to answer this question unless one understands the reasoning behind a gender disparity in the retirement benefit scheme to begin with.
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Yes indeed. It's a hard question.

The fact that there's only a 1 year difference leads me to suspect it's largely a vestigial feature of a more sexist past.
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This is consistent with the trans-inclusionist pattern of avoiding hard questions by handwaving away their necessity.

If you pretend that future prisons will have no violence, you don't have to answer the hard question of where to house transwomen in prisons today.

If you just assume that sports are irrelevant and/or pretend there is no physical disparity between men and women, you don't have to answer the hard question of whether transwomen should compete as men.

Etc.
 
theprestige said:
Yes indeed. It's a hard question.


This is consistent with the trans-inclusionist pattern of avoiding hard questions by handwaving away their necessity.

If you pretend that future prisons will have no violence, you don't have to answer the hard question of where to house transwomen in prisons today.

If you just assume that sports are irrelevant and/or pretend there is no physical disparity between men and women, you don't have to answer the hard question of whether transwomen should compete as men.

Etc.
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I'm curious if you take a similar position around the issues of same sex people engaging in sham marriages in order to achieve some undue benefit. Do you think homosexuals should have to jump through some additional hoops to ensure that this scamming is harder to accomplish?
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
I'm curious if you take a similar position around the issues of same sex people engaging in sham marriages in order to achieve some undue benefit. Do you think homosexuals should have to jump through some additional hoops to ensure that this scamming is harder to accomplish?
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I can't think of any undue benefit from sham marriage that homosexuals enjoy but heterosexuals do not. Or indeed any legitimate benefit from sincere marriage that only homosexuals should be entitled to. Are gay couples having an easier time getting green cards through sham marriages than straight couples are?
 
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