Ok. But you’re going to keep going in circles until one of you gives up.
That’s okay. To quote Steve Rogers, I really do have America’s ass can do this all day.
So establishing citizenship or age is valid but establishing sex is not? The vast majority of people aren’t going to lie about age or citizenship, so why do we need documentation proving those things but not sex?
Why do you need proof that my daughter’s name or age is what I say it is but not that her sex is what I say it is? You’re making decisions based on her age or her sex, why “take my word for it” on one of those but not the other?
No? Because even though the vast majority of people wouldn’t lie about a kid’s age or name, the school still asks for documentation. I don’t think it’s unnecessary for them to ask for that documentation even if 99.9% of people wouldn’t lie about those things.
I needed my birth certificate when I got a passport before traveling to Mexico. And the copy I had, that my mom had given me, wasn’t an official “full” certificate. I had to contact my state of birth and put in a request and pay a fee to get a real copy. (Fortunately it wasn’t that pricey and didn’t take very long.) Combining that with my state ID (driver’s license) was enough to get my passport.
But yes, there are definitely legal needs for a birth certificate.
(And also, I don’t think male/female/etc. mattered for this particular circumstance.)
What are you smoking and where can I get some?
We’re talking about legal sex here, and as noted above you can change your legal sex at will with no requirement for any kind of medical transitioning (and to be clear, since Zoobi is a dishonest piece of shit, that’s exactly as it should be). Legal sex has little to nothing to do with sports.
I certainly don’t think that men pretending to be women in order to ruin women’s sports is an issue, nor that it is likely remotely conceivable to be one in the future.
And I’ve certainly never “transvestigated” anyone.
Selective service, aka draft registration is a legal issue and one that has been sharply fought the last few years in regards to gender disparity. Since I am opposed to both draft registration as well as any actual draft, I’d be happy to see this one disappear. But I think as of right this minute it’s still an issue.
Does anyone in this conversation know what gets put on the birth certificate of an intersex child? In California especially, but in any state?
Because it seems to me like that’s an important consideration.
I understand, in broad terms, the way that people can commit crimes, or evade laws establishing age minimums, by lying about their citizenship or age. So I’m not questioning why it’s a good idea to have those on a birth certificate. I’m less clear on what sort of crimes a person could commit by lying about their sex, so the idea of not recording sex on a birth certificate does not seem that big a deal to me.
You described that as an “extreme” position and something you’d oppose, so I’m trying to figure out why. Perhaps there is a scenario I’m overlooking, where someone could lie about their sex for some sort of illicit gain, and the best and/or only way to combat that fraud is by recording a person sex on their birth certificate? The only scenario you could provide was, “enrolling your daughter in an all-girls preschool*,” and that seems like a really weak use-case.
I’m doubly confused, because you acknowledge that its possible to change the sex marker on your birth certificate later, and you appear totally cool with that, so I’m not clear why removing it altogether is an “extreme” position, when almost any use-case for keeping it is undercut by being able to change it later.
*Elementary school? I’m not sure how old your daughter was in this story, other than, “too young to have another form of ID”.
California allows “intersex” on birth certificates, in addition to M, F, and X.
Thanks. I appreciate having my ignorance faught!
I’m not sure I follow the distinction here.
What “crime” are you committing if you sign your kid up for first grade when they are not yet six and have not yet completed a year of kindergarten? I couldn’t find any such “crime”. It’s just an administrative violation. Just like signing your boy up for an all girl’s school would be.
Now, if you falsified documents in order to do this, that might be fraud; but if they just forgot to check or something, getting your five year old into first grade isn’t any more of a “crime” then getting your boy into a girl’s school would be.
Or did you mean this in a totally different context, like buying alcohol or something?
Well, you have to get into why I think that you should be allowed to change your sex on your legal documentation in order to understand this.
Here’s the chain of logic.
Men and women are not identical biologically or socially. Historically, this has led to societal discrimination against women. Even when we got beyond that and decided to treat everyone “the same”, that “same” treatment was often based on what was convenient for men, not everyone and certainly not women in particular. Because of this, there are times when it is appropriate for men and women to be treated differently by the law.
If society is going to do that, then it makes sense to have official documentation of sex.
Sex is sometimes relevant when someone is young and has not yet gotten other forms of documentation.
For the overwhelming majority of people, sex assigned at birth matches up with the gender they identify with, so in those cases there’s no issue with just using sex assigned at birth.
A societal system that works for the vast majority of people but not for the handful of exceptions is a bad system, because it makes it difficult for those people to take part in society.
Specifically in this case, there are people who have gender dysphoria, where they feel severe discomfort (sometimes to the point of being driven to suicide) if they are not allowed to live their lives as the gender with which they identify rather than the gender that matches their sex assigned at birth.
Hence, the system allows for people to change their recorded legal sex. This is not a very arduous process at all; it doesn’t require going before a judge or anything like that; but it is a legal process. This way, we still have a legal sex, which we can use to officially determine how society should treat someone in the rare cases where society discriminates by sex; but trans people aren’t subjected to extreme discomfort.
I actually had to provide a birth certificate when signing up my daughter to Kindergarten at a public school (and certainly not a girl’s only school, that was just an example).
…
Let me ask this… What is removing sex from the birth certificate actually supposed to accomplish, in a state like California where you can freely change the sex field on your birth certificate and where there are options for intersex and nonbinary people?
When I said I understood that there are crimes that can be prevented by having a name and DOB on a birth certificate, I wasn’t talking about school enrollments. I meant stuff like tax fraud or social security fraud.
I don’t see a similar concern for “sex.” It’s not clear to me how someone could more easily commit tax or social security fraud (or other types of illicit activity) if their birth certificate didn’t have “sex” on it. So removing “sex” from a birth certificate does not seem like a big deal.
Your one example of why it might be necessary was “enrolling a child in an all-girls school.” But even in that context, I’m not seeing how having “sex” on a birth certificate is necessary. What bad outcome is prevented by having a government document that proves the kid’s sex in this scenario? What illicit activity is more easily exposed, or prevented?
Probably not a lot. It doesn’t seem like a big deal either way. You were the one who had a strong opinion on it - you called it “extreme” and seemed to agree with Maher that this was an example of “woke” going too far.
And I think if you are using that as a basis to, for example, qualify as a woman-owned business (with the associated programs associated with that), I honestly don’t know if a birth certificate declaration will matter, or if a person’s gender identity is what matters regardless of what’s on the certificate. I would hope the latter, but I don’t know the law.
ETA: With a quick search, it looks like these certifications are made at both the state and federal level, and so it will likely vary based on jurisdiction.
Gotcha, you brought it up in response to me saying that the school asked for documentation of her age and name, which is why I was confused.
Ok, I’m not sure what the point of this is since I never said or implied that we need to include sex to prevent crime, so I agree, it doesn’t prevent crime.
The same exact “bad outcome” that’s prevented when they check my daughter’s birth certificate to determine her age and name.
It’s not some horrible tragedy if a 5 year old gets into first grade despite not having completed kindergarten, and it’s not some horrible tragedy if a boy is enrolled in an all girl’s school. But if we have a rule (“first grade starts at 6 unless you have a form showing your kid completed kindergarten” or “this is a girl’s school”) then it’s a “bad outcome” if we don’t uphold those rules because we suck at record keeping.
I’d say that the people proposing this law change are the ones who feel strongly about it. You’re right, it would have very little practical effect. So why do you think they’re willing to spend political capital on implementing a rule change that doesn’t actually help anyone?
I’m opposed to it because I think our side has wasted huge amounts of political capital dying on hills like this one which I see no purpose for. And when I point that out, people like Zoobi and Andy get absolutely unhinged, personally attacking me and comparing me to the most bad faith or transphobic of conservative posters and celebrities. You don’t think that displays a “strong opinion” on the topic?
I’m explaining why I think some categories are important to have on a birth certificate, and some aren’t. There’s a lot of stuff we could put on a birth certificate, but I feel we should mostly stick to stuff we need to put on there, which is mostly “stops people from breaking the law” stuff.
So it’s just “we need to follow the rules because they’re rules?” If there’s no “horrible outcome”, then is it necessarily something that needs the apparatus of state to enforce?
I can’t speak for why anyone else thinks its a good idea. I assume they have their reasons. Possibly good ones, I don’t know. I’m not rejecting the concept out of hand, even if I can’t personally see the benefits.
Is this really something that got a lot of political capital spent on it, though? It was proposed a few years ago, failed to pass… is it still something that’s being advocated? What exactly got “spent” on it?
I attacked you because you lied about my position. That was the one and only reason I attacked you.
The purpose of a birth certificate isn’t io stop people from breaking the law, it’s to identify people and provide information related to their birth, like their age… And like the sex assigned at birth.
For the vast majority of people, sex does work as an identifying characteristic. And when you allow trans and nonbinary people to update this, that’s even more true.
Yeah, kinda, that’s what rules are. If you have a problem with the rules, you can work within the system to change those rules.
There are cases where the system is horribly unfair and makes it impossible for change to occur within the system, and in those cases acting outside the rules can be moral, but outside of those circumstances, yes, we should generally follow rules until we are able to change them.
Yes? That’s what small claims court is, for example: the apparatus of the state adjudicating matters of relatively little importance where there’s no “horrible outcome” on the line.
I’m not asking you to opine on why they think it’s a good idea. I’m pointing out that you say I am “the one with strong opinions” on the topic, but I’m not the one calling anyone who disagrees with me a JK Rowling-esque lying troll..
I wonder if opposition to Obergefell being overturned is a waste of huge amounts of political capital and a hill not worth dying on.
Let’s see.
The one is a supreme court decision allowing gay marriage across the country, which gives gay couples access to a whole host of benefits - getting on each other’s insurance, making medical decisions for one another, filing taxes together, adopting children together, and on and on and on…
The other is removing sex from birth certificates for reasons that not a single person has been able to articulate.
So what do you think?
I’ll spell it out for you: no, opposing the overturning of Obergefell is clearly of the utmost political importance, unlike virtue signaling bullshit bill proposed in PA.
I assume the reason is because the default of having the parent choose at birth is a way of defining gender for a child before that child’s sexuality is developed, and it is subject to change. Granted, that’s for those who equate gender and sex.
I’m not defending the idea, I’m just saying what I believe would be the motivation for this.
I think it’s pretty clear that some of us are engaging with the question of what should and shouldn’t be included on a birth certificate, while others are treating this as a shibboleth to determine whether one is a “trans ally” or a “transphobe”.
Like, the position I’ve taken here is that sex assigned at birth should be on the birth certificate, and then you should be able to change it if you want to. In what world is that a transphobic position that justifies comparisons to JK Rowling or the claim that clearly I also don’t think we should stop Republicans from overturning gay marriage?