LGBT News Should sex be taken off of birth certificates?

I agree, it should not matter to anyone, but maybe your doctor what sex you are.

 

I think it needs to be phased out completely, maybe be replaced by last 4 or 5 digits of SSN

 

Why is that?

 

Because no one really needs to know what's between your legs.

 

Except your doctor, and, if I'm not mistaken, you need to present a birth certificate for things like health insurance.

I say keep sex. But also include gender and make them separate. Have it blank until the kid reaches the age range of 4-8, where transpeople are usually aware they're trans*. Also have that part of the document subject to change.

 

Why can't we get rid of sex, this physically male/female nonsense, and doctors and stuff just know what genitals/organs you have by their actual name, like vagina/ovaries/uterus. I hate this female/male genitalia stuff.

Like it'd be like this. there's this guy Jim, has this set of organs blah blah blah, is on this hormone produced by body or otherwise, and all his other medical history stuff. I mean with this sex stuff, that's what they really want to know, your genitals and such, and hey I'm down with that, but i personally am not comfortable with callin' my parts "female" cuz I'm not that gender.

I really don't think this is unreasonable...but I know others will think otherwise prolly...

 

I think sex should be taken off~ why does it matter?? Why should your parts be called by your sex? Why cant we just call them a penis and vagina? I personally dont think sex should be included on anything except where it really really matters which honestly i cant think of anything~

 

I agree with what other people are saying. It would be a lot better if we stopped labeling babies as male or female and instead just put what genitals they had. Besides the fact that being labeled as male or female just because of their genitals is troubling for people who are trans* or genderqueer, labeling children as either male or female also really underrepresents intersex individuals. I'm sure it's not helpful for them medically and also I imagine the fact that doctors have to stick a male or female label on the baby is part of what pushes the medical practice of doctors giving the babies surgeries to "fix" their genitals just because they aren't "normal."

If we started just having a section that specified whether the person had a vagina, penis, or intersex genitalia, I imagine it would be really beneficial. This would stop underrepresenting intersex individuals and stop supporting the idea that gender and sex are the same thing. Actually I don't see any reason why we should include sex. If we dropped that and just included genitalia instead we could actually get more specific if we wanted to (external genitalia, internal genitalia, and hormone levels) and that could be benifical medically.

Besides why should doctors be able to define us as male or female just because of what we look like? I may be a cis-female but it's not because when I was an infant some doctor looked at my genitals and announced that I was a girl and I just went along with it. I'm female because that's who I am. I just happen to also have a vagina. I would still be female if when I was born I had a penis and the doctor had said "it's a boy." We shouldn't be defined by what some doctor that has nothing to do with our lives said when we were born.

 

But that's why I'm saying keep both. Essentially, it'd look like this:

Upon birth:
Name: Human Person
Sex: Male
Gender: TBD

- Right now, all the doctor knows is that, biologically, this person is a male. And based off whatever scientific context they know about males aside from females, they can make a hypothesis on how certain parts of the body will react, especially if some kind of surgery is needed. Probably not much, but it might be useful.

At the age of 5, Human Person has come to the conclusion that she is a female and not a male. So now, it'd look like this:

Name: Human Person
Sex: Male
Gender: Female

- By now, when a doctor looks at the birth certificate, especially if Human is transferring hospitals because her father got a new job or the family has decided to move countries, for whatever reason, whenever a doctor sees this information, they'll know that Human is pre-op trans* at first glance and has yet to go through the stages of transformation. This might make it more possible and maybe easier for Human to get a therapist, because the doctor may know someone in that field. So, Human may get a therapist by the age of 10 when she's still dependent and she can think about these issues easier, instead of, say, 20, when she's in college and trying to break into the world and maybe even paying her own bills. This situation could very well apply to non-binary people, but the main point behind this would be so that the doctors know right away that someone is pre-op.

Another note: Listing "penis" and "vagina" probably wouldn't do the job as efficiently because, as we all know, there's way more to the female body than just a vagina, and similarly, there's way more to the male body than just "penis". There's a lot of intricate stuff and taxonomy to specific parts of each body, and it gets really confusing. That is my guess as to why they're all packaged into each category. Not to mention, there are people who have had their sex organs damaged to beyond repair, castration included.

 

I like this idea!

 

Don't agree.
Silly Idea driven by the wrong motives

 

Because....?

 

No. Just no.

 

mmm, great reasonings from the naysayers here.

 

Great reasonings from the proponents. I really don't see a need for something like this.

 

I'm talkin about you and Mzansi not like elaborating on why you guys think this isn't needed.

 

I don't understand why this is even an issue. I also don't understand this whole "sex and gender somehow aren't the same thing" argument. I understand some people have the wrong parts, but I think that by taking sex off a birth certificate, that's like assuming everyone's going to have that problem.

 

Why have universal health care, only a few people really need it?

 

Eh, I don't really see a reason why sex should be taken off of birth certificates. The overwhelming majority of babies born are either male-sexed or female-sexed. There are some rare cases were a baby is intersexed, in which case it would be easy enough to simply put "Intersex" as their birth sex. But really, it's a pretty insignificant issue. Who looks at birth certificates? I don't even know what mine looks like.

On the other hand, I would be absolutely positively wholeheartedly opposed to the idea of putting gender on a birth certificate. There's absolutely no fucking way to know what gender a baby will grow up to identify as, nor is somebody's gender identity something that is at all relevant on something like a birth certificate. No way.