Striking gender (sex) from brith certificates. At what point is the line drawn?

[Bmuzyka]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

Yeah maybe, but is the treatment/preventative medicine for cancer different for genders?

I think dosing could quite possibly be affected. Preventative Medicine also could be different. Look at Multi-Vitamins, men and women have different day to day requirements.

[llwhiteoutll]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

Yeah maybe, but is the treatment/preventative medicine for cancer different for genders?

Different screening tests/ exams for sure. Doubling the load on prostate screening and mammograms seems like a great idea for an already stressed medical system

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

Yeah maybe, but is the treatment/preventative medicine for cancer different for genders?

Are we now separating gender vs sex in the context of your statement?

Because yes, different sexes have different cancer risks and different chances of getting certain types of disease or cancers.


I guess at some point, society is going to have to differentiate gender identity and sex in documentation.

if you were biologically born as a boy but identify as a girl, even if you get the body modification changes, you are still going to be hit by some diseases based on your birth sex.

[Matata]

I've really tried to empathize with transgenders, but I don't get it at all. I'm happy to live and let live, but having your dick chopped up and stuffed inside you, followed by ingesting an expensive chemical cocktail of drugs everyday just so you can be 'you', I will never wrap my head around.

[octothorp]

I don't think that striking sex from birth certificates is going to have any real-world effects, positive or negative, on children. 99.9% of parents are still going to raise their children as a boy or a girl based on physiology. And if parents are the sort who are going to try and raise their child in a genderless way, the presence or omission of sex on the birth certificate isn't going to have a big impact on those practices; people (from educators to doctors) are still going to ask the parent what sex or gender their child is.

I don't doubt that growing up as a transgendered youth is an extremely difficult experience. It's also going to be extremely difficult for society to adapt to fully accomodate the rights of transgendered individuals, especially at young ages. Things as basic as washroom designation are going to create problems, and I don't think putting themselves on a collision course with crazy PTAs is the right path for the transgendered rights movement.

From what I can tell, a lot of the challenges facing a transgendered youth is that they're being directed towards certain behaviours and stereotypes based on their sex, behaviours that feel unnatural and uncomfortable to them. So my question is this: is it easier to solve this by trying to remove all mentions of gender in the environments we have for our youth; or is it easier to solve this by trying to create environments where gender behaviours and stereotypes are not reinforced and encouraged outside of the home? And similarly, is it better to have an environment where children don't know what their gender is; or is it better to have an environment where children don't care what their gender is because it has no bearing on anything important to them? I'd lean towards the latter on both questions, but I'd be interested in hearing arguments from the other side.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by octothorp

I don't think that striking sex from birth certificates is going to have any real-world effects, positive or negative, on children. 99.9% of parents are still going to raise their children as a boy or a girl based on physiology. And if parents are the sort who are going to try and raise their child in a genderless way, the presence or omission of sex on the birth certificate isn't going to have a big impact on those practices; people (from educators to doctors) are still going to ask the parent what sex or gender their child is.

I don't doubt that growing up as a transgendered youth is an extremely difficult experience. It's also going to be extremely difficult for society to adapt to fully accomodate the rights of transgendered individuals, especially at young ages. Things as basic as washroom designation are going to create problems, and I don't think putting themselves on a collision course with crazy PTAs is the right path for the transgendered rights movement.

From what I can tell, a lot of the challenges facing a transgendered youth is that they're being directed towards certain behaviours and stereotypes based on their sex, behaviours that feel unnatural and uncomfortable to them. So my question is this: is it easier to solve this by trying to remove all mentions of gender in the environments we have for our youth; or is it easier to solve this by trying to create environments where gender behaviours and stereotypes are not reinforced and encouraged outside of the home? And similarly, is it better to have an environment where children don't know what their gender is; or is it better to have an environment where children don't care what their gender is because it has no bearing on anything important to them? I'd lean towards the latter on both questions, but I'd be interested in hearing arguments from the other side.

Ok, I'm probably going to look like a bozo engaging into this, I'm not an expert on the Transgendered world.

However, do statistics really bear out a entire overhauling of the system. Creating genderless environments might work for what I think is a small minority, but would possibly create problems or resentment for the kids who's sex or gender is not in questions.

And at what age/grade does the non gender environment end?

Are we going to create a whole age group that all wear the same pant suits and have the same bowl haircuts? Because gender identity is really going to force itself through and if you try to supress it, is it not going to cause the same kind of identity crisis that the Transgendered are feeling now.

I think that approach is akin to apply a hammer to an ant.

I think you have to look at how you educate kids on the whole transgender, gender identity question, but that doesn't mean that you have to completely ignore gender.

Just statistically it doesn't make sense to over haul the system when the smarter route is how you ad to the education within the system.

In a 2011 report by the Williams institute it stated that .3% of the American population had identified itself as transgendered.

I just can't agree that supressing gender like that or making genderless schools is the way to go, I think it might make things worse rather then better.

I think that creating awareness, and looking at the protective laws is probably the better way to go.

[EldrickOnIce]

Statistically, for medical purposes, gender is critical. I'm not certain it needs to start at birth, but it must start somewhere.
Making the process simple to change, as desired, is not enough?

[GGG]

How does the concept of gender manifest itself in children? Its obviously more than billy likes to wear a dress and play with dolls. How does a child or anyone identify as a gender.

Outside of genitalia what is maleness or femaleness other than stereotypes? I just dont understand this.

Demographically it should be recorded and is important butif it is listed or not on the birth certificate doesnt really mattwr

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by GGG

How does the concept of gender manifest itself in children? Its obviously more than billy likes to wear a dress and play with dolls. How does a child or anyone identify as a gender.

Outside of genitalia what is maleness or femaleness other than stereotypes? I just dont understand this.

Male and female children, even at very young ages, tend to demonstrate different characteristics as groups. Five year old boys play differently than five year old girls. Boys are rowdier. Girls tend to be more eager to please. Boys hit each other a lot. Girls exclude children they are mad at.

Of course, these are not absolute. Any given child may defy the norm. But the norms are there. And they can't be accounted for entirely by environment and socialization. Even among siblings you'll often see marked differences between boys a girls. I have twins - a boy and a girl - who we've raised in as close to an identical environment as it's possible to raise two humans in, and without any encouragement of traditional gender roles. But they are very, very different kids. And their differences map closely to those normative differences we tend to see between boys and girls. The boy impatient and delighted by things smashing other things. The girl sensitive to the expectations of others and eager to please.

And if you want to see those differences in action, watch a soccer practice with a team of 6-7 year old boys, and then watch one with a team of 6-7 year old girls. The difference is dramatic.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by Matata

I've really tried to empathize with transgenders, but I don't get it at all. I'm happy to live and let live, but having your dick chopped up and stuffed inside you, followed by ingesting an expensive chemical cocktail of drugs everyday just so you can be 'you', I will never wrap my head around.

Glad we got that out of the way.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Male and female children, even at very young ages, tend to demonstrate different characteristics as groups. Five year old boys play differently than five year old girls. Boys are rowdier. Girls tend to be more eager to please. Boys hit each other a lot. Girls exclude children they are mad at.

Of course, these are not absolute. Any given child may defy the norm. But the norms are there. And they can't be accounted for entirely by environment and socialization. Even among siblings you'll often see marked differences between boys a girls. I have twins - a boy and a girl - who we've raised in as close to an identical environment as it's possible to raise two humans in, and without any encouragement of traditional gender roles. But they are very, very different kids. And their differences map closely to those normative differences we tend to see between boys and girls. The boy impatient and delighted by things smashing other things. The girl sensitive to the expectations of others and eager to please.

And if you want to see those differences in action, watch a soccer practice with a team of 6-7 year old boys, and then watch one with a team of 6-7 year old girls. The difference is dramatic.

But is this a result of nature or nurture? What would the variance in externalized action be if all were raised in a gender-neutral environment?

Saying something is a certain way with without accounting for variances in environment says nothing about the result.

[Cube Inmate]

These people (the vocal advocates, not transgendered in general) want to live in a world that's void of objective facts. Well, I feel sorry for you if an objective fact makes you subjectively feel badly, but that doesn't mean we need to change the facts. It means we need to work to help you live with the facts.

I'm not minimizing the impact of the subjective. Feelings are real, and people's behaviours based on those feelings (suicide, discrimination) can be legitimately harmful. But THAT's what needs to be focused on -- changing people's responses to facts, NOT on trying to hide the problems by changing the facts.

Edit:

To be perfectly clear, I'll admit that "gender" could easily be defined as a subjective self-identification, and therefore has no place on a birth certificate. That's not to say it isn't REAL -- only that it's dependent on the individual's own perception. Genitalia and chromosomes are not in that category, though.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by Cube Inmate

These people (the vocal advocates, not transgendered in general) want to live in a world that's void of objective facts. Well, I feel sorry for you if an objective fact makes you subjectively feel badly, but that doesn't mean we need to change the facts. It means we need to work to help you live with the facts.

I'm not minimizing the impact of the subjective. Feelings are real, and people's behaviours based on those feelings (suicide, discrimination) can be legitimately harmful. But THAT's what needs to be focused on -- changing people's responses to facts, NOT on trying to hide the problems by changing the facts.

Wait are you advocating a kind of straight-camp for those who have issues with their gender identity?

[Cube Inmate]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Wait are you advocating a kind of straight-camp for those who have issues with their gender identity?

No, I'm obviously advocating concentration camps and gas chambers.

<Godwinned>

But seriously -- since you can't even seem to distinguish "sexual orientation" from "gender identity," it would be pretty futile for me to try to explain (again) my point.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

But is this a result of nature or nurture? What would the variance in externalized action be if all were raised in a gender-neutral environment?

Saying something is a certain way with without accounting for variances in environment says nothing about the result.

Males and females, as a group, have innate differences that are biologically mapped. That isn't a popular truth, politically, but it doesn't make it any less true. And just because environment can shape behaviour, doesn't mean we should discount evidence that biology also shapes behavior (and not just along gender lines).

My children were virtually never away from the presence of each other - never introduced to varying environmental stimuli - for the first five years of their lives. You'll have to take my word for it that my wife and I didn't impose gender expectations on them. And yet even by 18 months they demonstrated dramatically different temperaments and capabilities. And I'm not talking differences only parents would notice. Their kindergarten teacher remarked that they were two of the most different kids she had ever taught. I find it impossible to believe those differences could be accounted for my subtle variations in tones of voices used by adults around them, or the color of their hats, or that the characters in some of the stories they read were modeled on traditional gender roles.

I recommend Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature for a well-substantiated corrective to popular notions about the origins of behaviour.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by Cube Inmate

No, I'm obviously advocating concentration camps and gas chambers.

<Godwinned>

But seriously -- since you can't even seem to distinguish "sexual orientation" from "gender identity," it would be pretty futile for me to try to explain (again) my point.

I'm just wondering who you are proposing we try to educate when it comes to "facts".

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Males and females, as a group, have innate differences that are biologically mapped. That isn't a popular truth, politically, but it doesn't make it any less true. And just because environment can shape behaviour, doesn't mean we should discount evidence that biology also shapes behavior (and not just along gender lines).

My children were virtually never away from the presence of each other - never introduced to varying environmental stimuli - for the first five years of their lives. You'll have to take my word for it that my wife and I didn't impose and gender expectations on them. And yet even by 18 months they demonstrated dramatically different temperaments and capabilities. I find it impossible to believe those differences could be accounted for my subtle variations in tones of voices used by adults around them, or the color of their hats, or the fact one child ate a few more green beans than another.

I recommend Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature for a well-substantiated corrective to popular notions about the origins of behaviour.

But your experience is just that; your personal experience.

There is obviously something that occurs for some people that even when pushed within gender-specific boxes they feel the need to break out, so it stands to reason that without the environmental stimuli there would be a higher incidence of variance from the mean binaries.

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by GGG

How does the concept of gender manifest itself in children? Its obviously more than billy likes to wear a dress and play with dolls. How does a child or anyone identify as a gender.

Outside of genitalia what is maleness or femaleness other than stereotypes? I just dont understand this.

Demographically it should be recorded and is important butif it is listed or not on the birth certificate doesnt really mattwr

But recorded how then?
A birth certificate is used for exactly that purpose - and is a legal document.
I don't care that it's on a birth certificate or not, but it must be somewhere, for legal purposes.

[puckedoff]

Just change the check box to "Has a penis" , and "Doesn't has a penis"

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Ok, I'm probably going to look like a bozo engaging into this, I'm not an expert on the Transgendered world.

Not at all, at least I don't think you're making a bozo argument, although I'm no more an expert than you are. Much of what you're saying is the same argument I'm making, that overhauling the system to make it genderless would be extremely difficult and have a lot of opponents and challenges and may not actually solve a lot.

But I don't think making a system that doesn't reinforce gender stereotypes is necessarily that huge a transformation. Making sure that children are able to engage in the types of play and interaction that best suit them, regardless of gender, is something that should be done anyway. If a boy wants to wear pink, or a girl wants to play red rover or whatever physical game is being played on the playground these days, the school environment should be accepting and even encouraging of that. And if kids want to exactly align with their expected gender stereotypes, that should be accepted too. And those aren't exclusively transgender issues. A child doesn't need to be transgendered to differ from their gender's expected behavior.

Perhaps I'm simplifying what the actual challenges for a trangendered youth are. It would be a lot easier to discuss if the article listed some examples of the actual situations that an individual is challenged by, so we can say 'this can be resolved at a teacher/supervisor/classroom level', vs. 'this could only be solved through systemic overhaul'. Is being required to use a boy's bathroom really impacting the child, or is it more about being expected to dress/play/act a certain way? If it's the latter, then changing expectations is relatively achievable.

[Cube Inmate]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

I'm just wondering who you are proposing we try to educate when it comes to "facts".

Ok; I'll respond seriously:

I'm proposing we educate

• ourselves, societally, on the difference between biological sex and gender, and then learn to treat others equitably based on which of those things matters (medically, based on chromosomes and body parts; socially, legally, culturally, etc., based on self-identification),
• those whose feelings are being hurt by exposure to objective facts, to better manage their own responses and behaviours.

On the first point above, I don't have any personal, subjective experience on what it "feels like" to be in a wrong-sexed body. In fact, I couldn't even describe what it feels like to be a "man" -- I could only describe what it feels like to be "me," and what I *think* it would feel like to be a woman. But based on the number of people who go through this, I'm willing to accept that some people just "know" that they're another gender. So, it's a matter of educating me on what people like that need, and what they feel like, so I can
treat them more how they want to be treated. But don't screw up a whole objective, scientifically valid system of records (with statistical value) just to prevent people like me from accidentally calling you "Mr. Wang" instead of "Ms. Wang."

On the second point, a LOT of people have trouble dealing with various facts, and need to learn to manage their cognitive and behavioural responses better. Pretty big psychotherapy industry out there based on this. I don't ask that we change my birth records to hide the fact that my father was Charles Manson. Instead, I work (maybe with therapy?) to better manage how I think and feel when people mention my murderous father. I wouldn't ask my doctor to delete the fact that I was born with a tail from my medical records, even if I'd since had it surgically removed.