Transgender Americans take on New York

[psychesky]

A group of transgender men and women want New York City to make it easier to change the "M" or "F" on their birth certificates. What makes a man or a woman, and why do governments care?By Daniel Nasaw

Comments

[bleed_peroxide]

It's ridiculous how difficult they make it to change your gender. Gordon brought up a good point - a ciswoman having a hystorectomy doesn't make her a male. A cisman that's been castrated doesn't just become a female.

So clearly it's not the parts that make them male or female - they still view themselves as male or female because that is their identity. If the logic works for cis-folks who may not have all of the parts that would traditionally be associated with their gender identity, why is it so goddamn hard to realize that it works the same way for transgender/genderqueer/androgynous people as well?

[darsynia]

This exactly.

It just galls me so much that people who don't have to worry about it are the ones making the laws that affect those who do, and those same people just turn around and try to justify those decisions with faulty logic and brush it off.

Someone's actual identity isn't more important than a classification system, god.

[bleed_peroxide]

I just want to ask them, "Why do you care if a person originally born female has 'male' on their birth certificate because that's how they identify? Why does that bother you so much?" I guess I just don't get why these folks make it their business. WHO. THE. FUCK. CARES. Let them do what they wish instead of throwing it in their faces that they weren't born the "right" way.

[tabaqui]

THIS.
This has always been the stumbling block in my understanding of how some people react to all of this. If the person you know and maybe like presents to you as 'she' and lives as 'she' and calls herself 'she' - who cares what's under the skirt? IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE.

Maybe there is some kind of weirdo lingering idea that a person is only doing that for nefarious, 'perverted' reasons, like peeping at women in a public bathroom but COME ONE. That's so fucking ridiculous and out there.

No - let me correct myself. There are only bigots and people who are too uncaring to educate themselves. BAH.

[maladaptive]

omg so much fail in the dismissal. First "simply looking at a baby's genitals." Uuuuuuhm, wow that doesn't always tell you the sex, that's not "simple."

Then "sex is biological, gender is constructed, it makes sense!" Sure, that'd make sense, if people didn't see your "sex" and then demand that your gender match. How willfully obtuse do you have to be to think that's not the result?

[escherzo]

"The standard leaves little room for individual interpretation. By simply looking at a baby's genitalia, an individual is able to determine its sex."

Because obviously, no one is ever born with ambiguous genitalia ever! Ugh, all the hate on this policy.
[My state has a similar one, only it doesn't matter how much surgery you get done, you are literally never allowed to change it. It defines your sex listed by chromosomes for some reason. /super bitter csb]

[roseofjuly]

Which is stupid because your genitalia are not indicative of your chromosomes and I strongly doubt that your state is doing expensive chromosomal tests for each baby born in the state. Not one of us can be 100% sure what sex chromosomes we have unless we get the test.

[escherzo]

There's also the fact that some people are XXY and the like.

[archanglrobriel]

If they think that 100% of the time you can tell a child's gender just by looking at their genitalia, have I got a news flash for them - you can't. There are intersexed individuals in this world who are born with both types of genitalia, some who are born with neither, some who are born ambiguous. So what do they propose doing with those birth certificates? I'll tell you what they have done in the past...put their best guess down on the birth certificate an hoped that time would vindicate their hunch. That's a helluva nasty place to put a person in

[ravenalegria13]

This. Also, I am ashamed of my city. :(

Dammit, New York!

[bethan_b_bad]

People more informed and more qualified to comment than I am are all covering the content of the article but dear sweet cakebiscuits, I am so impressed with the lack of fail in how this article is written. I'm hugely biased in the BBC's favour, so it's nice to see something I can actually applaud.

That said, I'm not trans, so is there anything faily here I've missed?