New York Plans to Make Gender Personal Choice
 

[url=http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/07/nyregion/07gender.html]New York Plans to Make Gender Personal Choice - New York Times[/url]
[quote]Separating anatomy from what it means to be a man or a woman, New York City is moving forward with a plan to let people alter the sex on their birth certificate even if they have not had sex-change surgery.

Should people be allowed to alter the sex on their birth certificate even if they have not had sex-change surgery?

Under the rule being considered by the city’s Board of Health, which is likely to be adopted soon, people born in the city would be able to change the documented sex on their birth certificates by providing affidavits from a doctor and a mental health professional laying out why their patients should be considered members of the opposite sex, and asserting that their proposed change would be permanent.

Applicants would have to have changed their name and shown that they had lived in their adopted gender for at least two years, but there would be no explicit medical requirements.[/quote]

I feel like I just walked into that famous scene from Monty Python's [i]Life of Brian[/i], where Eric Idle's character "Stan" decides on a whim that he wants to be treated as a woman, which of course includes the right to have babies - at which point his pal Reg, (leader of the feckless political-anti-Roman-activist organization, the People's Front of Judea, as played by John Cleese) becomes a bit incredulous:

[b]Stan:[/b][i] It's every man's right to have babies if he wants them.[/i]
[b]Reg: [/b][i]But you can't have babies.[/i]
[b]Stan:[/b][i] Don't you oppress me.[/i]
[b]Reg: [/b][i]Where's the fetus going to gestate? You going to keep it in a box?[/i]

-E

[i]"Judean People's Front!!?? F*** off - we're the People's Front of Judea!"[/i]

It would be better to drop any reference to sex (biological property) and gender (social property) on Id papers and in databases. It is only in medical records that this can be relevant.
When relating to people everyone can make up his own mind and sometimes remain in doubt. I remember participating in a demonstration about transgender rights and some participants were impossible to categorise. But there was no need to put those persons in a category, I agree that it can be unsettling because it goes against our all time habits.

Gender changes.
 

[QUOTE=ewmayer;90902][url=http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/07/nyregion/07gender.html]New York Plans to Make Gender Personal Choice - New York Times[/url]
~ ~ ~
[b]Stan:[/b][i] It's every man's right to have babies if he wants them.[/i]
[b]Reg: [/b][i]But you can't have babies.[/i]
[b]Stan:[/b][i] Don't you oppress me.[/i]
[b]Reg: [/b][i]Where's the fetus going to gestate? You going to keep it in a box?[/i]

-E

[i]"Judean People's Front!!?? F*** off - we're the People's Front of Judea!"[/i][/QUOTE]
:smile: The question comes to mind.

How will they take an accurate population and birth count if you get what I mean.?

How will they conscript for defence and aggression?

And many such others.

The individual records will have to be increased IMO.

Of course science or the slower evolution can make babies possible for men.

How will they judge rape cases ?

Mally :coffee:

[QUOTE=mfgoode;90937]How will they take an accurate population and birth count if you get what I mean.?
How will they conscript for defence and aggression?
How will they judge rape cases ?[/QUOTE]
The first question: people that are TG enough to seek this change will have no significant effect on the population numbers. They are less than 1 in 100000 of the population (iirc).

Second, they won't in general get inducted. Most will be too old by the time they get to point that choose to do this any way.

By rape I assume that you mean as victim. Most 'civilised' countries' laws that I am aware of are sophisticated enough to handle this. The identity of the victim is not relavent.
TG people are sooooo unlikely to be the aggresor in a rape. I can't ever recall of hearing of such a case.

Since women live longer than men, I plan on getting my birth certificate changed ASAP!

I think that's completely unfair. How about [url]http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Catman.html?[/url] He wants to be a cat and has lived that way for at least two years. Why is he not able to change his species? I suppose species is not a selection on one's birth certificate... ...but in that case, maybe it should be added.

RE: Catman

"I'm sorry sir, but you will have to go to the animal hospital for all of your remaining procedures."

And at what point do the exotic species laws kick in? He'd better register as owning himself, or he'll lose many of his rights. Or sell himself to a zoo that wants the publicity.

Does anyone else here think that this is a bit silly and all the "don't label" stuff is going rather overboard?

Does this also mean that Michael Jackson can change his race to Caucasian since he has been white for more than two years?

[QUOTE=rogue;90989]Does this also mean that Michael Jackson can change his race to Caucasian since he has been white for more than two years?[/QUOTE]
Is race a legally defined term? I mean, do they go by DNA, a cop's opinion, or what?

[QUOTE=rogue;90989]Does this also mean that Michael Jackson can change his race to Caucasian since he has been white for more than two years?[/QUOTE]
Biologically there is no such thing as "race". DNA will not give clear rules to separate people in races (even if leaving room for fuzzy areas.) Race is a purely social construction based on chosen physical characteristics.

The current definition of gender (in gender studies) is the social sex: "women are sensitive, intuitive, are not to take initiative in sex matters...", "men should not cry, are better at special orientation, have difficulty controlling their sex urge..." A biological female should have all characteristics associated with the female gender, a biological man should have... All the in between people must adapt. It shows as well in the "treatment" of hermaphrodites: medical science would prefer to wait before determining the sex, but society will not wait: sex must be chosen immediately.

Categories are useful to apprehend our surroundings but we should always keep in mind that a category is nothing but a tool, that almost always the limits are fuzzy. In other words one must not try to adapt reality to our theories, the "don't let facts spoil your opinion" approach".

[QUOTE=Jacob Visser;91001]Biologically there is no such thing as "race". DNA will not give clear rules to separate people in races (even if leaving room for fuzzy areas.) Race is a purely social construction based on chosen physical characteristics.[/QUOTE]

I understand that, but I wouldn't be surprised if "Race" is a category on birth certificates in NY.

My point, clearly missing your funny bone, is that this is STUPID. If someone has had "gender reassignment" surgery fine, but just because someone dresses as a man or woman should not mean that they can be called as such.

[QUOTE=Jacob Visser;91001]Biologically there is no such thing as "race". DNA will not give clear rules to separate people in races (even if leaving room for fuzzy areas.) Race is a purely social construction based on chosen physical characteristics.[/QUOTE]Biogenetic clustering shows that 'race' can be seen in DNA. It is not foolproof, nor do I think it matters much to most people most of the time. The only times that I would suspect that it could be useful are, broad health issues that seem to have a correlation based upon 'race' and secondly, cases where DNA is left at a crime scene and it may give the police a chance to enhance their suspect desciption.

Here is a quote from a 2005 article [URL="http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1196372"]http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1196372[/URL][quote][CENTER][B]Abstract[/B][/CENTER]
We have analyzed genetic data for 326 microsatellite markers that were typed uniformly in a large multiethnic population-based sample of individuals as part of a study of the genetics of hypertension (Family Blood Pressure Program). Subjects identified themselves as belonging to one of four major racial/ethnic groups (white, African American, East Asian, and Hispanic) and were recruited from 15 different geographic locales within the United States and Taiwan. Genetic cluster analysis of the microsatellite markers produced four major clusters, which showed near-perfect correspondence with the four self-reported race/ethnicity categories. Of 3,636 subjects of varying race/ethnicity, only 5 (0.14%) showed genetic cluster membership different from their self-identified race/ethnicity. On the other hand, we detected only modest genetic differentiation between different current geographic locales within each race/ethnicity group. Thus, ancient geographic ancestry, which is highly correlated with self-identified race/ethnicity—as opposed to current residence—is the major determinant of genetic structure in the U.S. population. Implications of this genetic structure for case-control association studies are discussed.[/quote]