New Zealand: Bill on transgender birth certificates creates big issues

Isn't that a rather large decision to leave to a cursory glance by a midwife

ROFL - even untrained people, given a gander at someone's genitals, can get someone's sex right more than 99% of the time. So a trained midwife doing it? Yeah, I think they can be trusted.

There is a growing group of gender critical people trying to inject some sanity into the situation. Unfortunately, due to the smallness of the country only a brave few feel comfortable being "out" under their real names just yet.

speakupforwomen.nz/
Twitter: twitter.com/SpeakUp4WomenNZ
Facebook: www.facebook.com/SpeakUp4WomenNZ/

*Some people are born with no limbs. This proves that having legs is a spectrum and that a grey area definitely exists and the existence of one undermines the concept of humans being bipedal. Therefore even though I was assigned as having two legs at birth, I actually identify as only having half of one and therefore want access to disabled loos, the Paralympics, a blue badge and disability-related benefits without needing anything other than my say so to go on.

Please don’t erase my humanity by insisting on reducing me down to how many legs I have - there are so many more things that contribute to one’s disability and frankly I think it’s hateful to add to the struggles I feel being trans-disabled, even more so if you actually have the cis-privilege of having a disability and are using it to wield privilege over your trans-disabled siblings.*

julj70 would you agree with this woman that she is disabled in exactly the same way as a cis-disabled person?
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/10185741/Woman-wants-to-be-disabled-due-to-rare-condition.html

It's perfectly valid to say that a particular subset is within a set without having to fully define the boundaries of the superset.

No, it's not. If you can't define the superset you can't define the subset.

Is that universal, or a convention of western society?

Do you not know that some non-western societies have initiation rites for boys? That some non-Western societies give rights to men but not to women? That Muslims and Jews separate men and women and (in some instances) give them different 'levels' of rights? Are you completely uninformed about female infanticide in China, India and Pakistan?

For the hard-of-thinking (or the poster who just appeared in this thread for the first time, whichever you prefer), let me put in very very simple terms that even they should be able to understand:

Transwomen are not women.

Women do not have penises.

Women are adult human females.

New Zealand's only transsexual Minister of Parliament, Georgina Beyer, has spoken to the media here and says she has concerns around self id and the way in which trans rights activists are pushing for it. I hope they listen to her, I really do. She's said that it's wrong to force women to accept male bodies in their spaces and the trans rights movement will get a lot more postive response if they work with women instead of against them. I wish the woke as fuck millenials will look to her and listen, they might learn something.

Some people are born with no limbs. This proves that having legs is a spectrum and that a grey area definitely exists and the existence of one undermines the concept of humans being bipedal. Therefore even though I was assigned as having two legs at birth, I actually identify as only having half of one and therefore want access to disabled loos, the Paralympics, a blue badge and disability-related benefits without needing anything other than my say so to go on.

Please don’t erase my humanity by insisting on reducing me down to how many legs I have - there are so many more things that contribute to one’s disability and frankly I think it’s hateful to add to the struggles I feel being trans-disabled, even more so if you actually have the cis-privilege of having a disability and are using it to wield privilege over your trans-disabled siblings.

Is that universal, or a convention of western society?

The segregation of the sexes is fairly universal. See: the segregation of menstruating females globally in the majority of cultures at certain points in time, ranging from total segregation to rules around interaction.

Scrumplestiltskin - I didn't say that trans people are in the same grey area, would indeed never do so, just that there is one. And the existence of one undermines the concept of neat binary boxes for biological sex.
No, actually it doesn't when it comes to people who actually do fit in the "binary box." The existence of people with disorders of sex development (that usually result in sterility in fact,) has no impact on people with normal sex development, or relevance to them.

It's perfectly valid to say that a particular subset is within a set without having to fully define the boundaries of the superset.

You haven't defined anything. As far as I know, you define woman as "someone who wears pink". You haven't defined subset, set, or superset. You've given us less than nothing.

I don't think I've heard a cohesive definition of woman from you either. So far you've variously differentiated by:
Genitalia
Chromosomes
Assignment at birth

Chromosomes dictate reproductive systems and genitalia, except in the case of intersex people, where birth assignment based on phenotype or condition is what dictates the sex class they are placed into. Seems coherent and cohesive to me.
Chromosomes dictate reproductive systems and genitalia, which in turn dictates sex. (After all, sex only exists for the purpose of reproduction, doesn't it?)
Additionally, there are intersex people who do not fit either category neatly at birth - who are the exception to the chromosomal and reproductive system rule due to their disorders.
Females are also not born with a penis (chromosomes = reproductive sex,) and in our current society receive female socialisation. So again, what's not coherent about that?

You make a good point about the original reason for separating by sex.

Is that universal, or a convention of western society?

Scrumplestiltskin - I didn't say that trans people are in the same grey area, would indeed never do so, just that there is one. And the existence of one undermines the concept of neat binary boxes for biological sex.

It's perfectly valid to say that a particular subset is within a set without having to fully define the boundaries of the superset.

I don't think I've heard a cohesive definition of woman from you either. So far you've variously differentiated by:

Genitalia
Chromosomes
Assignment at birth

Others have added:

The absence of a penis
Female socialisation

Each of which, when taken individually, can be a bit problematic. Do you want to hang your hat on one in particular, or is it more of a duck test with a self-selecting subset of feminists as the arbiters?

FWRLurker - I'm appropriating nothing from intersex people, simply pointing out to people who invoke biology that biology isn't neat or simple. As I said earlier, IMHO prevalence is largely irrelevant to this argument. A small grey area is still a grey area, even when its existence is inconvenient to your argument.

Julj Why do we separate by sex in the first place?

I was reminded of this yesterday whilst supervising 9 and 10 year olds getting changed for PE. They get changed in separate areas and both boys and girls are as concerned about being seen partially undressed by their opposite sex peers. Very.

We separate for dignity, privacy, safety, to accommodate biological/physical difference and to meet biological/physical needs.

There is no other reason.

I don't have much in common with many other women I meet on a day to day basis. But when I'm getting undressed; in hospital; sleeping etc, I still want to be accommodated with them rather than men I might have more in common with.

People with disorders/variations of sexual development don't negate the fact that males and females exist. Nor are they a third sex. Nor do they prove that males are females. That 1.6% figure includes males with kleinfelters. Males with a chromosomal disorder, but still males. Intersex people are not your gotcha. I wish we could stop using them as talking points in this discussion. I feel bad for them constantly getting dragged into this.

Very powerful post materialist

I'm absolutely not saying that an intersex person and a transgender person are the same. I only mentioned intersex examples to illustrate that biological sex alone can't be used to define woman or man.
In intersex people then no, karyotype is not enough in and of itself, because due to disorders of sexual development, intersex people have a phenotype that differs notably from their genotype, from birth.
Trans people are not intersex. They have normal reproductive systems. They are not in the messy grey area that intersex people are in, because their sex from birth is normal and established.
So using intersex people as an argument doesn't work. Because trans people don't have a DSD, they are born with normally sexed bodies.

I said previously that I struggle to define the word woman. I'm clear that it includes transwomen though.
That's not possible. If you cannot define the parameters of "woman" you cannot possibly know whether transwomen fit them. If you cannot coherently define what a woman is I'm afraid you have no argument.

Sorry to double post

To me the important thing is this: I believe I have nothing more in common with women as a group than I do with men as a group EXCEPT as it relates to our shared biology (and the associated cultural trappings).

I have a lot more in common with certain men than I do with certain women.

What do I have in common with trans women as a group that I don’t also have in common with men as a group??

If this question can’t be answered I’m stuck. Can you answer it?

Jul

ultimately the biological definition of sex is what gametes you make - aka reproductive role. For nonhermaphroditic species, The sex that normally makes tiny gametes are male the sex that normally makes large gametes (and in mammals also gestated young) are female.

Humans have 2 kinds of gametes and two separate sexes. We do also have a small number of individuals who have disorders of sexual development also know as intersex disorders. No one is erasing intersex people. Most here would rather allow intersex people to identify themselves as what they are - people with a medical condition - rather than transgender activists appropriating their physical struggles.

The reason cais figures were cited is because this is literally the only intersex condition in which people are phenotypically the opposite sex (specifically XY sterile males with undescended testes but other secondary sex characteristics female, including the vagina).

A few other conditions can lead to ambiguous genetelia. In which case a chromosome test or other genetic screen may be done with such children to determine their biological sex and the possible presence of an intersex disorder for medical purposes.

Every other intersex condition is clearly male or female but with one or more issue of development. Eg the 1.6% includes things like Turner and Klinfelters and even XXX syndrome which are phenotypically male or female, though they may be sterile.

Strumplesiltskin & Materialist (your points intersect, so instead of answering twice I'll group my response to you both together) - So, it's the sex you were assigned at birth that matters then? Isn't that a rather large decision to leave to a cursory glance by a midwife? Previously you stated that it was genitalia and/or chromosomes. It seems like your definition of woman isn't immutable either.

I'm absolutely not saying that an intersex person and a transgender person are the same. I only mentioned intersex examples to illustrate that biological sex alone can't be used to define woman or man.

I'm not really sure what the prevalence of one specific intersex condition has to do with anything (you're out by a couple of orders of magnitude by the way, or expressing percentages in that strange American style). Intersex people either exist, or they don't. We all know that they do, don't we? You also picked an intersex condition with an extremely low prevalence as your statistical example. If you were to cite the established figure of 1.6% of the population having some form of intersex condition, then the biological truth that sex is not a simple binary is a lot harder to ignore.

Binglebong - I think it's the members of this forum who erase intersex people, for exactly the reasons stated above.

AlmondCandle - I should clarify that I was talking about reproductive organs, rather than genitalia.

I said previously that I struggle to define the word woman. I'm clear that it includes transwomen though. I know that very few, perhaps any, people in this group share that opinion. In my defence, NZ law doesn't seem to have a single cohesive definition of what female means either.

I actually share a lot of your concerns about self identification. Given that, as the linked piece on Stuff said, we are 'behind' several other countries on this legislation perhaps that could provide an opportunity to measure whether some of the fears being expressed here have any grounding in fact. That might enable a more informed decision.

Also, Jul, there’s no such thing as internal genitalia. By definition, genitals are external.

If you understand the definition of intersex, you must also be able to understand the definition of woman.