What about the birth mothers?

[WallaceinAnderland]

Thinking about the recent news around the Scottish GRR. Is it right that a person can legally change their sex on their birth certificate? Does the woman who gave birth to that baby not have a say in this? After all, she birthed the child and registered that birth. This is a fact, is it not?

YANBU a birth certificate is an accurate record held by the state which should not be tampered with

YABU a birth certificate belongs to the baby and is nothing to the with the mother or the state

There was a context to that comment, and we were talking about the legal function of birth certificates. A poster asserted that it would be better if birth certificates were 'accurate,' as opposed to the current situation where, amongst other things, a non-bio lesbian mum like me can be granted parental responsibility.

I think comparing it to an imaginary situation where, purely on the strength of an altered birth certificate, an adult could join six year olds at school, is frankly pretty homophobic. Also, I've already said that I think it is perfectly valid to argue that birth certificates perhaps shouldn't be retrospectively altered.

I agree.
I think children have a right to accurate information about their genetic parents and about the mother who birthed them, as well as the person/people who are their parents legally. It’s clearly more complicated than it was now we have increased ability to do things like heck DNA/ have egg and sperm donors etc.

I think comparing it to an imaginary situation where, purely on the strength of an altered birth certificate, an adult could join six year olds at school, is frankly pretty homophobic.

How is it homophobic? I haven't objected to a child parents being recorded as their legal parents rather a bio mother and father, I have no problem with a child's parents being recorded as their legal parents at the time of their birth. My adopted DC only have me on their adoption certificates, as I adopted them when I was single. I shouldn't now be able to add my current partner as their parent after the fact.

What I have a problem with is adults being able to retrospectively alter their birth certificates to alter information which, were it recorded accurately, would mean they were treated differently in some situations. Like sex, or age. If we go down the path of allowing adult males to get birth certificates which state they are female, then that is the thin edge of the wedge to being able to change other pertinent information on birth certificates. Hence, my example of an adult having a birth certificate which states they are a child, there would be no legal way of preventing said person from accessing services for people of their legal age. That might sound tin foil hat, but the stuff we're seeing playing out now re women's single sex provision would have sounded tin foil hat 20 years ago, yet here we are.

As you rightly say, you posted in agreement with that aspect - my slow typing meant my post arrived after you'd done so, I wasn't trying to harangue you.

TBH, I think given you say we cross-posted, this is a fuss about nothing - you misunderstood me, and asked me a question that only made sense in the context I described, which is where the homophobia comes into it all.

Perhaps best we just leave it, right?

I think that birth certificates belong to their owners - that is, the person whose birth its recording. However, it should be a factual document, only changed if the originally recorded information is false (for example, wrong father).

Your sex at birth doesn't change, even if you want it to. Even if you have full reassignment surgery, and people accept that you're now the opposite sex, it doesn't change what you were born as. An additional certificate identifying someone as trans after full reassignment should be issued, rather than trying to change history (or biological fact).