The press today.

[scepticalwoman]

Excellent article by Sarah Vine in the DM:
www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-6182741/SARAH-VINE-fears-gender-agenda-harming-children.html

The Times reporting on a Guide's survey (oh the irony) on social media and the wellbeing of girls:
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trans-man-who-gave-birth-denied-childbenefits-lnd2lbjfj?shareToken=59ab7482263008207efb8a6d5ce34bc3

The Times reporting on a trans man who gave birth as a woman demanding to be named as a father
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trans-man-who-gave-birth-denied-childbenefits-lnd2lbjfj?shareToken=59ab7482263008207efb8a6d5ce34bc3

Very misleading title on that Times article - he's not being denied child benefits. He willingly entered into a court case. If he wants child benefits he can register the birth - like everyone else - and access them. Nothing is being denied to him.

The case is a dangerous one. I sincerely hope he loses - people who give birth are not fathers. The argument about privacy is such nonsense given that most trans people do not pass. And the whole notion of not being able to ask to see a GRC yet being able to discriminate on grounds of gender reassignment under the EA acknowledges that you can bloody tell who's biologically female or male. I'm so sick of this doublethink.

Tellin
This is another case that will peak the public. When an individual fights for their perceived 'rights' in a way that may harm the rights / wellbeing of their child, then I think people judge. When you become a parent, all that should matter is the welfare of the child - not using them as a political tool to win your personal legal case.

OP, Have you got the Guides survey link? It looks like you have posted the trans "father" one twice.

Interesting comment on the Sarah Vine piece - look at how many ‘likes’ it has.

That Guide survey is being reported in the Guardian as well:

UK survey finds sharp decline in happiness of young women and girls

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/sep/19/uk-survey-finds-sharp-decline-in-happiness-of-young-women-and-girls

Unsurprisingly, no-one has yet connected this with the 4000% rise in girls wanting to be boys.

It occurs to me that so much of this is just driven by pure, unadulterated capitalism. "Woman" has been colonised by marketing from meaning adult human female to meaning a collection of tropes that you can fulfil by shopping - make up, hair, clothes, sexual display.

These tropes are then used to justify objectification. To be a successful girl, you have to fulfil the tropes, but then you also justify being treated like a piece of meat. It's a Catch-22.

So the solution is - more capitalism! Just buy your way out of femaleness with hormones, surgery and - oh yes - a boi makeover.

This happens to boys as well, only failure as "Trope Man" means you get to be a non-man and buy their tropes instead.

At no point does anyone forgive their bodies for not being perfect Instagram-filtered marketing dreams. At no point do they realise they having a personality outside marketed stereotypes is normal.

Self acceptance just isn't profitable.

Last time the ‘man’ wanting to register the birth came up on here someone posted a really good piece on why establishing MOTHERS as the ones that registered the birth was a human rights issue of global importance.

Does anyone know what I’m talking about and got the link?

I should also point out I don't think this is the kids' fault. They didn't build the system. They're just trying to win in it and are freaking out whenever some grownups somewhere try - in their view - to stop them from "winning."

Another interesting, related article on the shifting view of sex, gender and entitlement, this time from the US concerning "boys will be boys" and the traditional, culturally sanctioned male entitlement to assaulting girls:

slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/09/brett-kavanaugh-christine-blasey-ford-assault-me-too.html

It's an interesting read in light of the current desire of so many young people to identify the hell out of their situation.

I found this really quite sad:

In other ways, however, girls’ lives appear to have contracted as their world moves online. In 2009 69% of girls met friends at each others’ houses, compared with 21% in 2018.

As for this:

Conservative MP Maria Miller, who is chair of the Commons women and equalities committee, said: “#MeToo may have left its mark in Hollywood but for women and girls around the country their ambitions to succeed are still too often met with sexism.
“It’s important more women and girls are now speaking out about how this behaviour undermines their confidence and mental health; but this harmful, negative behaviour has to be stopped.”

I'd better not say what I really think. Presented without comment.

Sorry. Here's the Times share token about the Guides survey: (although the Guardian reporting seems to be in more depth)

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/social-media-blamed-for-rise-in-unhappiness-amonggirls-p9rb0m53q?shareToken=5d0e9670c4751adb940313037e5ec4bc

The article says this child won't be registered until the outcome of the court case, which could take months.
Isn't that illegal? I thought that, by law, the baby must be registered within 42 days?

It is illegal Tanith, but if there's a court case there's not a lot the General Registry Office will do to enforce the time requirement.

Re: birth certificates - I was always under the impression that they were less about the individual and more about the historical record? Will future generations, working backwards through their family tree have relatives whose parents, visible on their offspring’s birth certificates, seemingly disappear without trace? No later death certificates, no earlier birth certificates to be found?

In some countries, a persons’s nationality is dependent on their mother’s nationality - what would happen if trans lobbying removed a baby’s ability to prove who it’s mother was?

(My dad’s birth wasn’t registered until he was 18, and only then because he wanted to apply for a passport and couldn’t because no one had thought to get him a birth certificate
Different times, of course. Suspect you’d get a hefty fine and social services on the doorstep nowadays)

What’s with this need to falsify historic records? Wouldn’t it be more effective to lobby for systems that don’t require showing birth certificates be a more effective way of dealing with the practical issue of privacy?
All our earliest encounters with the state are via our NHS numbers, and later our NI numbers. Couldn’t those systems be used for more?

Not sure what the traditional rational was for birth certificates. These days though, they have a purpose aligned to the UN rights of children. They are a way of ensuring that children are recognised and listed for access to public services, so they are at less risk of trafficking, abuse and exploitation. (I'm not sure how effective they are at this, but that's the rational I was given by a registrar.)

From the Slate article about the sexual assault allegation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh:

A White House lawyer was quoted saying, “If somebody can be brought down by accusations like this, then you, me, every man certainly should be worried.” Similar things were voiced by Ari Fleischer and Joe Walsh. Per this dark vision of the future, any consequence for committing assault — even being unable to move from one lifetime appointment to another lifetime appointment — is the beginning of the end of a just society.

....This trend isn’t really that mysterious, of course. The reason for this panicked defense of assault — even as Kavanaugh continues to firmly deny it — is fear. Not fear that the system will punish men wrongly but that it will punish them rightly.

Thanks for the link, PineappleSunrise. Good article.

When I heard the first reports that an allegation about something the judge did in his teens had been passed to the FBI I wondered what it might be. I thought of underage sex, underage drinking, drugs - all my own transgressions. And thought to myself "I'm glad I'm not up for the Supreme Court."

Then the details emerged and I reflected that however wild a teenager I was (and I was wild) I'd somehow managed my whole life without sexually assaulting anyone. It's a miracle.

It would’ve been a lot easier to get away with infanticide pre: the legal requirement to register births, so it definitely has a safeguarding function built in.

Action for Trans Health had the abolishment of birth certificates on their (bonkers) manifesto, yet another red flag.

Have they really? I imagine that will get some push back, then. Babies aren't that easy to differentiate even with birth sex as a signifier. If you take that out, it gets even harder.

I think the thing that keeps peaking me is the realisation that not a single one of the demands has been thought through and weighed up for what the consequences might be at ANY point and on ANYONE other than the individual trans person at ONE point in time, and any attempt to explore the problem space is shut down as "transphobic."

Re: birth certificates - I was always under the impression that they were less about the individual and more about the historical record? Will future generations, working backwards through their family tree have relatives whose parents, visible on their offspring’s birth certificates, seemingly disappear without trace?

Its worth being aware that in New Zealand there is a fast moving possibility of legislation which, as far as I can tell, will enable self id on birth certificates with male/female and non-binary.

NZ:

'MPs recommend that gender changes to birth certificates be made easier for applicants'
12 Aug, 2018
(extract)
"People will be able to change genders on their birth certificate by way of a statutory declaration, instead of needing confirmation by a judge, under a bill reported back to Parliament.

And they will have options others than male or female – the options of "intersex" or "X (unspecified)" will also be available if Parliament adopts the recommendations of the Governance and Administration Committee on the Births, Deaths, Marriages and Relationships Registration Bill.

The move to self-identification for gender changes on birth certificates rather than needing the approval of a court and medical evidence brings it into line with passports and drivers' licences, committee chairman and National MP Brett Hudson said.

The bill is in the name of Internal Affairs Minister Tracey Martin, a New Zealand First MP. Assuming she has the support of her caucus, the changes look set to get the unanimous support of the Parliament." (continues)

www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12105752

thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3337303-Whats-happening-with-Self-ID-in-New-Zealand

This birth certificate case just typifies the all encompassing self obsession.

A birth certificate belongs to and is about the child, the purpose to provide accurate documentation for the duration of their life. It should never be about validating someone else's feelings.

There are situations where it gets a little complex such as same sex couples where surrogacy/sperm donation has been used but with some re working of the form there is no reason why the document cannot still be an accurate record that reflects reality.

Changing a persons sex at an administrative level does not provide an accurate record.

If I remember correctly, the Yogyakarta Principles +10 are all for removing sex from the birth certificate. This leads us to Chesterton's Gate: why do we have 'sex' on the b/c? As far as I know we always have had it and foreign ones I've seen also have it. What is it used for? I imagine the Office of National Statistics and co would have a view on this.

The judgment on the case of the NB person who wanted 'X' on their passport made interesting reading. It was considered in detail, quite impressive I thought, with the relevant bodies explaining exactly why it wasn't a good idea to have 'X' instead of fe/male. This is the relevant stuff: facts (sounding like Mr. Gradgrind in Hard Times here) and not emotion. Fortunately for us, the other side is full of emotion and strangely devoid of facts.

The judgment on the case of the NB person who wanted 'X' on their passport made interesting reading.

AncientLights Do you have a link to this please or a pointer in the right direction?

It occurs to me that so much of this is just driven by pure, unadulterated capitalism. "Woman" has been colonised by marketing from meaning adult human female to meaning a collection of tropes that you can fulfil by shopping - make up, hair, clothes, sexual display.

Well said!

The reason for recording sex on a birth certificate is fairly obvious. It allows for planning of government and health services and alerts governments to population issues like an imbalance in the sexes which has a potential to cause social issues.