New Zealand: Bill on transgender birth certificates creates big issues

[TimeLady]

Sounds familiar....

www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/108740984/Bill-on-transgender-birth-certificates-creates-big-issues

Thank you, julj. Interestingly, no female person has ever used my past experiences against me. Transwomen however, and other males, have.
I don't think that human rights are a zero-sum game though - the addition of rights to some humans needn't be to the detriment of others.
I don't see what rights trans people are lacking that everyone else has, however. Why should being treated and legally recognised as the opposite sex to what you are, be a human right?

@julj70 what is negative about defining a category by its fundamental and unique characteristics? How is requiring one to be of the female sex to be classed as a woman any more negative or reductive than requiring them to feel a special "woman-feeling" identity unrelated to biology? I'd argue that requiring a special woman-feeling identity unrelated to biology would be more negative.

That rang a bell Scrumplestiltskin 💐

I get told a lot by men that I just feel this or that because I'm a survivor of abuse and I wouldn't if I wasn't because other women don't

But they do... other women do... I don't have to have not experienced x, y or z for it to be valid when I say "as a woman I feel..."

Sorry for derailing but I'm so often dismissed as being able to say how women feel because of my experiences and that chimed about having it used against you

Failingatlife - With every absolutely every woman?

Nothing (other than species), which is exactly the same number of commonalities as you.

When you categorise by genitalia, do you mean internal or external? What about people with AIS/PAIS?

When you categorise by karyotype, do you just include the standard ones, or also abnormalities?

If you choose the former option for either question, then you effectively exclude intersex people from either biological sex don't you? They are more numerous than you may realise. Where do they fit into your neat little categorisation?

Whatever definition you plump for, can you agree that there are grey areas?

Thank you, heartbrokenandtired - you have my empathy
Too many women have the male violence perpetrated against us later used by other males to label us paranoid, or irrational, and dismiss our perspective and stance. In a way, its a revictimisation that reoccurs continuously throughout life.

Truthfully VovoBickie, I'm not sure I could articulate that in a few neat sentences.

What I am sure of is that it's not quite as black and white as most posters on this forum seem to be asserting.

Sorry if that comes across as a weak answer.

Just popping my head around the door to remind you that intersex people aren’t massively into being co-opted as caveats for transgender individuals. All best.

When you categorise by genitalia, do you mean internal or external? What about people with AIS/PAIS?
When you categorise by karyotype, do you just include the standard ones, or also abnormalities?
As far as I'm aware, intersex people can always be fairly easily classified as male intersex or female intersex (based on the presence of an active SRY gene or lack thereof,) unless they have mosiacism, chimerism, or ovotesticular disorder of sex development.

Being born with female genitalia and chromosomes don't make you any less or any more a woman than another who also has been born with female genitalia and chromosomes

It's what equaliises us as adult human females. It's the only common denominator that makes a woman, a woman??

Heartbrokenandtired & Scrumplestiltskin - I feel great sympathy for both of you.

It's definitely not okay to tell anyone how they should feel about their life experiences, or anything really. Dismissing someone on that basis is awful, and I'm sorry you've experienced that.

I'm genuinely sorry if I've rekindled negative feelings for either of you.

Sorry if that comes across as a weak answer.

It really does.

Honestly julj, speaking for myself while I appreciate the gesture, I'd rather you addressed the points I and others have made here, than offered sympathy.

But if you say that only dogs bark, only cats meow and that things that bark or meow must automatically be part of one of those sets, then yes your logic is reductive. And that feels an awful lot like your definition of woman.

Such nonsense. It's you who is doing those mental gymnastics. TWAW:

Cat:

1. Felis Catus

1. Dogs (what's that? A similarly inane definition) which use a flap in the door

1. Rabbits (what's that? A similarly inane definition) which use a litter tray

So sorry what was your definition of a woman jul?

How comfortable are you with sharing an open plan changing room with a born male identifying as a woman who hasn't had bottom surgery? If you're comfortable what about your mum/sister/daughter/nan/friend who has been sexually assaulted in the past. If they're not comfortable should they just 'getoverit'?

Yeah I guess people can't win... on the one hand we get dismissed entirely as not being able to speak rationally as women

On the other hand people don't want to not make sure we know they recognise it's difficult for us

Some days I just want the be a woman... which I am 😁 but a woman who is equal... no special treatment or dismissal either way

I get that nobody ever knows what to do though and can't really win. Its just annoying (for everyone - me or them)

Highginx - I don't see intersex people as a caveat to the discussion at all. I have a couple of intersex people in my life, and I actually think that a purely biological definition of woman/man threatens them with erasure.

Scrumplestiltskin - My understanding is that it isn't always so clear cut, and in any case chromosome analysis isn't ordinarily a test performed on infants, but rather often only much later when abnormalities become apparent.

By the definitions I've seen in this forum, an AIS woman isn't a woman, because she has a Y chromosome. Yet she would have been socialised as a girl and, short of an invasive medical examination, would be physically indistinguishable from her female peers. What box does she belong in?

Well at least New Zealand have decided erasing women just isn't enough, they want to erase intersex people too. Now you can play dress up as either.

And yes, intersex people have repeatedly requested they not be used to justify (not the right word but it's late) transgenderism. So let's not eh?

By the definitions I've seen in this forum, an AIS woman isn't a woman, because she has a Y chromosome. Yet she would have been socialised as a girl and, short of an invasive medical examination, would be physically indistinguishable from her female peers. What box does she belong in?
Are you saying that a transgender biological male is the equivalent of someone with CAIS? By virtue of being intersex, intersex people are not necessarily classified by karyotype, no. Rather they are categorised by the sex they are assigned to at birth, which is a decision made based on their phenotype.
But...transgender people are not intersex.

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

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

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.

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.