New York legalises changing birth certs to M, F or X

[RetiredNotExpired]

twitter.com/NYCMayorsOffice/status/1079085139425144832

The consequences of this are going to be huge - maybe NYC is going to be the petri dish that helps stop this madness.

If you can change any part of the birth certificate why record it in the first place?

Starting in 2019, all New Yorkers will be able to change their gender on their birth certificate to M, F or X — without a doctor's note.

Think the NYC Mayor's office is playing fast & loose with the lingo here. In fact, all New Yorkers will NOT be able to change their gender/sex on their birth certificates. Only people born in NYC will be able to do so. The majority of "New Yorkers" today were not born in NYC; their ability to change their birth certificates depends on the rules of the states or municipalities where their birth certificates were originally issued.

In the US, a state, city or town where someone legally resides at present can't issue them an amended or new birth certificate unless they were actually born there.

Great. Let’s see how this plays out.

Can someone explain to me the relationship between a city making rulings about birth certificates, and state or federal law? This is a genuine question because I don't understand how things work in the US. But I would have imagined (possibly wrongly) that there are some kind of laws on sex discrimination at state and/or federal level which would be made null and void by the NYC ruling. Or is this not so?

If you can change any part of the birth certificate why record it in the first place?

This will probably be the next step as, like you say, there is no point in recording it if it is not linked to anything tangible.

morningtoncrescent62 I was wondering that myself - the USA birth cert process/options are boggling.
Screenshot attached is from here en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_certificate#United_States

I saw this. The person speaking, who is obviously female, spoke of having people see them as a ‘person first rather than a sex’. So what they’re really saying is that they don’t want gender stereotypes clouding people’s impression of them. Who the fuck doesn’t want that? Unless your ‘sex’ is part of your personality/raisin d’etre ie. swimwear model, porn-star, prostitute, surrogate etc. All of us female people who wish people could see us as scientists, professors, consultants etc. instead of focusing on the fact we have breasts and vaginas. Yes, but you go ahead and wave the white flag in the ongoing battle for equality and just declare yourself ‘special’ because you don’t see yourself as part of the dreary throng who adhere to the idea of sexist stereotypes. I can’t bear how such a retrograde step is championed by its adherents as a positive, 21st Century advancement. It is such a cop out. NYC I love you but this is crazy. I almost hope every citizen of NYC applies for a new ‘X’ birth certificate and shows this up for the shit, narcissistic piece of legislation it is.

Fuck's sake. One of the many things that peaked me early on was the high profile Lydia Foy case in Ireland. Lydia had had surgery in their late 40s and up to then had been a married dentist called Donal, who attended a rugby school and fathered two daughters. Not content with an amended driving licence and passport etc, Lydia wanted to have the original birth record altered, and dragged the matter through the courts at enormous public expense and despite the distress and objections of the ex-wife and daughters left behind. I thought, and still think, it is wrong to amend a birth record and make a truth a lie. I was alone at the time because everyone else was caught up in the braveness and stunningness of Lydia, but my original instincts were correct. I'd say more but it'd get me deleted..

So, the only rationale behind this seems to be that having the lived gender of the person on all documents will help in one specific case: preventing the person from being "outed" as their birth sex.

The way I've heard this is mostly for Drivers' license situations. For example, if we have a trans man who has been on T for 20 years, bearded, fully passes as a man, etc. In that case it might be a risk if in a strange bar they use an ID saying "F" - if the bartender / patrons are really violent transphobes, they could be assaulted. I see the point. If you do pass then that incongruity could potentially trigger a transphobic attack.

I would argue though that it's not much help to the vast majority of trans people who do not pass at all. For example, a non-passing but presenting as female trans woman whose ID says "F" goes to the same bar. The transphobe bartender will look at that ID, look at the obviously male person in front of them, call it for the fiction it is, and assault them anyway. Again the incongruity is only likely to make them angrier, not mollify them.

As for nonbinary, the transphobe is going to be like... Why does this girl with blue hair have an ID with "X" on it?

And for this legal fiction that benefits only a tiny proportion of trans people in a narrow range of circumstances (and none of them, except for perhaps the Passport office will ever need to see the birth cert by the way), and may in fact increase risk for the majority of trans identified individuals, we sacrifice the following:

The ability to accurately assess the impact of sex on crime rates, income, academic achievement, and myriad other public statistics.

The ability to use sex as a protected or considered characteristic for things like scholarships or awards.

The ability to name women's bodily issues with approachable language that any women can understand.

The ability to maintain even the option of sex specificity in those cases that the vast majority of people would agree are appropriate such as sport, battered women's shelters, reproductive care, prisons, and open-design changing facilities.

I do sometimes wonder if removing the marker from every form of ID except for the birth cert (which cannot be altered in any way) would work. It should prevent the "assaulted in a bar" scenarios I've heard spun as the rationale for this law.

Then, keep track of both (sex based on birth certificate and gender based on self-ID).

Then we just have to get back to fighting about what situations sex vs gender is more relevant...

I just cannot understand the obsessive need for a 'gender identity', especially when the 'approved' IDs include such descriptors as 'non-binary' and 'agender'. Most of the women i've met in my 60+ years would fall into 'non-binary' without ever once considering themselves trans or anything other than a woman with a personality.

And as for 'agender' How the sweet holy fuck is not having a gender identity a gender identity?!?!? AAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHH.

Just let people be people. Please.

Right. The gin is calling now I've had my scream, and I'm going to grab a bottle and toast all the fiesty mumsnetters!

Happy New Year :)

Looking into this online, I was glad to find this clarification in the NYTimes:

Some news reports about the new birth certificate law said that it would also let parents give their newborns the “X” designation, for example if they did not want to impose gender stereotypes. This is not true, nor is it the intent of the law, the Health Department said: “X” will be available only as a change, not a birth sex.

However, I was disturbed to find the article ended by suggesting that the next logical & "progressive" step in this brave new world of gender bollocks will be to give adults the power to designate newborns as "X" or no biological sex at all on these children's birth certificates:

Zo belongs to a gender-open playgroup in Brooklyn that includes three other “theybies.” The playgroup’s founder, Bobby McCullough, whose child, Sojourner, was born in December, persuaded the hospital and the health department to give Sojourner an “undetermined or unknown” designation usually reserved for very premature infants.

The “sex” line on Sojourner’s birth certificate reads “.”

Mr. McCullough said he would not want to put an “X” on Sojourner’s birth certificate because it is too limiting.

Makes me wonder, how was Mr. McCullough able to persuade the hospital to do this? Was the fact that he is male, or presents as male, a factor? A woman would've been scoffed at, I bet.

I also wonder: where did Mr. McCullough's child come from? Did Mr. M give birth to said child? I can only assume Mr. McC did, because when I gave birth in NYC the babies were all labelled by the mother's name, mothers (eg, birthers, birth canal havers, life-givers) were the only parent required to be on birth certificates, & only mothers signed off on & signed their children's birth certificates. (In NYC & most other places in the US, a father can be listed on a birth certificate, but he's usually not involved in obtaining one for a newborn.)

www.nytimes.com/2018/09/27/nyregion/gender-neutral-birth-certificate.html

Interestingly, according to the NYTimes article I just cited, NYC decided NOT to allow the X designation to appear on newborns' birth certificates at the behest of an intersex lobbying organization:

The Health Department adopted this policy at the recommendation of InterACT, a group that gives support to what are called intersex youth — born with anatomy or chromosomes that are not typically male or female.

Intersex children have often been subjected to surgery to “correct” their conditions, something the advocates oppose.

InterACT’s law and policy director, Alesdair H. Ittelson, said that because nonbinary options are not yet widely protected or recognized, putting an “X” on children’s birth certificates can potentially stigmatize them without their consent.

So once again, intersex people, whose conditions are constantly appropriated & misrepresented by trans activists & allies to further transgenderism, are opposed to policy changes that TRAs seek for their own selfish ends. And once again, it's the intersex people & not the trans people who show concern for children, recognize that children too have rights, & are quick to caution against socially & medically experimenting on children in the service of gender ideology.

What on earth is the purpose of recording someone's gender? You may as well record their favorite music genre!

There is a practical purpose to recording sex. And since your sex can't be changed, this should be unchangeable.

I also came across an article about the NY's next-door state of New Jersey that said:

New Jersey is the 17th state that allows transgender residents to change their gender on birth records without proof of surgery, and the fourth state, following California, Oregon, and Washington, that will include transgender as an option on birth certificates, according to Garden State Equality's Director of Programs Aaron Potenza, who helped draft the birth certificate legislation.

I hadn't realized retroactively changing one's natal sex on birth certificates without genital or any other kind of surgery was already allowed in 17 states, & I found it most alarming. Can it really be true? (I shall look into this as time allows.)

I'm also suspicious that the claim that there are four US states that have already decided to "include transgender as an option on birth certificates" might be misleading, whether through sloppy wording & paraphrasing on the part of the reporter or conscious intent on the part of the "Equality Director" who supposedly said those words. Maybe legislatures in those four states have decided to allow people to change their sex designation on their birth certificates to trans when they're adults? But allowing adults to officially designate children "transgender" at the time of birth seems cray-cray, contrary to trans ideology's objection about adults "assigning" sex/gender at birth, & certainly against the best interests of the child. Then again, politics in the US today are pretty cray-cray overall.

I'd find it truly alarming, indeed horrifying, if legislatures in any states are giving mothers/parents & physicians the right to designate a child "transgender" at birth. That would give doctors with crazy ideas about sex & gender like John Money & unhinged mothers/parents disappointed in their newborns' sex completely new power to fuck kids up from birth.

Nowadays you have to wait until your child is at least a toddler before you parade him or her in front of the world as your special transgender child. Yeah, you can say your newborn is a "theybie" & not disclose the child's sex to others. But everyone knows that (with the exception of the Brooklyn child Zo designated with four asterisks on "its" NYC birth certificate mentioned in NYTimes article above) the child has a BC showing M or F. And everyone also knows, come diaper change you can probably tell real easily which one this particular theybie actually is. But can you imagine what attention-seeking, queer-theory-enthralled adults would do if they could designate their children transgender at/from birth? Since it's become so boring & ordinary to have just a boy or a girl, you can bet a lot of expectant or prospective parents with addled brains & personality disorders would love to have a newborn officially/legally designated "a baby born in the wrong body" right off the bat.

We can at least take solace in knowing that were this scenario to occur the adults involved will inevitably get their comeuppance when their darling children grow up a bit & start loudly & angrily complaining that they were wrongly, cruelly, & violently "assigned transgender at birth".

www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2018/07/murphy_signs_law_protecting_transgender_rights.html

“What on earth is the purpose of recording someone's gender? You may as well record their favorite music genre! ”

While I agree with you I am always of the opinion that more data is better. If someone is male sex but female “gender” then we know they are trans and can actually be in a position to know what eg the actual rates of crimes committed against or by trans people are.

Much better to record BOTH than the current approach which is to hopelessly confuse gender and sex and count trans women’s crimes as committed by “females”.

Re: US birth certificates & driver's licenses

I've read various contradictory reports that as many as 10 & as few as three US states already allow people to choose a designation of M, F or X or M, F or NB on their driver's licenses. (The terms transgender, non binary & intersex are used as if they're interchangeable in the reporting on these new "third options" for sex/gender, so it's hard to pin down exactly what's happening in each specific state.)

But since no one in the US (& presumably elsewhere) gets a driver's license until they're at least 16, fairly close to legal adulthood, this doesn't concern me nearly as much as the awful prospect of adults being able to legally designate newborns as X, NB or transgender on the children's birth certificates.

Being able to change sex markers, or add newfangled gender markers, to driver's licenses also doesn't concern me as much as being able to retroactively change the sex on one's birth certificate as an adult. Birth certificates & official records of birth showing natal sex made at the time of birth matter much more for important government matters, such as establishing citizenship, gathering & interpreting accurate & truthful statistics, predicting demographic trends, tracking crime & determining patterns of criminality, planning social services, enforcing laws against sex discrimination, documenting health care needs & preserving accurate data for possible resumption of conscription into military service... And then there's the whole matter of violent, predatory men being able to erase & hide from public view their criminal or creepy pasts & pretend they never lived & did lots of unsavory stuff as males.

What's more, compared to birth certificates, driver's licenses count as second-tier ID. Where there's a contradiction between the sex designated on the two in the US, it's traditionally been the case in most jurisdictions that the sex marked on the BC defines one's legal sex. For example, if your driver's license says F but your birth certificate says M, in most jurisdictions your death certificate would have to say M as well. This, however, is starting to change as TRAs are now arguing that death certificates which record or reveal a transgender person's biological sex constitute "violence" that causes "great harm" to the deceased, their loved ones, & the entire global transgender community as a whole.

Re: US birth certificates & passports

As elsewhere, the two top-tier gold standard official ID documents in the US are birth certificates (issued by states or municipalities) & US passports (issued by the US federal government). In the US you already can get the sex designation on your passport changed to the opposite sex without changing your birth certificate, & without getting surgery or any other particular medical treatment. Yes, unlike in the UK, which has eliminated the need for medical documentation for sex-marker changes on UK passports, in the US you still need a doctor's statement saying you have had appropriate clinical treatment for transition to male or female, or are in the process of transition to male or female. Beyond this, however, no other info about medical treatment need be submitted:

A description of specific treatments is not required in the medical certification. The certification is based on your physician's clinical assessment of your treatment. The certification meets the standards and recommendations of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health which is recognized by the American Medical Association.

The US State Dept website even provides a template for doctors to use to provide the certification. (And this remains the case under Trump, despite the claims by TRAs & the MSM that the Trump admin is making it harder for trans people to change the sex on their passports as part of an overarching policy of "trying to erase trans people out of existence". What the Trump admin has done is revert back to the original terms "sex" & "sex marker" from its Obama-era substitutes "gender" & "gender identity" in legal & administrative matters - so in that sense the Trump admin IS "erasing gender"as a legal term. But "erasing gender" as a legal term is a far cry from "erasing transgender people" obviously.)

travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/apply-renew-passport/change-of-sex-marker.html

Today numerous news organizations, including the Associated Press (AP) are falsely reporting that NYC is allowing the sex marker X on newborns' birth certificates.

And in the "great minds think alike" department, yesterday as I was blathering on about the preposterous idea of giving woke, unhinged parents the chance to brag about having/giving birth to a baby born in the wrong body, Titiana McGrath tweeted: Some foetuses are trans. Get over it.

Titania McGrath is a parody account.

Optimist everyone knows that. TM's claim about "trans foetuses" was clearly satirical, as was mine about "newborn babies born in the wrong bodies." Hence my "great minds think alike comment", also tongue in cheek.

Sorry Vegilante I missed the irony!

No need to apologize, Optimist. Online satire is tricky. But as far as Titania goes, the cat's been out of the bag for a while now.