“Person who gave birth” turns out to be mother.

[aliasundercover]

www.theguardian.com/society/2019/sep/25/transgender-man-loses-court-battle-to-be-registered-as-father-freddy-mcconnell

It’s just not fair he says.

the only thing that is in dispute is what Freddy is labelled as on the birth certificate. I appreciate that there is disagreement there but it probably doesn’t make a whole lot of difference to day to day life.

Just being pragmatic for a moment, if Freddy had won then on the legislation as it's drafted at the moment, it would be practical disadvantage in day to day life. That's because the law for fathers is set up around their relationship with the mother. So as an unmarried father Freddy wouldn't be able to register the birth because only the mother has the right to do that. Freddy also wouldn't have parental responsibility because that requires the mother to agree to put the father on the birth certificate or make a formal agreement. If there were no mother then none of this can happen. Of course as Freddy's case was already at court then that could have been sorted out with court orders in this case but what about then next transman who gives birth and can't register the birth because there is no mother. What if a transman gives birth and the doctors want consent to give the baby important treatment but there is doubt because whilst a mother gets parental responsibility automatically at birth an unmarried father doesn't.

Freddy being registered as mother causes no day to day disadvantage and doesn't stop Freddy from being called father in every other situation.

The whole system around recognising parental relationships and responsibility is based on there being a mother. If that's going to change there needs to be a careful analysis of the knock on impact on all the other legislation and not an ad hoc decision that disadvantages children in this way.

I agree with Arnold. All those things you've listed aren't funded by the state. Unlike double mastectomies in healthy young women.

The claim that gender dysphoria isn’t a mental illness is probably the biggest delusion of them all.

OldCrone I am on these boards a lot and if you read my posts you will know full well that I do not think that humans can change sex. I do realise all the implications thank you. Whether or not someone has a GRC it doesn’t alter biology.

Orchid whether it’s funded is a totally different point. Arnold said people shouldn’t be permitted to have the procedures and I presumed that included if they paid for them themselves.

Pota2 You implied that what sex was on Freddy's birth certificate was unimportant. If you realise all the implications I mentioned it's odd that you'd say that. Legal sex matters.

OldCrone what is legal sex? It sounds like ‘assigned at birth’ type speak. I am female due to my biology. The law could be changed tomorrow to say that I am a man and it wouldn’t make it true.

Obviously to trans people having some sort of certificate acts as validation. I have no real objection to that and I have no objection to an exception being made so that these people are simply registered as gestational parent.

But I am uncomfortable that law in any way determines sex. Law can be changed at a whim.

Sorry Old I think I misunderstood slightly but I also said before that the bit that didn’t matter was what it said on the GRC and i thought you were pulling me up on that.

If we have given Freddy a certificate saying man then why not also something just saying parent? Certificates don’t confer biological status. Also I am talking about an exception for trans people, not a rule for everyone.

'Legal sex' should be determined by biology, it's probably a necessary concept for intersex people but it really should be completely separate from 'gender'.

And I will remind you of this when Sally Hines and gang try to force through a law saying there should be no reference to anyone’s sex on the birth certificate- child or parent. Which is what they want. I have heard them say it explicitly at talks and conferences and they have been given millions in funding for it to happen. Freddy losing in the courts is part of the plan because it then shows the need for wholescale law reform. Had he won, few would have cared. Then you will wish that they had made a small exception for a small number of people rather than abolishing record-keeping of biological sex and therefore discrimination and violence against one of the sexes.

what is legal sex?

The sex that is shown on your birth certificate. Which can be changed to the opposite sex if you have a GRC. I used that term to make the distinction with biological (actual) sex, which of course is the same as legal sex for most people, but not for those with a GRC.

A transwoman (born male, with a GRC) has a biological sex of male, but a legal sex of female.

But I am uncomfortable that law in any way determines sex. Law can be changed at a whim.

Agreed. Which is why I think the GRA should be repealed. Its only real function in the first place was to avoid passing a law to allow same sex marriage. Now that we have same sex marriage the GRA should go.

Errol intersex people do have a biological sex but have chromosomal abnormalities. There is no ‘legal sex’ that differs from biological sex for which intersex people can apply. The only legal sex in the true sense there is is the GRC which purports to assign a sex to someone regardless of their biology.

I also said before that the bit that didn’t matter was what it said on the GRC and i thought you were pulling me up on that.

But what it says on the GRC does matter, because birth certificates can be changed on the basis of a GRC. At present, there are some requirements that need to be fulfilled to do this (but obviously not enough if a woman can declare she is going to live as a man and then immediately get pregnant). Reform of the GRA along self-ID lines would mean that legal sex becomes a matter of choice. That is what the problem is.

I would say that sex on the birth certificate is a matter of record. It’s not a legal status to be a woman or a man. If it was then the law would technically be able to be changed to make it mean different things. The only legal status is in terms of a trans person having a GRC. There, them being a man or woman comes from law, not biology.

I would be female even without a birth certificate and some countries don’t even have birth certificates- just numbers.

OldCrone well it would be easier to get a GRC with self-ID. But I would argue no more ‘inaccurate’ than getting one because a doctor signed it off. Both are instances of man or woman being determined by law and not biology, albeit that one route is easier than the other.

But for anyone non-trans, I am not interested in a legal status of woman. The law’s job is to protect me from discrimination I would face as a woman. Not to determine whether I am one. That is just a fact about my existence, same as we don’t need a legal definition of human to know that we are one.

Errol intersex people do have a biological sex but have chromosomal abnormalities

No. The, misleading in my view, term intersex covers a wide range of chromosomal and developmental disorders related to sex chromosomes and the reproductive systems of men and women.

Caster Semenya, for example, is chromosomally normal, the rule Caster fell foul of only applies to 48 XY DSDs, that is developmental disorders in chromosomally normal males.

Developmental disorders can be enzyme problems, or receptor problems for example and some chromosomal disorders, such as Jacob's Syndrome in men, can have such mild symptoms that people go through life blissfully unaware they even have them.

That's 46 XY, damn it.

But Arnold for Jacob’s syndrome, they are still men, but with an intersex condition.

Basically wanted to get away from the way that TRAs hikack intersex and say it’s proof that some people are ‘in between’ and are neither male nor female.

Oh sorry, okay I get what you’re saying now. But with CS, haven’t people said that her biological sex is in fact male due to the Y chromosome? Or is it genuinely not capable of being determined either way?

I take my information from intersex advocates like MRKHtake2 (Claire) who often say that intersex does NOT mean a person does not have a biological sex.

I have always said that people can be who they want socially and known as whatever they want to be but unless there's gender reassignment surgery done, legally you should be known as whatever genitals you have.

I don't think it's right at all that someone can look, dress and act like a female for example, insist that they get to use female toilets and changing rooms and apply for jobs saying they are female but they still have a penis. It's not right, it's actually dangerous and it'll come to a point where people don't even know who someone is.

If Freddy truly wanted to be a man, he would be one. He would have reassignment surgery and not have given birth. Only females can give birth and if you truly felt like a man and felt 'born in the wrong body' it would be hideous to you to do something so female like giving birth.

I think the world is actually going mad! Freddy could have easily had some eggs kept, got donor sperm and used a surrogate and be named as a second parent on the BC to a child who is biologically his or legally adopted the child with another partner. What some trans people want is nature and the law totally overtuned which can't happen. Some want to change genders and magically be able to reproduce as the new gender which is physically impossible!

Isn't this Freddy the same one that was all over the papers for being sat in a pool of period blood and saying how unfair it was to still be menstruating as a man? Like what the actual hell? Have reassignment surgery and that would stop then! What do these people want? Magic fairies to stop their body doing what is should without any intervention? If Freddy hated periods so much, why use that to then have a baby?

I feel Freddy is mentally ill and very attention seeking and I worry about that child

Yes, they are men with an intersex condition, but I wanted to clarify that DSDs are not always about chromosomes, nor do all, or even most, DSDs result in any ambiguity as to a person's sex. Most have their sex accurately observed at birth like the rest of us.

I loathe the othering of people with what can at the extreme end be complex and distressing medical conditions by trans privilege activists.

Surely we’d rather than transmen give birth themselves than use surrogates? Well, I would anyway.

46XXY, 46XYY, 46X0 etc are NOT intersex conditions. They are chromosomal aneuploidies.

Caster Semenya is male, with 46XY and an enzyme deficiency, 5 alpha reductase deficiency. The only difference between Semenya and any other male without this condition is the enzyme deficiency led to a failure to fully form external genitalia.

But with CS, haven’t people said that her biological sex is in fact male due to the Y chromosome? Or is it genuinely not capable of being determined either way?

Caster Semenya is male, that much is known due to falling foul of a rule that only applies to males.

The specifics of CS's condition gets us into the realm of internet rumour and hearsay which I'm not crazy about, but it seems most likely to be a case of 5 alpha reductase deficiency, which is a condition that can cause ambiguous genitalia at birth, hence Caster being brought up as a girl.

Yes, these things can be tested for, but Caster was not born into a wealthy western society so may well have not had any testing as a child.