The sex of the child should not go on the birth certificate

[MrsPeacockInTheLibrary]

I was reading a friend's facebook group profile and saw this discussion about not having the sex listed on the birth certificate.

Here is one particular post that got me:

"There is an argument that sex and gender shouldn't be separated into physical and psychological as that is another modern day Cartesian dualism (it's not universally accepted even amongst progressives, but one that I am inclined to support). I'm going to park that one for now though and address the physical as if they are separate.
It's assumption of sex that goes on the birth certificate, not just assumption of gender identity but assumption of the physical components of sex based on the one visible attribute of genitalia. This means babies who are intersex or have differences in sexual development whose genitalia don't appear unusual will be assigned the wrong sex.
We don't routinely check what reproductive organs a baby has on the inside, which can be different to what is assumed. We also don't routinely run DNA tests to check each baby's chromosomes, which again can be different to what's assumed based on genitalia. Also, even if we knew a baby had XY chromosomes, they could 'appear female' if they have no SRY gene on the Y or have androgen insensitivity syndrome, which similarly changes the physical appearance. We also don't have any insight into what will happen to each baby physically when they reach puberty - their future sex hormonal levels are not yet known - plus hormones a baby is subjected to in the womb can cause changes to their genitals. These are just some examples of differences in sexual development that would not be evident at birth. So, even before considering trans people whose gender identity does not match what was assumed based on genitalia at birth, we are not seeing the full biological picture by assigning sex based on what a baby has between their legs.
As for differing medical needs, it should be clear from the above that a wrong assumption about someone sex could indeed lead to a misunderstanding of their physical needs and abilities and, if anything, should be a reason not to assume it for the birth certificate. Plus we wouldn't be refused treatment for sex-based conditions without it being on a birth certificate any more than someone is refused treatment for heart disease when family history is not on the birth certificate. We have medical records for this.
Estimates on the prevalence of people who are intersex or have DSD vary, precisely because it is not always obvious, but a widely touted stat is that it is about as common as having red hair. Estimates for trans people also vary, although I should say there is of course no threshold to cross to become 'important'. I merely raise it to note how strange it would be to put babies into a dark/light hair dichotomy or bring back the forcing of children to write with the right hand when some are left-handed. Why do that when we don't have to?"

I mean it sounds comprehensive but I still kick back inside and think but sex is sex! It's just there - when you dig up skeletons and in our DNA ... and everything! I appreciate there are medical backgrounds that are complicated for people regarding their reproductive capacity... but there is still the science!

Am I wrong? Is there anything that can be said here?

I should say there is of course no threshold to cross to become 'important'. I merely raise it to note how strange it would be to put babies into a dark/light hair dichotomy or bring back the forcing of children to write with the right hand when some are left-handed.

As others have pointed out sex has serious medical consequences.

I merely raise this because again your friend's posterior seems to be doing a lot of talking.

Honestly, that is a terrible lot of nonsense. The blah blah l

Woops

Blah blah like this gets churned out with the objective of convincing people that male humans are simultaneously female and vice versa and some are neither. it's incoherent tosh.

I think this is a case of if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The sex being stated on a birth certificate works pretty well for the vast, vast majority of the population.

It makes no sense to not record the sex of a baby.
The cases of intersex are incredibly rare and in the vast majority of cases it is easy to determine the baby's sex before registration.
Males and females have different healthcare needs - it's important that information is recorded as a fact.

I had 3 amino centices (sp??) so the xx/xy chromosomes were known before birth.
How would these births be recorded as the sex of each baby would be evidenced by a source other than observation of the genitals?

Berthatydfil - if the genitals are different from the chromosomes, then Intersex would be most appropriate, but I don’t know what is done currently.

I have a friend with a DSD. It was discovered precisely because she is female and her periods didn't start. If she had not been recognized as female at birth and thereafter expected to begin menstruation, her condition would not have been discovered.

I suspect if this person was in need of a surrogate they would know full well what a female is. When we say men have babies, we all know which ones.

Babies have slightly different growth charts based on sex.

Females normally get periods starting as teens and not getting them could be a sign of Dsd, reproductive issues or anorexia etc.

A male teenager spontaneously growing large breasts would raise some health concerns.

We have different bodies ffs!

The use of the 'intersex' argument to argue trans issues assumes that among those with a DSD all the females will be assigned male and all the males assigned female. And that simply isn't true.

The tiny subset of babies born with a DSD will contain an even tinier subset who may wrongly 'assigned'. It's a vanishingly small number which doesn't warrant the changes to our systems some seem to think we need.

@JellySlice

We don't routinely check what reproductive organs a baby has on the inside, which can be different to what is assumed.

Err, hello? 20w anomaly scan?

The scanning doctor asked us to look away from the screen whe she checked the foetus' reproductive organs as we didn't want to know what we were having. I asked if she could not look. Nope, if you consent to the scan then they will check for DSDs.

Remind me again, what is the actual advantage of recording M or F on the birth certificate? What practical effect does it have on the baby's life now that pension ages are being equalised and gay marriage is legal?

So people get to choose what to put on death certificates? It is important for govt to know how many of each sex are born each year so that they can identify patterns and plan (males and females statistically have different risks of conditions). Govt may use this to plan how many care homes or hospitals are required in 50 years time. It can identify if sex selective abortion is happening also.

So was meant to be ‘do’

I’d reply:

People who are truly progressive don’t abide to ‘gender’, they believe gender(sexist stereotypes) are meaningless and should be fought against. A persons sex, especially girls and women’s, is hugely significant in terms of oppression, including physical and sexual violence and harassment and of course it’s scientifically accurate. Stereotypes don’t change biology. I thought you were more progressive than this.

The description of "trans" usually seems to be "someone with a gender identity that is different from the gender they were assigned at birth", where "gender" in the first case is usually a synonym for "stereotype preference" and "gender" in the second case is usually a synonym for "biological sex" or at least "visible genitalia". This "assigned" nonsense is usually added to avoid saying things like "someone who is male but identifies at female" to try and frame it that they have always been female but we're just incorrectly identified at birth. So going by this definition, if we stopped "assigning" people as male or female at birth, and stopped recording sex on birth certificates, then transgender people would stop existing. There would be no one with a "gender" that matched or did not match their "assigned sex" because "assigned sex" would not be a thing. No one would be trans or "cis" anymore. And whilst this may in fact be the outcome TRAs are angling towards, I wonder how they would cope in practise without being able to claim special stunning and brave trans status. No trans or "cis" means no ability to construct false power asymmetries which position women as the oppressors of men. They may gain the right to obliterate the legal distinction between men and women, but they will never obliterate the social distinction because people have eyes. When I see a male it doesn't matter to me if he has F or M on his birth certificate, I still know he's male. So people will still identify TW as men socially, but without the legal sex marker at birth TW would have no way of describing themselves as trans in a way that didn't rely on acknowledging they are actually male rather than just "assigned male". Do they really want to lose all those delicious victim points? How will they be the most oppressedest people ever if they don't exist as a group anymore? Don't get me wrong, it's a stupid fucking idea for about a million other reasons, but I'm not sure it'd end up being quite the victory TRAs we're hoping for.

Which of us 2nd or 3rd timers didn't hear "Bet you're looking forward to a nice, quiet little girl after those tearaway boys of yours"?
Or, in my case, "You must be glad to finally have a boy after all those girls!" Yes, somebody actually said that to me.

I don’t know how important it is to record sex on a birth certificate. I think there’s a reasonable argument that it’s not really something that is necessary any more than race is. And I’d prefer birth certificates to be factual than to have the situation where they get changed to something non-factual 25 years later.

But it is important to be clear about what sex a baby is, especially in health care settings. There are several rare conditions where sex is a critical factor. While DSDs do exist, as others have said, it is vanishingly rare for a DSD to result in the incorrect sex being recorded at birth any more. We use sex in health care of babies and children all the time. For instance, we have separate growth charts to ensure babies are growing healthily and help pick up on problems.

And the number of girls born is a critical number for public policy and government planning.

I would be concerned, however, about the issue of how we work against sexism that is based on physical differences between men and women. It seems in many ways like a stealth way to make it harder to have sex segregated services or to look at the prejudice against women as a sex class separately from prejudice against the female gender.

As mentioned upthread, a birth certificate is a copy of the information held on public record.

If sex is not recorded, it would be easier to hide the girls who are never born. The ones who didn’t have an opportunity to identify out of being the wrong sex.

Sounds a twat.... the sad thing is people listen to them now

Or, in my case, "You must be glad to finally have a boy after all those girls!" Yes, somebody actually said that to me.

I think people assume everyone wants one of each, so I was told "you've got one of each now, no need for anymore". It's just slightly odd small talk.

I get sick of disorders of sexual development (DSD) being abused to argue for removal of sex marker from birth certs. Removal of the sex marker from birth certs would actually harm people with DSDs.

There are some DSDs that are fatal if untreated. There's one that causes kidney failure prior to adulthood even if treated. A baby with a suspected DSD is considered a medical emergency because of the need to diagnose and give appropriate (and yes, what is "appropriate" is rightly up for debate) treatment. The difference between expected development and actual development of the child is part of the diagnostic criteria for DSDs, and the expected development is based on sex as observed at birth or in utero. Someone gave an example upthread of lack of menarche being the first detected symptom of a DSD in a girl. Menarche is a female expected development. (If a boy started bleeding from his crotch, I would dial 999!)

The birth certificate constitutes a record of the sex observed at birth, with the exceptions being where the sex was honestly misobserved (usually because of a DSD) and a corrected birth cert has been issued once the sex was correctly determined, or where a GRC has been issued. If a person's body behaves in ways that don't match the sex marker on the (pre-GRC) birth cert, that's an indication that the person may have a DSD. An indication that Caster Semenya has a DSD is that Semenya was observed female at birth but then didn't get periods.

As PPs have said, recording sex is important for other purposes:

• evaluating risk for sex-linked conditions such as haemophilia.
• planning services that are used by one sex, such as female-specific contraceptive provision and "red box" sanpro provision in schools.
• evaluating risks for sex-based crimes such as female infanticide, rape, FGM, "honour" killings, and forced marriage.
• determining cause of infertility: men jack off into a sample container as part of investigating infertility, women don't.
• detecting changes in the birth rate of boys and girls, which may be a red flag for environmental or other factors affecting sperm production in fathers or may be a red flag for sex-selective abortion.
• monitoring trends in criminal offending, poverty, education, you name it, by sex.

bd67thSaysReinstateLangCleg those are strong arguments for sex being accurately recorded on medical records but not birth certificates.

Doctors don’t look at the birth certificate when deciding whether a child is developing appropriately, they look at the sex on the medical records (or ask the patient).

it's a stupid fucking idea for about a million... reasons

Exactly that.

Because the data is important for about a million reasons.

The data is important, but that doesn't mean it has to be on the birth certificate.