Legal recognition of the opposite of the truth. It doesn't work. At best, the law can recognise that a person holds a religious, unsubstantiated belief. But it must not confuse and conflate that belief with another group's actual physically recognisable status. Recognise a belief? Perhaps. But it can only be called by a word NOT already in use or used to define someone else's material existence.
For example, if a devout, practicing Christian declared themselves an atheist, then demanded that the definition of atheism be changed to include an active and zealous belief in God, requiring regular devoted worship, and an affirmation that atheism should affirm that God is real and loves us all? Perhaps with a side order of 'atheists who continue to profess that there is no God are not inclusive of God-worshipping atheists and are now guilty of hate speech because the definition of atheism has evolved to be inclusive of faithful believers. Devout, god-fearing atheists are REAL ATHEISTS.'
That's a no, isn't it? You can adopt any belief, however unsubstantiated, but you cannot misappropriate a meaningful word that already has a material meaning which excludes you, by definition. You cannot take a word which already applies to other people, and not to you, and demand that this word's meaning be changed to mean the opposite, for your benefit. You cannot do that, and then actively prevent the group of people this word previously described from distinguishing themselves from you.
Frankly put, you cannot force a square peg into a round hole. And if you chisel out extra corners to that hole to make it fit square pegs, you've simply created a square hole. It's not round any more, and nor is the square peg it was chiselled to fit. No amount of forcing people to 'recognise' obviously square holes and obviously square pegs as 'a different type of circle' works.
"It's still round, it's just round with corners and has been expanded to be welcoming and inclusive of square pegs. It's still a round hole, but with four sharp corners. All pegs that fit through this altered hole are round. Even square pegs. Which you must now recognise as round. Because they fit through the altered hole. Which is round. Round things can have corners now. Educate yourself."
Female/ woman is not a gender, it's a sex.
Women are round pegs. The word woman is the round hole through which we fit. And the law uses these words, these holes through which some fit and some don't, to ensure it caters properly to round pegs.
Because historically, and still currently, the law catered to only the square pegs. If you were a round peg, you couldn't vote. If you are round, you'll be paid less, you'll have to put up with being underrepresented, you'll be imprisoned for controlling that round peg of a body of yours in ways we don't want.
Men can try to chisel out extra corners to that hole, to that word woman, so that they can force an awkward fit through it. But it simply creates a square hole. It makes all the holes square.
And we can all still see the difference between square pegs and round pegs. And we can see that what was once a round hole has been chiselled into a square too. We will always know the truth.
There is no point in these laws that force everyone to pretend and lie and 'recognise' what isn't true. It takes a hell of a lot of chiselling and renaming reality, a hell of a lot of forcing square and round pegs through the same hole, compelling them to pretend they both fit it perfectly with no differences. And STILL people know.
There is no point to forcing any of this. Forcing people to pretend to recognise what isn't recognisable.
The sexes exist, and we are physically different. This cannot be changed. We cannot 'recognise' square pegs as round, and we cannot redefine round to encompass square. We can try, but people will resist, reality will prevail, and the effort will always fail.
Because we will always be different and THAT is what will always be recognised.