Whose birth certificate is it?

[JellySaurus]

It is a record of the mother's birthing as well as a record of the child's birth.

Retrospectively changing my male child's birth certificate to claim that I gave birth to a female child is creating and establishing a lie about my life. Ditto changing the record of the female child's birth. Why is this permitted?

It shouldn’t be permitted. The loss of truth depresses me almost as much as the disregard for safeguarding and women’s rights.

Also, I am sure I read somewhere that there are permanent changes to a woman’s body from carrying a male child? Someone medical might be able to correct me or explain. In any event, anything that alters the official record of reality is going to bugger future stats-based research. (As is already seeming to be the case with crime stats.)

But also for any child of the person whose birth certificate has been falsified reissued as the opposite sex (or the 'correct' sex according to Patrick Harvie on the radio a day or two back, which made me shout at the radio).

If my father is now listed as female, what does that mean for the details on my birth certificate? What about future generations trying to trace family history?

Microchimerism

In humans, chimerism most commonly occurs when a pregnant woman absorbs a few cells from her fetus. The opposite may also happen, where a fetus absorbs a few cells from its mother.

These cells may travel into the mother’s or fetus’s bloodstream and migrate to different organs. They may remain in a mother’s body or a child’s body for a decade or more following childbirth. This condition is called microchimerism.

(from www.healthline.com/health/chimerism)

If one can lie about their sex, it would be interesting if they could also lie about other immutable facts. Maybe change their sex and age. In that case, a woman could change their child's birth cert to indicate the mother was actually a male baby (say 6 months old) when they gave birth.

So, instead of the headline fictitiously stating that 'man gives to baby', they could say 'six month old baby boy gives birth to baby'. It is no more of a lie.

'man gives birth to baby' in first line of second paragraph.

All the other ridiculous issues aside, I cannot understand how the narrative of 'the wrong body' ever became established.

What an absolute insult to disabled people.The blind don't get the privilege to identify as a seeing person.

The whole idea of bodies as separate to people is massively problematic for me.

Erasing whole periods of someone's history is wrong. Surely if you are trans then the process of getting there is important. It seems odd to pretend it never happened. I don't understand how that can be useful for trans kids if we follow their own arguments.

The entire thing defies logic.

A birth certificate belongs to the child/person.

The Court of Appeal judgement means transmen who give birth are entered as the “mother” on birth certificates. www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/McConnell-and-YY-judgment-Final.pdf

Note: The Supreme Court denied an appeal to their court.

Did that case establish that the birth certificate belongs to the baby, or had it already been established, hence the ruling?

If a person can make retrospective changes to their documentation, why doesn't their marriage certificate get changed as part of their transition?

I think it belongs to the state. It's a public record of which you get a copy. That's how I see it anyway. Which makes falsifying it even worse. Since when did Joe Public get to apply black ink to public documents?

I disagree with any information being omitted or changed on a birth certificate.
It should have all the facts on it.

Thank you @NancyDrawed We really are incredible-bodied aren’t we? Infuriating that programmes Like Stronger Things on R4, when it looked at ovaries, had to go through verbal gymnastics to include everyone with ovaries in order to avoid stating the fact that it’s only women who have them.

I seem to remember a Dutch bloke went to court a few years ago to change his the date on his birth certificate to make him ten years younger, and he was subjected to ridicule and lost his case. But changing your date of birth is no more a falsehood than changing your sex.

The idea of changing any other piece of information recorded on a birth certificate (apart from your name) would be farcical. What if I don’t like my parents? Can I erase their names? Or can I change my parents to someone I would prefer to have as my parents? If I say I like listening to The Pogues while drinking a pint of Guinness can I change my birthplace to Dublin? Of course not, this would be ludicrous.

If I could change my birthplace to Dublin I would become eligible for an Irish passport that I would not qualify for otherwise. If I changed my parentage I could claim inheritance rights that would not rightfully be mine. If I could change my date of birth I could claim e.g. age-dependent benefits such as travel concessions, which in reality I am too young to do. Clearly changing your sex on your birth certificate from M to F is not ‘just admin’ to make you feel better, it’s an attempt to claim rights to which you are not entitled.

My birthcert is incorrect. Should I not be able to change it?

A birth certificate is a factual record. If the facts on it are incorrect then there is a case to argue that it could be modified.

Gender beliefs are not facts.

If your birth certificate is incorrect, then yes, I think you should be able to change it. There is a minor error on mine (apparently I was born in December 1981 and registered in January 1981) but I haven’t tried to get it amended.

This poor woman’s life was badly affected by a simple, clerical error. I don’t understand why her birth certificate couldn’t be amended.

amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/aug/22/experience-birth-certificate-says-woman-is-a-man

There are cases in the past where birth certificates were wrong. My great grandmothers was wrong as her family couldn't afford to register by the correct date. Therefore a different birth date was put on her certificate.
It was a bit complicated when she died as she always celebrated her original birth date and she had different dates on different forms.

Its not factually correct that you can change sex therefore if your born a male and you transition to a female you are still biologically male! I agree with @Calmdown14

How bizarre! Poor woman.

Yet a person can legally have the true facts of their sex as recorded on their birth certificate replaced by the untrue and unproven beliefs they hold.