Why don't we introduce legal gender?

[PronounsBaby]

Been thinking about this a little while... And just thinking out loud really....

I feel like some of the confusion around gender/sex could be solved by introducing the concept of legal gender.

GRC = an appendix on your birth cert with states you have changed you gender. Your birth cert stays the same (as it has happened, it's in the past. You were born your bio sex and that's important to have recorded and never going to change)
Then on passports etc you have your bio sex and a little gender box too.

Same on your medical records. Then you still get your automatic smear test letters and breast screening apts (if appropriate). Your blood / urine tests are tested using the correct parameters. But you have a little box which alerts medical professionals that you want to be referred to as a man/women. Your letters will be addressed this way but medical info will be taylored for your correct sex.

Holistically your gender can be man/women whatever you want but legally and medically you're still your bio sex.

Obvs won't help the cult like spread of the ideology, misinformation & rush to medicialise children but wouldn't it help iron out some if the confusion? Help to separate sex and gender.

Same sex attracted - stays the same.
Sex based rights - stays the same.

No such thing as 'legal sex' to confused idiots people.

People could even choose not to have gender, just use their sex for things.....

What do you think?

Why gender, particularly?

Why not starsign?

In fact starsign is a bit more easily established because there’s an objective marker for it - your birthdate. What’s the objective marker for gender?

Some countries use identity cards which record religion. It isn’t a good idea.

Pushing to not recognise it at all would be great in an ideal world where the very first conversation about not fitting stereotypes was answered differently.

However, we have people now who aren't going to change their thinking, who have had body parts removed or added. We also have a world where they will be mocked and deserve as much protection as possible. A GI box (as well as sex) on a passport would make it easier for a girl presenting as Ethan. It also costs us nothing.

Obviously we try to fight stereotypes as well, so less girls end up wanting to be Ethan, but people get very attached to their beliefs and the u-turn isn't going to happen any more than the flat earth people saying they were wrong.

I think religion lost its power in society through dilution and indifference rather than people shouting it down. When people are getting GRCs for cat-gender, gender fluid, Demi girl etc. that is when it will stop being taken seriously. What is important is that sex isn't dragged into the first stage of this inevitable battle.

It would suit me but it wouldn't suit all the gender woo people.

Especially those like Eddie Izzard who is male gender until he puts on pink lipstick and magically becomes female gender.

And those of us who refuse to tick a GI box because we do not have a GI?

Yes I think it would be useful to find some way to separate out sex and gender on official documents, and then be clear that the legal change can only be to gender. That would leave it clear about sex-based exemptions to the equality act while leaving things free, as a liberal society, for people to change their legal gender as much as they like, or not to state one at all, and be as creative with their pronouns as they want to be. I would be happy for some group of senior legal people to be given the task of defining the legal definition of gender, with the only boundary being that it must not interfere with the legal and biological definition of sec. And maybe it would be enough to satisfy young women and girls who want to make a statement about their identity, without having to change their bodies to do so.

the legal definition has to not interfere with the legal and biological definition of sex, I meant. Not sec.

Which I guess implies that the term “legal sex” has to be defined first. Is it already defined, legally?

But it must NOT enforce the reductive, limiting, regressive concept of gender on people who have lived their lives without that restriction.

Yes, or Pips Bunce. Would his (Im taking a guess it's a Phillip day) 'legal gender' be 'genderfluid'? If so - wtf would that actually mean, what would be the point? What about people who say they're 'catgender' - would their 'legal gender' mean it was ok for them to crap in your garden?

Just stick with sex, and let people be whatever gender they want, get rid of damn gender stereotypes, don't reinforce them.

I think I'd rather completely remove gender from legislation. It's just not a substantiatable thing. You have a recorded sex, which is often useful information in society. No one else should be expected to give a hoot about your 'gender'.

Make 'gender certificates' completely freely available - you can download 76 different versions in pretty colours & paper the downstairs bog with them, if you like.

But make it clear that they have absolutely no legal standing.

Bit like those scams where you can buy a certificate saying you 'own' a white dwarf star in a distant galaxy or a benighted bit of moorland, & are entitled to call yourself lord/lady of it...or like the right to style yourself a self employed homeopathic healer or ghost hunter.

If these things makes you happy, lovely, but other people are perfectly at liberty to think it's bobbins & refuse to take you seriously.

No.

Nearly 100 years ago a government in another country thought it was a good idea to include people's beliefs in their official documents. Not all people. Only people of certain beliefs that were different to the majority of the population.

It did not turn out well.

I think the Dutch - afaik with good intent - recorded everyone's belief in the 30s. Which proved helpful to their invaders.
I assume no one thinks it would be a good idea to record sexual orientation, that would in those dark times similarly caused dire unintended consequences...

You might trust the state to have various pieces of information while you're in a liberal democracy but history shows it's unwise for it to hold more than it needs.

No. Just because something is personally important doesn't mean there should be an official record. What about political beliefs, philosophies, personal tastes? These are all very important to my identity - should they be on my passport?

@JellySaurus and @FKATondelayo
Spot on.

Gender is a nebulous and unverifiable concept. Writing legislation to give it legal recognition would be like trying to nail jelly to a wall.

I'm sure there would be some enterprising legal specialists out there happy to take the government's money and try and we have politicians with enough stupidity to waste tax payers money on such an endeavour.

Introducing legislation would give the very niche concept of gender identity an undeserved importance and significance so of course it shouldn't. It would be the equivalent of putting the equally meaningles and fashionable in some middle-class circles 'indigo child' on official documents a few years ago.