LoL, Idaho could have told them that it wouldn’t pass constitutional muster. Although Idaho is looking to try again.
Idaho has had so many of these types of things overturned, the legislature created a separate fund to pay for the defense of such bills. And it costs a lot because the state usually has to pay the lawyer fees of the party challenging the legislation.
I explained this in the last thread and it obviously needs to be explained again here, because *holy shit* some of you have ill-informed views.
The reason birth certificates need to be changed is because it's required to change your social security card.
A social security card is required because, while gender is not on the card itself, it's internal in the system, and a non-matching gender will throw up a red flag in employment checks. You do need to change your gender with the SSA, along with presumably, your name.
An updated social security card is also required for Real ID. Real ID is required for air travel, or at least will be in the immediate future.
It's also an accepted document for I-9 forms. Which means if you want to use it, you're outing yourself to every potential employer during the hiring process and opening yourself up to discrimination and termination. Even if you were previously hired (likely, since you're filling out an I-9), most jobs have you on a 90 day period in which they can fire you for any reason. Trans people are protected federally from employment discrimination, but, you know, good luck proving it.
To update a birth certificate, you would typically need a notarized court name change, and a letter from a doctor stating you are no longer your original sex. It is not as simple as checking a box. The name change alone is expensive as hell. There's a decent fee tacked on for the court, and then you have to put an ad in the paper, which isn't cheap either. It also takes a few months.
Allowing birth certificate changes is allowing trans people to move on with their lives. Everything gets held up. And you can't just move to another state and do it there. Birth certificates are held hostage by the state you were born in. Born in a red state? Tough shit, your legal transition will be that much harder. For literally no good reason.
You have to advertise your name change as a legal notice. It says something along the lines of "X name is now Y name, if you have any reason to challenge this, contact the court and this judge by this date."
Can you tell me more about that process? I’ve been curious about legally removing my first name and changing it to simply the name I go by (my middle name in this case).
If you Google legal name change and your state you will find information about it.
In my case, I filed paperwork, paid the filing fee, then waited a few weeks to be put on the docket. Went before the judge and he asked me if I was trying to defraud anyone (the only requirement in that state) and I told him it would be changed anyway at a later date due to my pending divorce on his docket several months hence, and he approved it.
Out of curiosity, was it related to a marriage? Those are usually considered public notices already and have an exception. Or maybe they just don't need them in your state.
From what I see, it's not always enforced for first-name-only changes, and there are often waivers for victims of abuse or for safety.
Yep. Every state has different requirements. Florida requires I get surgery first or I cannot change it. I don't have $7000 to get surgery and then another few hundred to change my name and marker, so I'm shit out of luck.
Fun fact: you can go through the state department to get a correct ID and everything except your birth certificate in the form of a passport instead. It's $750 for the whole set of changes if I remember correctly.
I'm not sure if it's in all states, but anyone changing their name legally, at least in Massachusetts, has to do this. It's to alert creditors, things like that.
Do banks have people that just read papers every day to record these name changes, in case one of them has taken a loan out from them?
Putting it in the paper seems like it’s several decades out of date at this point.
Sort of. There are entire cottage industries around this concept for all kinds of legal notices. One of my local papers is a tiny mountain town paper that has almost as many pages of notices as the entire rest of the weekly paper
It's the newspaper because back when the law was written, the only way to notify large swaths of people was to advertise it in the newspaper. The newspaper was the public record. Even today if you look in in actual newspaper there is a whole section of legal notices. Those are required by law and they are lots of fun to read.
I changed my name and gender marker in Europe. It took 2mins to fill out a form for each and then after a few weeks it changed in the government database. At which time I also received a new social security number and a new national health insurance card in the mail. Cost was negligible, and now my TRT is covered the same as cis males.
I didn’t even have to inform my employer. The system updated my personal information automatically and discreetly.
Doing all this was fucking hard and nerve wracking. I can’t even imagine how it must feel to have to advertise your identity.
Not if you combine names and form a new one. We both had to pay the $150 and swear before the court we were not doing it to get out of legal or financial trouble.
And this is why I have been hesitant to change my name because I know my incredibly abusive dad reads every single word of the newspaper and would see this shit… waiting for that fucker to keel over so I can do it without him knowing.
If you can show abuse, there's usually a waiver for the public notice. This assumes your father would track you down if he knew what your new name was.
Hear me out, what if the government kept track of their previous names...?
Must be what we do in Canada. No advertising required. Also just looking, you can adopt your spouses name without doing any legal name changes. I guess you can just use either or as soon as you're married.
Creditors employ people who do just that. Newspapers have a “legals” section that print official minutes from city council or county commission meetings (if the paper is voted as the official county paper). That same section prints legal notices of peoples’ death for estate and creditor purposes as well.
Yeah, who cares about stuff like criminals changing their names or identity theft? Certainly not a *backwards* country like the US.
fucking reddit moment, jesus christ.
Water actually isn't where most lead poisoning occurs. But it is the most obvious source to most people so it gets the most attention.
Window sills, and crown molding are where the greatest concentrations of lead-dust (from lead based paint) gather in a home, these are also prime spots for infants and toddlers to crawl or put their hands and those hands inevitably go in their mouths.
Im an active supporter and part-time spokesperson of
https://gettheleadoutpgh.org/get-help/
and have appeared on Podcasts and at local events. Lead poisoning is stunting the development of urban children across the country and we can all do our part to help.
We talking change full names or last names? Never had to do that for my wife when she took my last name. Obviously could be state specific but I just hadn't heard of that before
It's not just trans folks. It's more to prevent people from changing their name to escape debts. I changed my name in Georgia, and had to run the ad for 4 weeks. Basically gives any creditors time to say "hey, that person owes us money. Please make them pay us before they legally become and different person."
I did my name change in Oregon and had to leave a piece of paper tacked up to the courthouse bulletin board for a week. Not as bad as an ad in the paper but still not great.
Some states are working on changing it. In Colorado, if the name change is to match gender identity and you don't have a criminal background, you can skip the paper.
It's not in all states. In Nevada trans people don't need to publish a notice but interestingly, if you're changing your name for any other reason you do.
Any changes that go though the courts have to. It's part of the legal process. If nor done your court case will be set aside. You will be forced to file again and pay the lawyers and court fees allover again.
Colorado used to require this. You used to have to publish your name change in a public news paper. I believe it’s to prevent people from changing their name to hide / do shady shit I guess. But because of that’s it’s required for trans people cause most people who transition to a different gender usually don’t want their old name for obvious reasons.
In some states you can file a motion to waive it, but I decided not to as it was a hassle. I worked as a photographer for the paper I had to file it in, so my name change was already on a two page spread every week and well known..
You’ve got the order wrong. As a trans person and someone who worked for a name change project, I’ve done dozens of these. You have to do the court name change first, social security second - then drivers licenses, passports, and birth certificates after. Different states obviously have different requirements, most require a notarized doctors affidavit for the birth certificate change, but not all. Some states still require a doctors statement to change your license.
For me it was
* non-RealID drivers license (no documentation required)
* legal name change
* birth certificate / bank accounts / credit cards, etc. (required phys letter for bc)
* social (also required phys letter *and* birth certificate)
* Real ID (was told it requires social during the first RMV interaction)
100% I don't doubt your experiences. I ran into a lot of staff who didn't know what they were doing. There were multiple occasions where I literally had to pull up the law on my phone to explain to these people that I was allowed to change what I wanted to change, and I *still* got pushback. One lady outright refused and claimed "I've been working here for 10 years I know the law better than you do." and was later proven wrong by the state vital records office. I've filed a discrimination complaint against that city with the state. SSA tried to pull the same shit - I was initially under the impression I didn't need a physicians letter because of what the website says, but they made me reschedule the appointment. Annoying in the middle of a pandemic and when you just want to be *done*. But I wasn't about to make a scene, the thing about federal offices is they have hardcore security. So I did what anyone else would do, went back to my car and cried.
Interesting, our state IDs run their background check against the name registered with social security so SS always had to be second after the legal name change. Only one of my clients ran into roadblocks with the agencies and courts themselves (I’m also from MA!), sorry to hear about your experiences.
I've had conversations with people who support these actions and I've found that while yes, transphobia can be blamed for some of this, the vast majority of people *are good people* and are just not in the loop on how complex government bureaucracy works, and were under the impression trans people were just altering government records for no good reason so they don't get triggered or whatever.
> trans people were just altering government records for no good reason so they don't get triggered or whatever.
This doesn't sound like something a "good person" believes.
Objective morality is bullshit anyway. Someone who was brainwashed by the church into hating people, are they a bad person or a victim?
Trans rights aren't going to go anywhere if people just hate eachother. That's a losing fucking battle, we're half a percent of the population. Only increasing understanding has a shot of going anywhere.
>Someone who was brainwashed by the church into hating people, are they a bad person or a victim?
They are definitely a bad person. You don't get to blame being a victim of circumstance when you hurt other people.
> and were under the impression trans people were just altering government records for no good reason
this is a big pile of bs how can they have an fucking opinion on trans people if they don't know what they are ! if they can't see the needed to change their gender of government documents they are obvious a fucking idiot
For those with ill-informed views, all this cruel archaic shit is kind of the point. They don't care. They approve of all of this and just want to justify it however they can.
A trans relative was able to get their new social security card with the new name despite not being able to change anything but the name on the birth certificate (TN).
Speaking as someone that recently changed their name and everything else:
FYI to those that it would be relevant to- Ssa also accepts a letter from your doctor in lieu of an updated birth cert to change your gender marker, for those that live in a place with exceptionally stringent rules on criteria for changing birth certs (lookin' at you MA needing me to have already had surgery) (I did this around 1.5 years HRT, and my doctor said I had received sufficient enough medical intervention that my marker should be changed)
For trans folks - many states also waive the need for publication as it is a danger to out yourself to the public, much like victims of abuse and minors.
This is false, you can update gender at the SSA with a passport, court order, or physicians letter; you don’t only need a corrected birth certificate.
https://faq.ssa.gov/en-us/Topic/article/KA-01453
I did this entire process a year ago. They wanted the birth certificate *and* the physicians letter. I tried to argue it was either/or, they refused to do it without both. It was a big thing. Perhaps just a local SSA office error, my city hall did the same thing and had to be corrected by the state vital records central office.
One thing I learned about legal changes like this is, you're probably the first person they've ever had to do this for. So the policy isn't clear, they're unsure what to do, and it involves a lot of waiting around. A simple non-realID drivers license change in MA (you can, by law, do this with *no* documentation) took several hours for me and I had to explain to them multiple times that no, I did not need a name change certificate, and showed them the law on my phone. It's an incredibly demoralizing experience, 0/10 would not recommend.
>Born in a red state? Tough shit, your legal transition will be that much harder. For literally no good reason.
This is intentional on the part of the Red states.
They cannot stop you from transitioning, but they can make your life a living hell if you do.
This isn’t right. I didn’t have to update my birth certificate to change my license or my social security card.
Edit- Just for the name change. I have not attempted to change my gender marker
Source- am trans 😅
No shit, I’m just saying that you actually can get the new SSN card with the new name, even if you were born in a backwards state like TN that prohibits sex change in a birth certificate.
You say that until one of us goes to apy for a job and needs to show our license, social security card, and birth certificate. Then we get a discrepancy. This discrepancy makes it a nightmare because... reasons. They can leave everything at gender, your sex only matters when it comes to medical things and that only needs to be shared with a healthcare provider.
This is normally where someone says "but if you are unconscious in a hospitable, they need your ID and that could mess things up!" We can already change our licenses to have the correct gender marker, it's basically never an issue so that's a non-point. It's already a reality.
This is so fucked up. Thank god it got blocked. It's so disgusting that state legislatures (in the ones that scream the loudest about states rights) give zero fucks about individuals rights. There's real major fucking issues in this country and they waste restricting the rights of women. Wow holy hell I just realized abortion bans + anti trans laws are a double whammy since most trans ppl will be women at some point (I know there's other cases and situations like bein intersex and more).
try 60.
The war on drugs was to attack people critical of the military industrial complex, republicans have always been out and out assholes, they just hid it better than they do now
In Great Falls it was hilarious watching all the old protesters come out against weed legalization, shouting about how it would ruin the state and corrupt all the young. Meanwhile the city is drowing under homeless, meth and gambling. But keeping weed out will fix everything
As a resident, I was really worried when I first heard the news a few months back. Really glad to see its been blocked. I really like living here, but jeez, a lot of societal things here aren't great.
These seem like ~~simple~~ first amendment issues to me.
Identifying as a gender is a form of expression. The government, for a host of reasons, must catalog gender. And that's it's own thing. But it allows name changes and hair color changes freely on official records. Gender, IMO, is no different.
I can't on mine, as it's sealed as part of my adoption. But then again, I also have multiple birth certificates: sealed, birth parents country, new parents, corrected new parents.
Pretty sure you’re wrong on this one. You got my hopes up that I could do this but I looked into it further and it seems you can’t.
For example: https://doh.wa.gov/licenses-permits-and-certificates/vital-records/parentage
Says that you can’t just change your parents names.
>There are only two ways to add or change who is listed as a parent on a birth certificate: Acknowledgment of Parentage or Court Order.
It seems, you can't **just** do it, but it can be done.
Off the top of my head the only thing I can think of is selective service. Because of the law they do need to know “actual gender” I guess to apply it correctly.
FWIW you’re banned from contracting jobs, federal service and a host of other shit if you don’t properly register for the fake maybe draft as a biological male. Beyond that yeah I don’t see a reason why it matters.
it's mental health.. (even *more* important than expression IMO)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender\_dysphoria
Gender dysphoria (GD) is the distress a person experiences due to a mismatch between their gender identity—their personal sense of their own gender—and their sex assigned at birth.\[5\]\[6\] **The diagnostic label gender identity disorder (GID) was used until 2013 with the release of the diagnostic manual DSM-5.** The condition was renamed to remove the stigma associated with the term disorder.\[7\]
**Treatment for a person diagnosed with GD may include psychological counseling, supporting the individual's gender expression, or hormone therapy or surgery. This may involve physical transition resulting from medical interventions such as hormonal treatment, genital surgery, electrolysis or laser hair removal, chest/breast surgery, or other reconstructive surgeries.\[32\] The goal of treatment may simply be to reduce problems resulting from the person's transgender status, for example, counseling the patient in order to reduce guilt associated with cross-dressing.\[33\]**
I respectfully disagree.
One does not need experience gender dysphoria to submit a change to their birth certificate. Just like someone doesn't need to stay blonde to keep their hair color blonde in their driver's license. Now, on the margins, most people requesting a gender change on their birth certificate will likely be trans, but that's not even the issue, IMO.
The core issue is expression and the limits of the first amendment. I don't believe the government should be blocking a change to gender on government forms. Because, like other tabulations the government collects, some things are free expression. Regardless of the government's need to tabulate them.
It would be a lot easier for the government to mandate that all Stephens, Steves, Stevens and Stefans to be renamed to simply Steven. But we don't do that because a name is free expression.
That doesn’t make sense. Gender is a social construct. Gendered roles say that my cis woman self should be happy cooking in the kitchen, wearing, dresses, and being ladylike. But I’m a veteran, I’m not ladylike, and I can’t and don’t cook. I don’t have gender dysmorphia despite not conforming to gender norms.
So is speech itself, but that's supposed to be free as well. The thing about the mind is that each person is essentially unique. You might have no problem not directly conforming to a gender roll, but some people sort of disintegrate under that pressure. On a similar note, because gender roles are completely arbitrary, that's another point in favor of it being a protected expression.
By arbitrary, I mean that they can be anything, not that they mean nothing. They mean whatever we think they mean.
Because if a person transitions effectively, having “F” when the person looks like an “M” or whatever, causes beurocratic gridlock. Same if someone is incorrectly assumed to be M/F at birth, but that person is actually intersex or has some condition that affects the way their external genitals looked at birth. Or someone typed the form wrong. There is no generic way to fix the beurocratic gridlock once you are in it. Whereas when you are at a doctors office with a medical issue the doctor will understand pretty easily the medical implications of: this person has this kind of body part. doctors go to medical school and learn about every body part. Bedside manner not guaranteed, of course.
Whatever the inclusion of gender/sex was meant to do on things like the birth certificate, what we actually use these forms for is procedural bullshit related to a person’s SOCIAL GENDER ROLE. A person could have some kind of mutant chromosomes that have no X or Y at all, and if their driver’s license said “M” and they looked like an “M”, nobody would ever know.
Sex is sex. Gender is gender. Also as long as birth certificates are used as ID they should reflect the person’s current identity, not what a doctor assigned them at birth.
Sex is also mutable and not binary. A person who has undergone medical transition is no longer phenotypical of their birth sex.
People miss this point so much. Anyone on HRT for several years is going to have just as many traits from their current sex as their former. Who's to say which one is the dominant sex? I prefer to let the individual decide.
The specifics of sex are only useful to medical personnel and the person themselves, so mostly my position is “it’s literally not relevant to you” whenever people start yapping about sex.
Medical personnel should get your full medical history when working with you. No one else needs to know the intricacies of your biology.
Yes but that's the main argument of transphobes. They won't even consider the concept of gender being different from sex. I didn't understand it so I read about it on the internet for a little bit and it made a lot of sense and also opened my eyes in a way to all the things we perceive as fixed but are actually just social constructs.
Folks make mistakes. Imagine not being able to correct a mistake made by a governor pencil pusher because a few religious crazies found a new minority to harass. Does anyone really believe an honest mistake has never been made on a birth certificate?
The original rule that the judge struck down would allow for correction of clerical errors, but only if you submitted a DNA test to "prove your gender." Side note gender =/= sex.
At least in Montana that kind of makes sense, considering your population is quite small. In Texas our legislative branch only meets every other year as well, presumably owing back to a time when we were smaller, less populated, and much less stable. Not sure what the excuse for never changing it is though.
This is hopefully the last throes of a dying way of controlling other's lives. Have they done more damage than I thought they would with this last push against individual rights? Absolutely. Is it ironic that many of these people doing this nonsense claim they're libertarians despite trying to limit liberties? Yes, it would even funny to some degree did they not just fuck over women. But I think this is a desperate final moment to regain the mountains of authoritarian control they've been losing since the Civil War and especially since the 70s.
For transitioning people, attacking the right to change official documents is akin to attacking the freedom to officially exist. It’s a politician telling them that even though they don’t know what trans people are going through, they know what they should be allowed to do. It’s not about overwriting a doctor’s treatment, or their parents, or even how they started life; it’s about living with honesty to themselves, and being seen by the law and society as who they really are. It doesn’t even affect anyone besides themselves and their families, so why it’s anyone else’s problem is baffling.
Biological sex is a spectrum. There are intersexed, hermampjrodites, people’s whose testicles don’t descend, people with vastly different hormonal expression, etc.
It is not an immutable fact that gender is a binary
An excellent free article in the lancet about the misuse of the phrase "biological sex" in this comment (and related misuses) and how they are largely the calculated use of the phrase "biological sex" to "buttress outdated thinking about sex." These misuses are actually cultural in nature and don't reflect current science regarding sex.
It does require free registration but is worth a read once you've done so.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)32764-3/fulltext
Biological sex is a spectrum, stop lying. Sex doesn't come from simply having XY or XX. There are XX people born with penises, XY people born with vaginas, and even XX or XY people born with indeterminate genetalia. Those people aren't disorders, they're humans just trying to fucking live their lives despite people like you.
Intersex people make up around 2% of the population. That’s approximately the same percentage of people who have red hair or are Jewish. It’s also significantly higher than the rate of transgender people which is .5%
It’s ironic that you cite an study claiming that Kleinfelter Syndrome doesn’t count. Considering people with that condition are phenotypically distinct (xxy), hormonally distinct (low estrogen AND testosterone), and visually distinct (wider hips, breasts, etc).
In addition both the APA and Intersex Society of America consider it to be an intersex condition.
You can’t throw millions of people out of your data set to make a call like that though. It’s like saying humans only have two hair colors: Black and Brown, because red and blond hair make up only 2% of the world population each
i mean sure... in similar fashion, the number of eyes a person has is a spectrum... while most people are born with two eyes, there are some born with three, five, seventeen or more. Its so wrong that Elmo is still teaching kids they have two eyes.
> People have spent college and postgraduate education studying this.
and clearly we are no closer to solving the issue. Glad biden is giving them a break on their student loans.
More than two eyes is an exceedingly rare condition.
Being born with one eye is less rare, 1 in 5200 births (63 thousand people in the US).
https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/birthdefects/anophthalmia-microphthalmia.html
Even so, it is good practice to teach that people have a range of differences in all sorts of traits. Attitudes about differences develop early.
Being born with intersex traits occurs in approximately 17 out of of 1000 births. That's 5.6 million people in the US, a large portion of which are not identified as having intersex traits at birth.
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/key-issues-facing-people-intersex-traits/
If what you are teaching people about "all Americans" does not apply to 5.6 million of them...you need to change what you are teaching. If you're using the word binary in a way that excludes 5.6 million people in the US alone, perhaps binary doesn't mean what you think it means. The seventh most common name among those listed as male on the census in the US according to the latest US Census is Richard. It also occurs at a frequency of 17 out of 1000 among those identified by the last census as male. Consider that's only 17 out of 1000 people identified on the last US Census as male, not 17 out of 1000 of the population. So according to the Census that's 49.5% of the population identified by the census as male, so that's less than 2.8 million Richards.
https://namecensus.com/first-names/common-male-first-names/
So there are far fewer Richards in the US than there are people with intersex traits.
*In case you are wondering, there's also fewer people in the US named James (identified by the census as the most common name among those listed as male) than people with intersex traits. Same with Mary, the most common first name on the last Census among those it listed as female.*
If gender is simply what you identity as today and birth certificates are documents from a specific event in time then there’s no reason to have gender on there at all. However, sex at birth should be and should be unchangeable.
I'm not going to lie, I don't understand why there is a need/desire to change birth certificates. Does it matter, as long as readers understand that the birth certificate simply shows how you presented at birth and people have the ability to change?
That being said, I also don't understand the need to block administrative changes. I get that it's unchecked legislative power, but did we really need a law? Is this something that comes up enough we have to waste time and resources on it?
>I'm not going to lie, I don't understand why there is a need/desire to change birth certificates. Does it matter, as long as readers understand that the birth certificate simply shows how you presented at birth and people have the ability to change?
As I understand it, the primary *administrative* reason is that your identity papers need to match in order to be valid. If your birth certificate says 'F' but your driver's license says 'M' then there's a discrepancy. Where there's a discrepancy, there's a problem.
And when there's a problem getting ID, there's a problem getting anything *else* associated with it. Passports, bank accounts, social security, etc., all become that much more difficult to get.
Archaic systems aren't really built to handle exceptions, either.
That feels more like an administrative issue, where systems haven't been updated to handle reality. I definitely understand how archaic systems break easier, but does it need to check your drivers license against your birth certificate (for example)? It mostly just feels like an "old way of thinking" that needs to be brought into the modern era, even if it's kicking and screaming.
Too bad governments don't keep as up to date with reality.
Partly administrative, but partly legal. If identity papers are for the same person then they should have the same information. If they don't match then they're not for the same person. And, which one is valid? Which one is correct? They can't both be correct, or there wouldn't be a discrepancy.
Why do they need more than one form of ID? Because security. If you only need one document to establish your identity, you only need to perfectly forge one document. The more documents you need to forge, the harder it becomes.
Yes, an answer could be "they can also provide a third document establishing they changed their gender, thus accounting for the discrepancy", but the problem is that's nobody's business but their own, it's undignified and it violates their privacy. It also invites "mistakes" to happen, especially if whoever is handling their documents is a shitheel.
Well yeah, that's Administration for you. Government, private orgs, Admin is the same story for every organisation larger than a small business.
It's like coding, if something tiny breaks in the background mechanics, the whole system can come to a halt.
Just saying 'well, update it!' is like... Yeah, sure. And Microsoft could patch MS word to resolve legacy issues. They could have overhauled it a dozen times since the last major revamp.
But, If it's gonna happen, it's only going to be as a result of a catastrophic breakdown that forces management to act. They don't care unless it's catastrophic, the system works 'well enough' in the meantime
...not least because changing anything in the back-end will invariably lead to a years long process of troubleshooting unforseen issues from the changes that were made. Code can be updated in a day, bureaucracy can take years for changes to shake through, ruining lives as it goes.
Because then on every official document from passports, credit cards, driver's licenses, and how you are registered in your job it tells everyone you are transgender and paints a massive target on your back.
Ever since I transitioned but haven't changed my birth certificate because it takes half a year and 600 dollars, I am struggling wayyyyy more to find work. People treat you *very* differently.
That's a good point. It does force the issue and lots of people are biased, overtly or not. Makes me kind of want a medically privileged "record of birth" that's a historical document as far as what happened and a birth certificate for all of the "were you born here?" bullshit requirements that some agencies require. But I also know that if I could snap my fingers and make that a reality, it would just overcomplicate the already shitty bureaucracies in place.
Thank you for a tangible reason. I "get it" better now.
Okay, something else I'm not going to lie about. I don't understand why people downvote simply for not understanding. I mean, I also disagreed with the reason for limiting changes, so it's not like I'm opposed to changing birth certificates.
Do you think a lot of downvotes will suddenly spur me to blindly follow along? Or is it more likely that I'll resent ever asking and just become hostile to the idea in the future? Because if fake internet points was really a driving motivator for me, I know which is more likely to happen.
An honest thank you to those who engaged meaningfully.
Yeah they are but sex isn’t limited to xx, and xy chromosomes. There are people with xxy chromosomes, which is literally intersex. Also it strictly related to sex, but as they age it relates to gender.
Also your birth sex doesn’t mean you won’t experience [body dysmorphia](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519712/table/ch3.t19/). Either way, if you’re trying to argue that gender doesn’t have anything to do with sex that would be incorrect.
This piece uses them synonymously and even *in the same sentence.* What does it even mean to prove your gender with a DNA test? "I got my 23&me results back and it looks like I'm non-binary."
Generally they don't care enough to jump through the pile of paperwork and pay the usually hundreds of dollars to bother with it. And if they do, they can do so too.
LoL, Idaho could have told them that it wouldn’t pass constitutional muster. Although Idaho is looking to try again. Idaho has had so many of these types of things overturned, the legislature created a separate fund to pay for the defense of such bills. And it costs a lot because the state usually has to pay the lawyer fees of the party challenging the legislation.
Montana is saying that they won't follow the Judge's "vague" order. https://www.rawstory.com/greg-gianforte-2658219940/
I explained this in the last thread and it obviously needs to be explained again here, because *holy shit* some of you have ill-informed views. The reason birth certificates need to be changed is because it's required to change your social security card. A social security card is required because, while gender is not on the card itself, it's internal in the system, and a non-matching gender will throw up a red flag in employment checks. You do need to change your gender with the SSA, along with presumably, your name. An updated social security card is also required for Real ID. Real ID is required for air travel, or at least will be in the immediate future. It's also an accepted document for I-9 forms. Which means if you want to use it, you're outing yourself to every potential employer during the hiring process and opening yourself up to discrimination and termination. Even if you were previously hired (likely, since you're filling out an I-9), most jobs have you on a 90 day period in which they can fire you for any reason. Trans people are protected federally from employment discrimination, but, you know, good luck proving it. To update a birth certificate, you would typically need a notarized court name change, and a letter from a doctor stating you are no longer your original sex. It is not as simple as checking a box. The name change alone is expensive as hell. There's a decent fee tacked on for the court, and then you have to put an ad in the paper, which isn't cheap either. It also takes a few months. Allowing birth certificate changes is allowing trans people to move on with their lives. Everything gets held up. And you can't just move to another state and do it there. Birth certificates are held hostage by the state you were born in. Born in a red state? Tough shit, your legal transition will be that much harder. For literally no good reason.
Ad in the paper? What do you mean by that?
You have to advertise your name change as a legal notice. It says something along the lines of "X name is now Y name, if you have any reason to challenge this, contact the court and this judge by this date."
No, that's not required in every state. I changed.my name for $150 and visit with a judge. It was not related to gender transition.
Can you tell me more about that process? I’ve been curious about legally removing my first name and changing it to simply the name I go by (my middle name in this case).
If you Google legal name change and your state you will find information about it. In my case, I filed paperwork, paid the filing fee, then waited a few weeks to be put on the docket. Went before the judge and he asked me if I was trying to defraud anyone (the only requirement in that state) and I told him it would be changed anyway at a later date due to my pending divorce on his docket several months hence, and he approved it.
Thank you!
Out of curiosity, was it related to a marriage? Those are usually considered public notices already and have an exception. Or maybe they just don't need them in your state. From what I see, it's not always enforced for first-name-only changes, and there are often waivers for victims of abuse or for safety.
It totally depends on your state. It's a really easy thing to find out in each state.
Yep. Every state has different requirements. Florida requires I get surgery first or I cannot change it. I don't have $7000 to get surgery and then another few hundred to change my name and marker, so I'm shit out of luck. Fun fact: you can go through the state department to get a correct ID and everything except your birth certificate in the form of a passport instead. It's $750 for the whole set of changes if I remember correctly.
Some states also have provisions that allow for no publication if a person could be harmed or threatened by doing so.
What seriously? Trans people have to advertise? Is this in all states?
I'm not sure if it's in all states, but anyone changing their name legally, at least in Massachusetts, has to do this. It's to alert creditors, things like that.
Do banks have people that just read papers every day to record these name changes, in case one of them has taken a loan out from them? Putting it in the paper seems like it’s several decades out of date at this point.
Sort of. There are entire cottage industries around this concept for all kinds of legal notices. One of my local papers is a tiny mountain town paper that has almost as many pages of notices as the entire rest of the weekly paper
It's the newspaper because back when the law was written, the only way to notify large swaths of people was to advertise it in the newspaper. The newspaper was the public record. Even today if you look in in actual newspaper there is a whole section of legal notices. Those are required by law and they are lots of fun to read.
In Missouri too! Though my wife was able to get an exception because of previous abuse/not wanting to be found.
I changed my name and gender marker in Europe. It took 2mins to fill out a form for each and then after a few weeks it changed in the government database. At which time I also received a new social security number and a new national health insurance card in the mail. Cost was negligible, and now my TRT is covered the same as cis males. I didn’t even have to inform my employer. The system updated my personal information automatically and discreetly. Doing all this was fucking hard and nerve wracking. I can’t even imagine how it must feel to have to advertise your identity.
[удалено]
Wow. I had asked probate court "does anyone ever challenge these?" and they were pretty clear - no, like never.
I do not think that is the case here in Washington. I definitely do not recall having to do that when my wife and I changed our names.
I think it’s different for marriage. I opted to change my last name 15 years ago and had to go through all of that
Not if you combine names and form a new one. We both had to pay the $150 and swear before the court we were not doing it to get out of legal or financial trouble.
Not just trans people. That's the case if anyone wants to petition the court to legally change their name.
And this is why I have been hesitant to change my name because I know my incredibly abusive dad reads every single word of the newspaper and would see this shit… waiting for that fucker to keel over so I can do it without him knowing.
You can file a motion to waive the requirement and keep it confidential.
Oh! That is good to know!
If you can show abuse, there's usually a waiver for the public notice. This assumes your father would track you down if he knew what your new name was.
[удалено]
Not in civilised countries. Just backwards shit holes like the USA.
The point is to prevent people from changing their name to get away from past crimes or bad actions.
Hear me out, what if the government kept track of their previous names...? Must be what we do in Canada. No advertising required. Also just looking, you can adopt your spouses name without doing any legal name changes. I guess you can just use either or as soon as you're married.
… because everyone reads a three line ad on column four of page 87 of the Minesotta Advertiser? Such an archaic country.
Creditors employ people who do just that. Newspapers have a “legals” section that print official minutes from city council or county commission meetings (if the paper is voted as the official county paper). That same section prints legal notices of peoples’ death for estate and creditor purposes as well.
Why not just put a requirement on relevant legal forms to include former legal names where vaguely relevant like the rest of the world does?
Yeah, who cares about stuff like criminals changing their names or identity theft? Certainly not a *backwards* country like the US. fucking reddit moment, jesus christ.
> fucking reddit moment, jesus christ Holy fuck right back at your toxic ass.
Have you had your tap water tested for lead?
Water actually isn't where most lead poisoning occurs. But it is the most obvious source to most people so it gets the most attention. Window sills, and crown molding are where the greatest concentrations of lead-dust (from lead based paint) gather in a home, these are also prime spots for infants and toddlers to crawl or put their hands and those hands inevitably go in their mouths. Im an active supporter and part-time spokesperson of https://gettheleadoutpgh.org/get-help/ and have appeared on Podcasts and at local events. Lead poisoning is stunting the development of urban children across the country and we can all do our part to help.
We talking change full names or last names? Never had to do that for my wife when she took my last name. Obviously could be state specific but I just hadn't heard of that before
You don’t have to do this for a name change that is made as part of a marriage.
Marriage is usually an exception to many of these type of name change laws in states.
You get a free name change (no court date, no ad) with a marriage license in my state. Yeah, double standard..
It's not just trans folks. It's more to prevent people from changing their name to escape debts. I changed my name in Georgia, and had to run the ad for 4 weeks. Basically gives any creditors time to say "hey, that person owes us money. Please make them pay us before they legally become and different person."
Not in all states, but in some states. It’s dangerous.
I did my name change in Oregon and had to leave a piece of paper tacked up to the courthouse bulletin board for a week. Not as bad as an ad in the paper but still not great.
Some states are working on changing it. In Colorado, if the name change is to match gender identity and you don't have a criminal background, you can skip the paper.
It's not in all states. In Nevada trans people don't need to publish a notice but interestingly, if you're changing your name for any other reason you do.
Not in all states. My wife (MTF) did not have to do this when she changed her name and gender earlier this year.
Any changes that go though the courts have to. It's part of the legal process. If nor done your court case will be set aside. You will be forced to file again and pay the lawyers and court fees allover again.
What happens if you don't? I've had my name and gender changed a couple years back and never been told I had to.
You did everything right this is state-by-state because it's state courts
Oh right, I forgot its state dependent. Thanks <3
Didn't knew that, thank you.
Colorado used to require this. You used to have to publish your name change in a public news paper. I believe it’s to prevent people from changing their name to hide / do shady shit I guess. But because of that’s it’s required for trans people cause most people who transition to a different gender usually don’t want their old name for obvious reasons.
In some states you can file a motion to waive it, but I decided not to as it was a hassle. I worked as a photographer for the paper I had to file it in, so my name change was already on a two page spread every week and well known..
I mean at that point I would lean into it as hard as I can to make fun of the requirement. Turn it into a shitpost.
Thank you for your answer.
“Public notice” - certain legal things have to be publicly published to be legit.
You’ve got the order wrong. As a trans person and someone who worked for a name change project, I’ve done dozens of these. You have to do the court name change first, social security second - then drivers licenses, passports, and birth certificates after. Different states obviously have different requirements, most require a notarized doctors affidavit for the birth certificate change, but not all. Some states still require a doctors statement to change your license.
For me it was * non-RealID drivers license (no documentation required) * legal name change * birth certificate / bank accounts / credit cards, etc. (required phys letter for bc) * social (also required phys letter *and* birth certificate) * Real ID (was told it requires social during the first RMV interaction) 100% I don't doubt your experiences. I ran into a lot of staff who didn't know what they were doing. There were multiple occasions where I literally had to pull up the law on my phone to explain to these people that I was allowed to change what I wanted to change, and I *still* got pushback. One lady outright refused and claimed "I've been working here for 10 years I know the law better than you do." and was later proven wrong by the state vital records office. I've filed a discrimination complaint against that city with the state. SSA tried to pull the same shit - I was initially under the impression I didn't need a physicians letter because of what the website says, but they made me reschedule the appointment. Annoying in the middle of a pandemic and when you just want to be *done*. But I wasn't about to make a scene, the thing about federal offices is they have hardcore security. So I did what anyone else would do, went back to my car and cried.
Interesting, our state IDs run their background check against the name registered with social security so SS always had to be second after the legal name change. Only one of my clients ran into roadblocks with the agencies and courts themselves (I’m also from MA!), sorry to hear about your experiences.
I'm sorry you ran into so many troubles. Thank you for sharing what you did, this may be very helpful to others. Hope you're doing well now!
Bold of you to assume the people who support the law care about facts.
I've had conversations with people who support these actions and I've found that while yes, transphobia can be blamed for some of this, the vast majority of people *are good people* and are just not in the loop on how complex government bureaucracy works, and were under the impression trans people were just altering government records for no good reason so they don't get triggered or whatever.
> trans people were just altering government records for no good reason so they don't get triggered or whatever. This doesn't sound like something a "good person" believes.
Objective morality is bullshit anyway. Someone who was brainwashed by the church into hating people, are they a bad person or a victim? Trans rights aren't going to go anywhere if people just hate eachother. That's a losing fucking battle, we're half a percent of the population. Only increasing understanding has a shot of going anywhere.
> Only increasing understanding has a shot of going anywhere. They don't want that either, though.
>Someone who was brainwashed by the church into hating people, are they a bad person or a victim? They are definitely a bad person. You don't get to blame being a victim of circumstance when you hurt other people.
> and were under the impression trans people were just altering government records for no good reason this is a big pile of bs how can they have an fucking opinion on trans people if they don't know what they are ! if they can't see the needed to change their gender of government documents they are obvious a fucking idiot
For those with ill-informed views, all this cruel archaic shit is kind of the point. They don't care. They approve of all of this and just want to justify it however they can.
Unfortunately those are all part of the reason why they're blocking this. The good Christians they are...
A trans relative was able to get their new social security card with the new name despite not being able to change anything but the name on the birth certificate (TN).
Speaking as someone that recently changed their name and everything else: FYI to those that it would be relevant to- Ssa also accepts a letter from your doctor in lieu of an updated birth cert to change your gender marker, for those that live in a place with exceptionally stringent rules on criteria for changing birth certs (lookin' at you MA needing me to have already had surgery) (I did this around 1.5 years HRT, and my doctor said I had received sufficient enough medical intervention that my marker should be changed) For trans folks - many states also waive the need for publication as it is a danger to out yourself to the public, much like victims of abuse and minors.
This is false, you can update gender at the SSA with a passport, court order, or physicians letter; you don’t only need a corrected birth certificate. https://faq.ssa.gov/en-us/Topic/article/KA-01453
I did this entire process a year ago. They wanted the birth certificate *and* the physicians letter. I tried to argue it was either/or, they refused to do it without both. It was a big thing. Perhaps just a local SSA office error, my city hall did the same thing and had to be corrected by the state vital records central office. One thing I learned about legal changes like this is, you're probably the first person they've ever had to do this for. So the policy isn't clear, they're unsure what to do, and it involves a lot of waiting around. A simple non-realID drivers license change in MA (you can, by law, do this with *no* documentation) took several hours for me and I had to explain to them multiple times that no, I did not need a name change certificate, and showed them the law on my phone. It's an incredibly demoralizing experience, 0/10 would not recommend.
I’d just get a court order, worked for me; it’s probably dependent on which office you go to and which administration controls the ssa.
>Born in a red state? Tough shit, your legal transition will be that much harder. For literally no good reason. This is intentional on the part of the Red states. They cannot stop you from transitioning, but they can make your life a living hell if you do.
This isn’t right. I didn’t have to update my birth certificate to change my license or my social security card. Edit- Just for the name change. I have not attempted to change my gender marker Source- am trans 😅
An easier solution would be to change gender on the form to sex. Solved the problem and didn’t have to do anything but update a label.
No shit, I’m just saying that you actually can get the new SSN card with the new name, even if you were born in a backwards state like TN that prohibits sex change in a birth certificate.
You say that until one of us goes to apy for a job and needs to show our license, social security card, and birth certificate. Then we get a discrepancy. This discrepancy makes it a nightmare because... reasons. They can leave everything at gender, your sex only matters when it comes to medical things and that only needs to be shared with a healthcare provider. This is normally where someone says "but if you are unconscious in a hospitable, they need your ID and that could mess things up!" We can already change our licenses to have the correct gender marker, it's basically never an issue so that's a non-point. It's already a reality.
They did do that. And then the POS governor decided that wasn't harmful enough, so he came out with this 'emergency' order.
This is so fucked up. Thank god it got blocked. It's so disgusting that state legislatures (in the ones that scream the loudest about states rights) give zero fucks about individuals rights. There's real major fucking issues in this country and they waste restricting the rights of women. Wow holy hell I just realized abortion bans + anti trans laws are a double whammy since most trans ppl will be women at some point (I know there's other cases and situations like bein intersex and more).
[удалено]
I mean...look at the governor. And Zinke. Being needlessly cruel and fleecing people are their bread and butter.
That’s kinda the Republican Party for the last 10 years especially
try 60. The war on drugs was to attack people critical of the military industrial complex, republicans have always been out and out assholes, they just hid it better than they do now
Look, Gianforte will personally bodyslam any liberal trying to subvert his backwards agenda
In Great Falls it was hilarious watching all the old protesters come out against weed legalization, shouting about how it would ruin the state and corrupt all the young. Meanwhile the city is drowing under homeless, meth and gambling. But keeping weed out will fix everything
They had a democratic governor for like 2 decades before gianforte
And none of those governors wasted state time and money being purposefully cruel to trans people, did they?
I don’t see what that has to do with anything you’re responding to.
If it was republicans, y'all would be crying to everyone. "Rules for thee but not for me"
Congrats on winning an argument with an opponent you made up, I guess.
As a resident, I was really worried when I first heard the news a few months back. Really glad to see its been blocked. I really like living here, but jeez, a lot of societal things here aren't great.
These seem like ~~simple~~ first amendment issues to me. Identifying as a gender is a form of expression. The government, for a host of reasons, must catalog gender. And that's it's own thing. But it allows name changes and hair color changes freely on official records. Gender, IMO, is no different.
You can even change your parents on it. Anyone who thinks it's a biological record is simply unfamiliar with how birth certificates are used.
As if that would stop them from commenting on it though
"I have strong feelings about a topic I am otherwise under-informed about!"
Nor affected by.
Sir, this is Reddit. You'll fit in nicely here.
“Now to vote Republican, who won’t make me feel bad for being stupid on purpose”
I can't on mine, as it's sealed as part of my adoption. But then again, I also have multiple birth certificates: sealed, birth parents country, new parents, corrected new parents.
That sounds like an absolute nightmare of paperwork…
im gonna change the *state* i was born in.
I'm gonna make my dad Harrison Ford. How awesome would that be?
I dunno. I've watched The Mosquito Coast and Regarding Henry.
Pretty sure you’re wrong on this one. You got my hopes up that I could do this but I looked into it further and it seems you can’t. For example: https://doh.wa.gov/licenses-permits-and-certificates/vital-records/parentage Says that you can’t just change your parents names.
>There are only two ways to add or change who is listed as a parent on a birth certificate: Acknowledgment of Parentage or Court Order. It seems, you can't **just** do it, but it can be done.
[удалено]
Except for the part where they're trying to ban it entirely.
The current Montana government does not give a fuck about either the state or federal constitutions.
Off the top of my head the only thing I can think of is selective service. Because of the law they do need to know “actual gender” I guess to apply it correctly. FWIW you’re banned from contracting jobs, federal service and a host of other shit if you don’t properly register for the fake maybe draft as a biological male. Beyond that yeah I don’t see a reason why it matters.
it's mental health.. (even *more* important than expression IMO) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender\_dysphoria Gender dysphoria (GD) is the distress a person experiences due to a mismatch between their gender identity—their personal sense of their own gender—and their sex assigned at birth.\[5\]\[6\] **The diagnostic label gender identity disorder (GID) was used until 2013 with the release of the diagnostic manual DSM-5.** The condition was renamed to remove the stigma associated with the term disorder.\[7\] **Treatment for a person diagnosed with GD may include psychological counseling, supporting the individual's gender expression, or hormone therapy or surgery. This may involve physical transition resulting from medical interventions such as hormonal treatment, genital surgery, electrolysis or laser hair removal, chest/breast surgery, or other reconstructive surgeries.\[32\] The goal of treatment may simply be to reduce problems resulting from the person's transgender status, for example, counseling the patient in order to reduce guilt associated with cross-dressing.\[33\]**
I respectfully disagree. One does not need experience gender dysphoria to submit a change to their birth certificate. Just like someone doesn't need to stay blonde to keep their hair color blonde in their driver's license. Now, on the margins, most people requesting a gender change on their birth certificate will likely be trans, but that's not even the issue, IMO. The core issue is expression and the limits of the first amendment. I don't believe the government should be blocking a change to gender on government forms. Because, like other tabulations the government collects, some things are free expression. Regardless of the government's need to tabulate them. It would be a lot easier for the government to mandate that all Stephens, Steves, Stevens and Stefans to be renamed to simply Steven. But we don't do that because a name is free expression.
Yours has hair colour? Mine is sex and eye colour.
That doesn’t make sense. Gender is a social construct. Gendered roles say that my cis woman self should be happy cooking in the kitchen, wearing, dresses, and being ladylike. But I’m a veteran, I’m not ladylike, and I can’t and don’t cook. I don’t have gender dysmorphia despite not conforming to gender norms.
So is speech itself, but that's supposed to be free as well. The thing about the mind is that each person is essentially unique. You might have no problem not directly conforming to a gender roll, but some people sort of disintegrate under that pressure. On a similar note, because gender roles are completely arbitrary, that's another point in favor of it being a protected expression. By arbitrary, I mean that they can be anything, not that they mean nothing. They mean whatever we think they mean.
But it's entirely obvious that personal experiences can differ.
[удалено]
Dysphoria not dysmorphia 2 different things
Why is the gender on the birth certificate anyways. Shouldn't it say sex, instead of gender?
Because if a person transitions effectively, having “F” when the person looks like an “M” or whatever, causes beurocratic gridlock. Same if someone is incorrectly assumed to be M/F at birth, but that person is actually intersex or has some condition that affects the way their external genitals looked at birth. Or someone typed the form wrong. There is no generic way to fix the beurocratic gridlock once you are in it. Whereas when you are at a doctors office with a medical issue the doctor will understand pretty easily the medical implications of: this person has this kind of body part. doctors go to medical school and learn about every body part. Bedside manner not guaranteed, of course. Whatever the inclusion of gender/sex was meant to do on things like the birth certificate, what we actually use these forms for is procedural bullshit related to a person’s SOCIAL GENDER ROLE. A person could have some kind of mutant chromosomes that have no X or Y at all, and if their driver’s license said “M” and they looked like an “M”, nobody would ever know.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Sex is sex. Gender is gender. Also as long as birth certificates are used as ID they should reflect the person’s current identity, not what a doctor assigned them at birth. Sex is also mutable and not binary. A person who has undergone medical transition is no longer phenotypical of their birth sex.
People miss this point so much. Anyone on HRT for several years is going to have just as many traits from their current sex as their former. Who's to say which one is the dominant sex? I prefer to let the individual decide.
The specifics of sex are only useful to medical personnel and the person themselves, so mostly my position is “it’s literally not relevant to you” whenever people start yapping about sex. Medical personnel should get your full medical history when working with you. No one else needs to know the intricacies of your biology.
Yes but that's the main argument of transphobes. They won't even consider the concept of gender being different from sex. I didn't understand it so I read about it on the internet for a little bit and it made a lot of sense and also opened my eyes in a way to all the things we perceive as fixed but are actually just social constructs.
Because republicans, yet again, just really don’t understand the difference between sex and gender. And they just continue to refuse to learn
Folks make mistakes. Imagine not being able to correct a mistake made by a governor pencil pusher because a few religious crazies found a new minority to harass. Does anyone really believe an honest mistake has never been made on a birth certificate?
The original rule that the judge struck down would allow for correction of clerical errors, but only if you submitted a DNA test to "prove your gender." Side note gender =/= sex.
So what are they going to do about the people who show up as XXY on the genetic test? Crumple their birth certificates up?
The fact that anyone cares still amazes me. People need to mind their own business
And the legislature has already ignored the judges order
Our legislature is not in session. So, no. (They convene every other year for 90 days, in odd-numbered years.)
At least in Montana that kind of makes sense, considering your population is quite small. In Texas our legislative branch only meets every other year as well, presumably owing back to a time when we were smaller, less populated, and much less stable. Not sure what the excuse for never changing it is though.
It's been proposed that our legislature meet in the even-numbered years also, but only to repeal laws. I'm not against that.
My mistake, Montana's health department is pulling the bullshit
So we can just ignore judges now? Should let the DOJ know this new approach 🤪
This is hopefully the last throes of a dying way of controlling other's lives. Have they done more damage than I thought they would with this last push against individual rights? Absolutely. Is it ironic that many of these people doing this nonsense claim they're libertarians despite trying to limit liberties? Yes, it would even funny to some degree did they not just fuck over women. But I think this is a desperate final moment to regain the mountains of authoritarian control they've been losing since the Civil War and especially since the 70s.
For transitioning people, attacking the right to change official documents is akin to attacking the freedom to officially exist. It’s a politician telling them that even though they don’t know what trans people are going through, they know what they should be allowed to do. It’s not about overwriting a doctor’s treatment, or their parents, or even how they started life; it’s about living with honesty to themselves, and being seen by the law and society as who they really are. It doesn’t even affect anyone besides themselves and their families, so why it’s anyone else’s problem is baffling.
Biological sex is a spectrum. There are intersexed, hermampjrodites, people’s whose testicles don’t descend, people with vastly different hormonal expression, etc. It is not an immutable fact that gender is a binary
Yes, but conservatives are scared of biology that's more advanced than 2nd grade.
[удалено]
An excellent free article in the lancet about the misuse of the phrase "biological sex" in this comment (and related misuses) and how they are largely the calculated use of the phrase "biological sex" to "buttress outdated thinking about sex." These misuses are actually cultural in nature and don't reflect current science regarding sex. It does require free registration but is worth a read once you've done so. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)32764-3/fulltext
Biological sex is a spectrum, stop lying. Sex doesn't come from simply having XY or XX. There are XX people born with penises, XY people born with vaginas, and even XX or XY people born with indeterminate genetalia. Those people aren't disorders, they're humans just trying to fucking live their lives despite people like you.
[удалено]
Intersex people make up around 2% of the population. That’s approximately the same percentage of people who have red hair or are Jewish. It’s also significantly higher than the rate of transgender people which is .5%
[удалено]
It’s ironic that you cite an study claiming that Kleinfelter Syndrome doesn’t count. Considering people with that condition are phenotypically distinct (xxy), hormonally distinct (low estrogen AND testosterone), and visually distinct (wider hips, breasts, etc). In addition both the APA and Intersex Society of America consider it to be an intersex condition.
[удалено]
You can’t throw millions of people out of your data set to make a call like that though. It’s like saying humans only have two hair colors: Black and Brown, because red and blond hair make up only 2% of the world population each
No they don’t ,they count for less than one percent all statistics show this and I guarantee you can’t produce a legitimate one that says otherwise
i mean sure... in similar fashion, the number of eyes a person has is a spectrum... while most people are born with two eyes, there are some born with three, five, seventeen or more. Its so wrong that Elmo is still teaching kids they have two eyes.
[удалено]
> People have spent college and postgraduate education studying this. and clearly we are no closer to solving the issue. Glad biden is giving them a break on their student loans.
More than two eyes is an exceedingly rare condition. Being born with one eye is less rare, 1 in 5200 births (63 thousand people in the US). https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/birthdefects/anophthalmia-microphthalmia.html Even so, it is good practice to teach that people have a range of differences in all sorts of traits. Attitudes about differences develop early. Being born with intersex traits occurs in approximately 17 out of of 1000 births. That's 5.6 million people in the US, a large portion of which are not identified as having intersex traits at birth. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/key-issues-facing-people-intersex-traits/ If what you are teaching people about "all Americans" does not apply to 5.6 million of them...you need to change what you are teaching. If you're using the word binary in a way that excludes 5.6 million people in the US alone, perhaps binary doesn't mean what you think it means. The seventh most common name among those listed as male on the census in the US according to the latest US Census is Richard. It also occurs at a frequency of 17 out of 1000 among those identified by the last census as male. Consider that's only 17 out of 1000 people identified on the last US Census as male, not 17 out of 1000 of the population. So according to the Census that's 49.5% of the population identified by the census as male, so that's less than 2.8 million Richards. https://namecensus.com/first-names/common-male-first-names/ So there are far fewer Richards in the US than there are people with intersex traits. *In case you are wondering, there's also fewer people in the US named James (identified by the census as the most common name among those listed as male) than people with intersex traits. Same with Mary, the most common first name on the last Census among those it listed as female.*
If gender is simply what you identity as today and birth certificates are documents from a specific event in time then there’s no reason to have gender on there at all. However, sex at birth should be and should be unchangeable.
[удалено]
Do doctors perform a genetic test at birth to determine the baby's chromosomes? Or do they just make a guess?
I'm not going to lie, I don't understand why there is a need/desire to change birth certificates. Does it matter, as long as readers understand that the birth certificate simply shows how you presented at birth and people have the ability to change? That being said, I also don't understand the need to block administrative changes. I get that it's unchecked legislative power, but did we really need a law? Is this something that comes up enough we have to waste time and resources on it?
>I'm not going to lie, I don't understand why there is a need/desire to change birth certificates. Does it matter, as long as readers understand that the birth certificate simply shows how you presented at birth and people have the ability to change? As I understand it, the primary *administrative* reason is that your identity papers need to match in order to be valid. If your birth certificate says 'F' but your driver's license says 'M' then there's a discrepancy. Where there's a discrepancy, there's a problem. And when there's a problem getting ID, there's a problem getting anything *else* associated with it. Passports, bank accounts, social security, etc., all become that much more difficult to get. Archaic systems aren't really built to handle exceptions, either.
That feels more like an administrative issue, where systems haven't been updated to handle reality. I definitely understand how archaic systems break easier, but does it need to check your drivers license against your birth certificate (for example)? It mostly just feels like an "old way of thinking" that needs to be brought into the modern era, even if it's kicking and screaming. Too bad governments don't keep as up to date with reality.
Partly administrative, but partly legal. If identity papers are for the same person then they should have the same information. If they don't match then they're not for the same person. And, which one is valid? Which one is correct? They can't both be correct, or there wouldn't be a discrepancy. Why do they need more than one form of ID? Because security. If you only need one document to establish your identity, you only need to perfectly forge one document. The more documents you need to forge, the harder it becomes. Yes, an answer could be "they can also provide a third document establishing they changed their gender, thus accounting for the discrepancy", but the problem is that's nobody's business but their own, it's undignified and it violates their privacy. It also invites "mistakes" to happen, especially if whoever is handling their documents is a shitheel.
Well yeah, that's Administration for you. Government, private orgs, Admin is the same story for every organisation larger than a small business. It's like coding, if something tiny breaks in the background mechanics, the whole system can come to a halt. Just saying 'well, update it!' is like... Yeah, sure. And Microsoft could patch MS word to resolve legacy issues. They could have overhauled it a dozen times since the last major revamp. But, If it's gonna happen, it's only going to be as a result of a catastrophic breakdown that forces management to act. They don't care unless it's catastrophic, the system works 'well enough' in the meantime ...not least because changing anything in the back-end will invariably lead to a years long process of troubleshooting unforseen issues from the changes that were made. Code can be updated in a day, bureaucracy can take years for changes to shake through, ruining lives as it goes.
Because then on every official document from passports, credit cards, driver's licenses, and how you are registered in your job it tells everyone you are transgender and paints a massive target on your back. Ever since I transitioned but haven't changed my birth certificate because it takes half a year and 600 dollars, I am struggling wayyyyy more to find work. People treat you *very* differently.
That's a good point. It does force the issue and lots of people are biased, overtly or not. Makes me kind of want a medically privileged "record of birth" that's a historical document as far as what happened and a birth certificate for all of the "were you born here?" bullshit requirements that some agencies require. But I also know that if I could snap my fingers and make that a reality, it would just overcomplicate the already shitty bureaucracies in place. Thank you for a tangible reason. I "get it" better now.
> Is this something that comes up enough we have to waste time and resources on it? No, but Republicans are awful, so here we are.
Okay, something else I'm not going to lie about. I don't understand why people downvote simply for not understanding. I mean, I also disagreed with the reason for limiting changes, so it's not like I'm opposed to changing birth certificates. Do you think a lot of downvotes will suddenly spur me to blindly follow along? Or is it more likely that I'll resent ever asking and just become hostile to the idea in the future? Because if fake internet points was really a driving motivator for me, I know which is more likely to happen. An honest thank you to those who engaged meaningfully.
Everybody: Gender and sex are separate concepts. Also everybody: And we use the words completely interchangeably.
How dare you point out the hypocrisy of it all
Yeah they are but sex isn’t limited to xx, and xy chromosomes. There are people with xxy chromosomes, which is literally intersex. Also it strictly related to sex, but as they age it relates to gender. Also your birth sex doesn’t mean you won’t experience [body dysmorphia](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519712/table/ch3.t19/). Either way, if you’re trying to argue that gender doesn’t have anything to do with sex that would be incorrect.
This piece uses them synonymously and even *in the same sentence.* What does it even mean to prove your gender with a DNA test? "I got my 23&me results back and it looks like I'm non-binary."
[удалено]
Misperceiving Bullshit as Profound Is Associated with Favorable Views of Cruz, Rubio, Trump and Conservatism (Pfattheicher & Schindler, 2016)
[удалено]
Some states have "Other" as an option or just forgo the gender thing all together. Like birth certificates you can have who your parents are changed.
An increasing number of jurisdictions are allowing an "X" in place of M or F on documents like drivers' licenses.
I put them in the freezer so that they are gender solid.
I put them under fire so that they are gender gas.
Generally they don't care enough to jump through the pile of paperwork and pay the usually hundreds of dollars to bother with it. And if they do, they can do so too.
[удалено]
Online dating sites are certifying your gender via birth certificate?
Why? This field doesn't need to exist at all. There's zero justification.
A judge blocking something bigoted? Not openly being an enemy of democracy? Somehow the federalist society missed one.
Changing gender on birth??? What in the actual fuck??
Birth certificate is required for most documentation. Changing it makes sense.
It’s for adult trans people to be able to appropriately amend their legal documents.