4 ms·

This might be a bit of a strange take, but hear me out: this is good and should be the norm regardless of what you think or believe about trans people and/or ge

This might be a bit of a strange take, but hear me out: this is good and should be the norm regardless of what you think or believe about trans people and/or gender being binary or not. Gender as a social institution is a separate thing to me from gender as a facet of identity. By "social institution" I mean its involvement outside of interpersonal relationships, e.g. in situations like this where it's become the business of the state (and thus information that anybody even glancing at your ID card is privy to). That's patently absurd to me. How is it normal for a complete stranger to look at my ID and know (or at least think they know) what genitals I have? Or casually ask for that on forms? That certainly seems like information that I should have a measure of control over. For a few years now I've been of the opinion that a person should have to opt in to disclose their gender/sex except where actually necessary (e.g. in medical contexts). "Prefer not to disclose" (e.g. X along with M/F) should be a valid answer to anyone else that asks including the government.

RhysU 5y ago
> How is it normal for a complete stranger to look at my ID and know (or at least think they know) what genitals I have? Ignore naughty bits entirely! Everyone fixates on the naughty bits. Sheesh. Imagine a 5'6" male. Imagine a 5'6" female. Imagine them wearing the same outfit. Do they look, stereotypically, different enough that you could tell which one is standing in front of you with high accuracy? Do you think this outward difference might be a useful identification tool to assess if a passport belongs to the passport holder? Must this indicator be sinister? Is it so sinister that the government should reject it for other, possibly more sinister indicators?
- dariusj18 5y ago
  > Do you think this might be a useful identification tool to assess if a passport belongs to the passport holder? You mean rather than use the picture?
  - RhysU 5y ago
    You mean the one that can be years and years and years old? That likely was taken at Walgreens some Saturday morning? And which is not verified during the passport renewal? That one?
    - dariusj18 5y ago
      Yes, the one with more information, even when old, than any assumptions made based on sex.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
- pseudalopex 5y ago
  Height isn't required on passports. Even though it identifies people more specifically than sex. I would assume someone is trans if they matched the description and appearance on an identity document except for apparent sex. Sinister is a straw man.
  - filleduchaos 5y ago
    Who says they even have to be trans? If your security agents' brains are broken by a person not looking like a narrow stereotype of their sex, they're just bad at their jobs full stop (especially considering that they also have to identify children for example)
    - pseudalopex 5y ago
      Most people look distinctly male or female. I think they meant someone who looks distinctly male and presents a passport marked female should be assumed an impostor. Not it would break anyone's brain.
      - filleduchaos 5y ago
        > Most people look distinctly male or female In my actual experience most people are neither broad-shouldered Adonises nor voluptuous femme fatales, and it only takes an unflattering angle or non-mainstream fashion choice (or even nothing but their own imaginations) for people to start questioning someone's sex.
        pseudalopex 5y ago
        > neither broad-shouldered Adonises nor voluptuous femme fatales You have some narrow stereotypes if you think just those bodies look distinctly male or female. > it only takes an unflattering angle or non-mainstream fashion choice (or even nothing but their own imaginations) for people to start questioning someone's sex. Let's assume that's true. Are most angles unflattering? Are most fashion choices non mainstream?
- filleduchaos 5y ago
  > Ignore naughty bits entirely! Everyone fixates on the naughty bits. Sheesh. Sex literally is about "naughty bits". That is what it is, by definition. That is the information that we go about disclosing to all and sundry. > Imagine a 5'6" male. Imagine a 5'6" female. Imagine them wearing the same outfit. Do they look, stereotypically, different enough that you could tell which one is standing in front of you with high accuracy? If your system of identification depends on assessing people's (secondary) sex characteristics, it's pathetically bad.
the_third_wave 5y ago
Gender is a social construction - the word was intentionally pushed into the narrative for that purpose - but sex is not. The extreme majority of people is born either male - XY chromosomes, external genitals, produces small gametes, wider in the shoulders than in the hips if they eat a healthy diet, can not bear children - or female - XX chromosomes, internal genitals, conspicuous mammary glands, produces large gametes, wider at the hips than at the shoulders, can bear children and lactate to feed them. There are some important differences between men and women which need to be taken into account when e.g. the person is taken to a hospital or is taken into custody for some reason. Men and women react differently to some medicines and get different diseases. A man who is taken into a hospital with complaints of abdominal discomfort is not going to be pregnant and as such can be treated differently from a women who is admitted with the same complaints. Sending a woman home with the advice to take a pain killer can and has ended up with disastrous results for the child she is bearing, sending a man home with the same advice does not run such a risk. Putting a man and a woman in the same police cell can easily end badly for the woman, especially where alcohol or other drugs are involved. So, no, this is not a good idea, especially not when taking that passport across the border - and why else do you get a passport if not to travel across international borders - to countries which have not been touched by the gender craze. What is an Indonesian police officer going to do with an American citizen who chose to mark her gender as 'X', took a few drinks too many and ended up unconscious on the street on Bali? How will a Russian doctor treat her when she comes with the aforementioned complaints about abdominal discomfort? More importantly, what purpose is served by ignoring the above mentioned fact of the majority of people being born either male or female? Reality does not change just because someone chooses to ignore it.
- filleduchaos 5y ago
  It's somewhat baffling to me that you wrote out this entire paragraph about how sex is a pertinent factor in medical contexts when my proposal was literally "a person should have to opt in to disclose their gender/sex except where actually necessary (e.g. in medical contexts)". It's generally more productive when people don't make such clear knee-jerk responses to comments.
  - 5y ago

RhysU 5y ago

> How is it normal for a complete stranger to look at my ID and know (or at least think they know) what genitals I have? Ignore naughty bits entirely! Everyone fixates on the naughty bits. Sheesh. Imagine a 5'6" male. Imagine a 5'6" female. Imagine them wearing the same outfit. Do they look, stereotypically, different enough that you could tell which one is standing in front of you with high accuracy? Do you think this outward difference might be a useful identification tool to assess if a passport belongs to the passport holder? Must this indicator be sinister? Is it so sinister that the government should reject it for other, possibly more sinister indicators?

dariusj18 5y ago
> Do you think this might be a useful identification tool to assess if a passport belongs to the passport holder? You mean rather than use the picture?
- RhysU 5y ago
  You mean the one that can be years and years and years old? That likely was taken at Walgreens some Saturday morning? And which is not verified during the passport renewal? That one?
  - dariusj18 5y ago
    Yes, the one with more information, even when old, than any assumptions made based on sex.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
pseudalopex 5y ago
Height isn't required on passports. Even though it identifies people more specifically than sex. I would assume someone is trans if they matched the description and appearance on an identity document except for apparent sex. Sinister is a straw man.
- filleduchaos 5y ago
  Who says they even have to be trans? If your security agents' brains are broken by a person not looking like a narrow stereotype of their sex, they're just bad at their jobs full stop (especially considering that they also have to identify children for example)
  - pseudalopex 5y ago
    Most people look distinctly male or female. I think they meant someone who looks distinctly male and presents a passport marked female should be assumed an impostor. Not it would break anyone's brain.
    - filleduchaos 5y ago
      > Most people look distinctly male or female In my actual experience most people are neither broad-shouldered Adonises nor voluptuous femme fatales, and it only takes an unflattering angle or non-mainstream fashion choice (or even nothing but their own imaginations) for people to start questioning someone's sex.
      - pseudalopex 5y ago
        > neither broad-shouldered Adonises nor voluptuous femme fatales You have some narrow stereotypes if you think just those bodies look distinctly male or female. > it only takes an unflattering angle or non-mainstream fashion choice (or even nothing but their own imaginations) for people to start questioning someone's sex. Let's assume that's true. Are most angles unflattering? Are most fashion choices non mainstream?
filleduchaos 5y ago
> Ignore naughty bits entirely! Everyone fixates on the naughty bits. Sheesh. Sex literally is about "naughty bits". That is what it is, by definition. That is the information that we go about disclosing to all and sundry. > Imagine a 5'6" male. Imagine a 5'6" female. Imagine them wearing the same outfit. Do they look, stereotypically, different enough that you could tell which one is standing in front of you with high accuracy? If your system of identification depends on assessing people's (secondary) sex characteristics, it's pathetically bad.

the_third_wave 5y ago

Gender is a social construction - the word was intentionally pushed into the narrative for that purpose - but sex is not. The extreme majority of people is born either male - XY chromosomes, external genitals, produces small gametes, wider in the shoulders than in the hips if they eat a healthy diet, can not bear children - or female - XX chromosomes, internal genitals, conspicuous mammary glands, produces large gametes, wider at the hips than at the shoulders, can bear children and lactate to feed them. There are some important differences between men and women which need to be taken into account when e.g. the person is taken to a hospital or is taken into custody for some reason. Men and women react differently to some medicines and get different diseases. A man who is taken into a hospital with complaints of abdominal discomfort is not going to be pregnant and as such can be treated differently from a women who is admitted with the same complaints. Sending a woman home with the advice to take a pain killer can and has ended up with disastrous results for the child she is bearing, sending a man home with the same advice does not run such a risk. Putting a man and a woman in the same police cell can easily end badly for the woman, especially where alcohol or other drugs are involved. So, no, this is not a good idea, especially not when taking that passport across the border - and why else do you get a passport if not to travel across international borders - to countries which have not been touched by the gender craze. What is an Indonesian police officer going to do with an American citizen who chose to mark her gender as 'X', took a few drinks too many and ended up unconscious on the street on Bali? How will a Russian doctor treat her when she comes with the aforementioned complaints about abdominal discomfort? More importantly, what purpose is served by ignoring the above mentioned fact of the majority of people being born either male or female? Reality does not change just because someone chooses to ignore it.

filleduchaos 5y ago
It's somewhat baffling to me that you wrote out this entire paragraph about how sex is a pertinent factor in medical contexts when my proposal was literally "a person should have to opt in to disclose their gender/sex except where actually necessary (e.g. in medical contexts)". It's generally more productive when people don't make such clear knee-jerk responses to comments.
- 5y ago