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I'm not sure for which aspect you are looking for a source. Erin Reed raised the alarm about the potential visa interruptions, as reported here: [1] https://ww

I'm not sure for which aspect you are looking for a source. Erin Reed raised the alarm about the potential visa interruptions, as reported here: [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/marco-rubio-state-transgender-visa-b2704734.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/marco-rubi... If you're wondering why transgender travellers don't have documentation that matches their birth sex, it's because (gender identity aside) it's usually more important for documentation to match one's appearance. Documentation that doesn't match one's appearance can lead to questions, delays, and confusions. I have no source for this. If you're wondering why it's a problem for the conference, I don't have a source for that either. But from the tech conferences I've been to, I generally have observed a higher proportion of apparently transgender people than baseline. So by hosting in the U.S., the conference could potentially miss out on many transgender foreigners participating.

jl6 2y ago
It’s usually more important for official documentation to be accurate, not for it to match appearance. Many people appear younger or older than they are, but it would be bizarre to put apparent age on a passport. The document is supposed to act as the ground truth. Passports don’t currently contain a gender marker, so maybe that could be campaigned for.
- throwawayk7h 2y ago
  Apparent age vs actual age follows a very different probability distribution than apparent sex vs actual sex (whatever that is). We don't have 10-year-olds looking like 90-year-olds, and if one existed, they would encounter a lot of problems at the border. This is analogous to someone who appears male, even on close inspection, but has an F on their passport (or birth certificate, or driver's license). Plus, these are the sorts of things you use to get a drink at a bar, not just borders. Other countries allow one's sex to be changed legally to solve this problem. It's not "inaccurate" -- it's semantics. According to a different definition of sex (for instance, hormonal sex, which can be changed medically; or apparent sex), one's sex on passport might correctly differ from one's birth sex. You might object that that's a worse definition, and those countries should change to the U.S.'s definition. But due to intersex people, there is no universally consistent binary definition of sex. For instance, no country which does not permit sex to be changed legally allows for options outside of "F" and "M". So if you believe sex cannot be changed, then you must also admit that there are people who can never have accurate passports.
  - jl6 2y ago
    Those different “definitions” of sex are not the plain and common meaning of sex as reproductive role. “Hormonal sex” is a characteristic, not an alternative conceptual framework of what sex is. Yes, passports should acknowledge intersex conditions and this would be far easier if there weren’t people with unambiguous sex trying to use that mechanism too.
    - throwawayk7h 2y ago
      "Sex" is a disguised query [1]. I would not agree with you that the plain and common meaning of sex is that it's the reproductive role (which for many trans people is "permanently sterile" anyway). If you run a clothing store, you don't care about reproductive role, you care about whether someone wears men's or women's fashion. In daily life, a stranger's sex is entirely their appearance: we make a snap judgment to classify it as M or F, and most people will agree for any given person whether they are M or F. It's quite easy to see why that's what matters: if you get a public safety alert on your phone about, say, an "asian male, middle-aged last seen at ..." do you think, in the rare cases where they differ, that this refers to reproductive role or appearance? Let's hope it's appearance! In daily life, outside of dating perhaps, most people generally don't care about someone's reproductive role. In a public bathroom, most don't really care what's actually between someone's legs so long as the individual looks like they belong. The authorities almost always care about sex only as a visible characteristic for distinguishing people. When you say the common meaning refers to reproductive role, you are probably saying that only because it's a proxy for the aspects of one's sex we actually care about. This recent obsession that when we talk about someone's sex we obviously mean in a reproductive capacity regardless of context is a totally political fabrication in my opinion, and there's no good reason for a passport agency to prefer that definition. I believe the information on a passport is meant to help identify an individual -- so common-sense sex, i.e. appearance, is most important. (Similarly, requiring trans people to use the public bathroom they don't visually look like they belong in is only going to cause chaos, if they obey such a law.) [1] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/4FcxgdvdQP45D6Skg/disguised-queries https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/4FcxgdvdQP45D6Skg/disguised-...
      - 2y ago
koakuma-chan 2y ago
There you have it. Just have the sex on your application match that at your birth. Also what jl6 said.
- throwawayk7h 2y ago
  But if a transgender traveller applied for a visa with their birth sex instead of the sex on their documentation, this would very likely cause them to be flagged at the border, and they'd have a very difficult time entering the country (and reaching the conference). Surely you must agree?

jl6 2y ago

It’s usually more important for official documentation to be accurate, not for it to match appearance. Many people appear younger or older than they are, but it would be bizarre to put apparent age on a passport. The document is supposed to act as the ground truth. Passports don’t currently contain a gender marker, so maybe that could be campaigned for.

throwawayk7h 2y ago
Apparent age vs actual age follows a very different probability distribution than apparent sex vs actual sex (whatever that is). We don't have 10-year-olds looking like 90-year-olds, and if one existed, they would encounter a lot of problems at the border. This is analogous to someone who appears male, even on close inspection, but has an F on their passport (or birth certificate, or driver's license). Plus, these are the sorts of things you use to get a drink at a bar, not just borders. Other countries allow one's sex to be changed legally to solve this problem. It's not "inaccurate" -- it's semantics. According to a different definition of sex (for instance, hormonal sex, which can be changed medically; or apparent sex), one's sex on passport might correctly differ from one's birth sex. You might object that that's a worse definition, and those countries should change to the U.S.'s definition. But due to intersex people, there is no universally consistent binary definition of sex. For instance, no country which does not permit sex to be changed legally allows for options outside of "F" and "M". So if you believe sex cannot be changed, then you must also admit that there are people who can never have accurate passports.
- jl6 2y ago
  Those different “definitions” of sex are not the plain and common meaning of sex as reproductive role. “Hormonal sex” is a characteristic, not an alternative conceptual framework of what sex is. Yes, passports should acknowledge intersex conditions and this would be far easier if there weren’t people with unambiguous sex trying to use that mechanism too.
  - throwawayk7h 2y ago
    "Sex" is a disguised query [1]. I would not agree with you that the plain and common meaning of sex is that it's the reproductive role (which for many trans people is "permanently sterile" anyway). If you run a clothing store, you don't care about reproductive role, you care about whether someone wears men's or women's fashion. In daily life, a stranger's sex is entirely their appearance: we make a snap judgment to classify it as M or F, and most people will agree for any given person whether they are M or F. It's quite easy to see why that's what matters: if you get a public safety alert on your phone about, say, an "asian male, middle-aged last seen at ..." do you think, in the rare cases where they differ, that this refers to reproductive role or appearance? Let's hope it's appearance! In daily life, outside of dating perhaps, most people generally don't care about someone's reproductive role. In a public bathroom, most don't really care what's actually between someone's legs so long as the individual looks like they belong. The authorities almost always care about sex only as a visible characteristic for distinguishing people. When you say the common meaning refers to reproductive role, you are probably saying that only because it's a proxy for the aspects of one's sex we actually care about. This recent obsession that when we talk about someone's sex we obviously mean in a reproductive capacity regardless of context is a totally political fabrication in my opinion, and there's no good reason for a passport agency to prefer that definition. I believe the information on a passport is meant to help identify an individual -- so common-sense sex, i.e. appearance, is most important. (Similarly, requiring trans people to use the public bathroom they don't visually look like they belong in is only going to cause chaos, if they obey such a law.) [1] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/4FcxgdvdQP45D6Skg/disguised-queries https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/4FcxgdvdQP45D6Skg/disguised-...
    - 2y ago

koakuma-chan 2y ago

There you have it. Just have the sex on your application match that at your birth. Also what jl6 said.

throwawayk7h 2y ago
But if a transgender traveller applied for a visa with their birth sex instead of the sex on their documentation, this would very likely cause them to be flagged at the border, and they'd have a very difficult time entering the country (and reaching the conference). Surely you must agree?