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First baby born without a gender in Canada

E

eizarus

Banned
Babs Findlay said:
My name is spelled without capital letters. People make many assumptions about why that is. Here is the story. I have always signed my name without capital letters. When I was taking a Master of Laws degree in 1990, I had letterhead designed and my name was in lower case. I liked it, so I continued it when I returned to private practice in 1992. What an uproar! Lawyers called me up to say that they had a vote in their firm about why I chose that spelling; a court rejected an Order because my name was not properly spelled; and the local queer newspaper refused for years to spell my name without capital letters.

I realized that I had a perfect illustration of how we react when someone moves even a tiny bit away from a norm of behaviour, even with respect to something that has no impact on anyone else. So I have kept that spelling, and I tell this story in unlearning oppression workshops.
Click to expand...

UoT gives no fucks

3010780.jpg
 
N

NoblesseOblige

Banned
The lawyer may be a bit eccentric but she is a figure in LGBT rights and advocacy, notably because she was locked up in a psych ward for being gay while studying to become a lawyer and decided to use the law to help others who are persecuted for such things. As for the child, medicine still relies on being privy to a person's sex for some treatment/diagnosis. So I don't think it should be listed as 'undetermined'. I would find it an acceptable choice were it gender though.
 
B

Betty

Banned
Sure the child can decide their gender later if they want.

But biologically either s/he's male or female until then.
 
DKehoe

DKehoe

Member
From her website

My name is spelled without capital letters. People make many assumptions about why that is. Here is the story. I have always signed my name without capital letters. When I was taking a Master of Laws degree in 1990, I had letterhead designed and my name was in lower case. I liked it, so I continued it when I returned to private practice in 1992. What an uproar! Lawyers called me up to say that they had a vote in their firm about why I chose that spelling; a court rejected an Order because my name was not properly spelled; and the local queer newspaper refused for years to spell my name without capital letters.
Click to expand...

Seems like it's just a general preference and isn't any kind of statement.

EDIT: beaten
 
M

mariachi507

Member
To be honest, I'm not sure how to approach this. Forgive me if I use a wrong word here as I'm still learning. I'm not sure what the percentage is of people who experience gender identity issues in their life, but the mother is potentially causing a world of confusion for her child. I could convince my 3 year old niece of anything, and it seems like the mother is really forcing this where it might not even be an issue later on.

Wouldn't it be better for the mother to educate and talk to her child about this while they are growing up? Then if the child identifies with a gender opposite their sex to give all the support she could.

It seems like an odd thing to demand. Is she trying to force a trans child?
 
H

Hyun Sai

Member
I'm starting to make a list of all Neogaf members without capital letter in their name.

Better safe than sorry.
 
C

ColdDeckEd

Member
I feel like it's wrong to push this on the kid, but it's kodi's baby and as long as they treat the baby well with lots of love and aren't causing harm they are free to raise the child as they wish.

I don't agree with them wanting to leave the gender off the birth certificate though. Seems unnecessary.
 
I

Izuna

Banned
Another thing. Sex has a big influence on early behaviour, especially in babies. It affects testosterone production, among other things. This is not as simple as "let things take their own course".
 
K

Kyzer

Banned
Ummm...im kind of new at trying to understand all this but iirc gender dysphoria is not something literally every baby has and not everyone should "discover" their own gender because transgender people are literally assigned the wrong gender because of a biological error and actually suffer extreme anxiety and pain because of it, actually requiring medical treatment, literally knowing they were assigned a gender that mismatches their identity at birth. Transgenderism is not this hip thing that every baby should do and gender is not a choice, transgender are born that way. Somebody help me understand this and why i might be wrong?
 
C

ClosingADoor

Member
What exactly does this add for the child? You can raise him/her however you want. The kid doesn't give a fuck what's in the passport. And later on, if they want to pick a certain gender, go right ahead.

Sounds to me like the parent is in this way forcing their choice on the kid instead, where for the majority of people, they won't have a problem with their sex or gender. So why push this on them straight from birth, instead of just helping out later on if needed.
 
DKehoe

DKehoe

Member
Izuna said:
Another thing. Sex has a big influence on early behaviour, especially in babies. It affects testosterone production, among other things. This is not as simple as "let things take their own course".
Click to expand...

I'm not an expert in this so maybe I'm making a mistake here but I believe that sex and gender are actually two different things. Sex is biological but gender is social.
 
K

Kinyou

Member
The health card has been issued with a "U" in the space for "sex", which could be for "undetermined" or "unassigned".

Kori Doty is fighting to omit the gender from the birth certificate.
Click to expand...
What confuses me is how interchangeable sex and gender is used here. If the birth certificate says "sex" isnt it clear then that it should state the biological sex?
 
T

Transhuman

Unconfirmed Member
But what if barbara is the first word in a sentence?
 
P

PizzaFace

Banned
Wouldn't surprise me if the parent had a child specifically to do this, imagine pushing your own agenda that hard on a baby that has literally just been born.

Kid is in for an interesting life for sure
 
S

SlipperyFishes

Banned
DKehoe said:
From her website



Seems like it's just a general preference and isn't any kind of statement.

EDIT: beaten
Click to expand...
Um. It very much is (and pretty good)

barbara findlay said:
I realized that I had a perfect illustration of how we react when someone moves even a tiny bit away from a norm of behaviour, even with respect to something that has no impact on anyone else. So I have kept that spelling, and I tell this story in unlearning oppression workshops.
Click to expand...
 
B

BGBW

Maturity, bitches.
Doesn't this just make it really hard for friends and family. How will they know whether to buy blue gifts or pink gifts?
 
T

The Hobo

Member
Why is the space for sex left as unassigned? Doctors need to know the biological sex of their patients in order to properly treat them. This seems like a stupid idea.
 
V

Ventilaator

Banned
DKehoe said:
From her website

Seems like it's just a general preference and isn't any kind of statement.
Click to expand...

A general preference to getting special treatment and being a special unique snowflake, sure.

The only thing Barbara Findlay is achieving with this is giving groups like the alt-right more ammunition to use in their anti having-basic-empathy-and-a-brain agenda. Look at this crazy liberal oppressed by grammar, etc.
 
O

OfTheOverflow

Member
Because if you want your decision to be taken seriously in the public eye, you hire a lawyer that refuses to recognise basic rules of language.
 
C

Clefargle

Member
Wiped89 said:
Stupid.

We all are born male or female (save for a few hermaphrodite cases etc).

Now, if you want to raise them gender neutral, fine. But scientifically, biologically, that baby has a gender.
Click to expand...

Nah, the baby has a "sex" gender is something you figure out once you're cognizant. Usually it lines up with sex, and that's why there are plenary of cis people. But it isn't default or whatever
 
B

Beartruck

Member
Good luck with that. Her idea is to not impress a gender role on the baby, but that is an impossible task. Every action you do impresses on infants whether you realize it or not.
 
D

Dr_Boris_Goltz

Banned
Kyzer said:
Ummm...im kind of new at trying to understand all this but iirc gender dysphoria is not something literally every baby has and not everyone should "discover" their own gender because transgender people are literally assigned the wrong gender because of a biological error and actually suffer extreme anxiety and pain because of it, actually requiring medical treatment, literally knowing they were assigned a gender that mismatches their identity at birth. Transgenderism is not this hip thing that every baby should do and gender is not a choice, transgender are born that way. Somebody help me understand this and why i might be wrong?
Click to expand...

This is what confuses me as well. I thought the whole point was you didn't choose your gender? I believe you can be born with a brain that says, "I'm female!" despite having male genitalia, but that isn't really a choice, right?

So until the human's brain is developed enough to say, "Hey, my body doesn't match my gender," is there really any harm in writing down their sex?
 
H

Heckler456

Banned
Nah, that's too far. Biological sex is still a thing, for crying out loud. This sounds like the parents want to give their child a choice, but really, they're selfishly pushing their own beliefs on their kid from birth. Fact of the matter is, people who don't identify as the sex they were born as are in a tiny minority. If the kid ends up feeling that way, then fine. But it's not exactly likely, let alone to be assumed.
 
T

TyrantGuardian

Member
Damn, some of you care shockingly much about things that have literally zero impact on your lives. Does someone not capitalizing their name or someone not wanting to force their children into a specific gender at birth actually make you uncomfortable?
 
M

MadJackChurchill

Banned
Wiped89 said:
Stupid.

We all are born male or female (save for a few hermaphrodite cases etc).

Now, if you want to raise them gender neutral, fine. But scientifically, biologically, that baby has a gender.
Click to expand...

Sex is still indeterminate just by looking at genitals. Intersex (not hermaphrodites) have a biological condition that makes them insensitive to androgens, which develops a clitoris into a penis and ovaries into testicles. With this condition, their external genitalia can appear ambiguous. They may even have labia, yet still have a Y chromosome - what are they at that point? What about those that are XXY or triple X Y? Right now the science is not entirely conclusive and thus the term intersex is still very much applicable.

Hell, we shouldn't have to x-ray a child to see if they have ovaries and determine this hard binary we have artificially created. Why demand a set-in-stone answer now when not all of the evidence is conclusive? That sounds awfully unscientific to me.
 
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