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First baby born without a gender in Canada

N

Nerazar

Member
AmaterasuOkami076 said:
This is partly what I mean. The attitude will just surely push people new to the subject to thinking among the lines of "this person is nuts, this validates my previous beliefs of a strictly binary gender society"
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Yeah, you don't shame people into your position. As an inclusive movement, I've experienced too many people who see it as an exclusive club with pre-defined characteristics which you have to be in order to be part of it. Kind of beats the purpose of it.
 
K

Kurdel

Banned
f0nz0 said:
The world is getting weird man, hopefully the child has a happy and balanced life.
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We are just knowing these things because of the Internet.

There a lot of fucked up stories from the 60's about kids raised in communes or other extreme hippy conditions.
 
S

Somnid

Member
TheLostBigBoss said:
Considering a lot of what we know about gender studies and what people have said in the field, I don't think this is exactly a bad thing. If people didn't raise their kids under preconceived notions, and kids didn't grow up in environments that expect things out of them because of uncontrollable circumstances, then I think people would be far better off in their child hood and creating identities they are comfortable with.
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Or maybe not because those identities have no grounding. The concept of identity itself is cultural, so perhaps in this new society you solved a problem that doesn't exist and maybe created a few more. Whatever the case, we haven't tried raising humans in sensory deprivation pods into sexual maturity, where we are now, expectations are part of how people develop, good or bad. The idea of unlimited choice being ideal is funnily enough a western cultural ideal that was beat into people from birth. I mean think about giving someone thousands of options but no recommendations for fear of tainting their purity? It's kinda silly if you think about it, just as much as saying there's only one option so suck it up.
 
X

Xe4

Banned
I read the OP, and the article, and the thread and I'm still confused. They didn't assign the child no gender (which is what originally confused me, as birth certificates have no gender option), they assigned it no sex, which is quite a bit different and comes with its own set of problems and complications.

Generally doctors make the determination of sex based on genitalia (though a more rigid definition of sex is based off of chromosomes, that option is not usually available to doctors) and off of obvious intersex characteristics of a child (such as puffy feet for women born with Turner's syndrome). If a child is raised outside of traditional gender norms, that's great and I wholly appreciate that, but I feel as if marking a sex should be something done when the child does not appear to be intersex. Of course this runs the complication that the child may develop characteristics that are those of an intersex person in puberty (such as Klinefelter syndrome), which must be addressed. However, to say the child has no sex feels a tad strange, seeing as those who doctors do identify as intersex have a number of difficulties throughout life that are wholly different than people who identify as transgender.

For instance, doctors may decide to treat an intersex child with surgery or hormonal medication, which comes with a whole slew of ethical and moral dilemmas (I tend to strongly disagree of surgery on an intersex baby, for instance). Furthermore, intersex children can have medical complications that could be known of ahead of time by knowing the child is sexually neither male nor female. For instance, Turners syndrome makes it more likely that the woman will have a kidney developmental problem, and thus the sexual disorder would be a clue to the doctors to look for kidney problems first (as an example). Individuals may also be discriminated against socially and legally based not off any gender identification they follow, but solely on having intersex characteristics that were forced upon them at birth.

All in all, I don't know that I can agree with the parents conflating sex and gender like that. While it is true gender identification causes a large number of problems for people throughout the world, intersexuality causes a wholly different and equally troublesome set of problems for individuals. It almost feels as if the parents are softening how difficult it is to be born intersex by implying that all children should be marked intersex based on gender identification issues that the child may or may not develop later in life.
 
N

Nabbis

Member
Griss said:
If you shout it enough you don't need research.
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This whole topic went the same way as the OP and turned into an attempt at reshaping the larger society on the terms of a select few. It's hardly realistic if even GaF OT is having a hard time with this.
 
S

Selddon

Banned
The family's lawyer, barbara findlay, who chooses to spell her name without capital letters
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snowflakes-snow-28194297.jpg
 
D

Deleted member 1235

Unconfirmed Member
My apathy was quite strong with this and then I became wildly angry at the stupid lawyer and her dumb name.

I dunno why this matters. Maybe hard to track real stat like number of transgender people statistically if everyone is 'the same gender which is no gender'.

Also does the kid then later need to register a gender? Seems like a poorly thought out protest using your child a bit.
 
N

Nerazar

Member
Nabbis said:
This whole topic went the same way as the OP and turned into an attempt at reshaping the larger society on the terms of a select few. It's hardly realistic if even GaF OT is having a hard time with this.
Click to expand...

It certainly feels that way. I don't really know why, because as a society we have to move towards the future and include people who have been treated badly. But some of it really comes off as 0.X% of people wanting to have a special treatment and directly affecting the lives of the vast majority. It is a thin line, because all in all, every progressive social movement should work together. But some seem to go to fast for the general public to follow. Consider vegetarians / vegans: besides some jokes, it is a well established movement.

I'm all in that gender is more complex than A or B and that everyone deserves to live their identity as long as they don't hurt their fellow human beings. But as a society, we should still consider scientific differences based on sex and science in general. If we stop doing that, we open Pandora's Box and we can just stop communicating with each other. It's no different from the "alternative facts" crowd we despise. If everything is a social construct, nothing is real anymore.
 
C

CrunchyFrog

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.
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Bingo. This is the very worst kind of anti-scientific nonsense, and frankly considering the very divergent developmental needs between the two sexes could put the child's health at risk.
 
K

Ketkat

Member
Nerazar said:
It certainly feels that way. I don't really know why, because as a society we have to move towards the future and include people who have been treated badly. But some of it really comes off as 0.X% of people wanting to have a special treatment and directly affecting the lives of the vast majority. It is a thin line, because all in all, every progressive social movement should work together. But some seem to go to fast for the general public to follow.
.
Click to expand...

What special treatment is being demanded here?

CrunchyFrog said:
Bingo. This is the very worst kind of anti-scientific nonsense, and frankly considering the very divergent developmental needs between the two sexes could put the child's health at risk.
Click to expand...

How will this kid's health be at risk from being raised as gender neutral?
 
T

TheLostBigBoss

Banned
Somnid said:
Or maybe not because those identities have no grounding. The concept of identity itself is cultural, so perhaps in this new society you solved a problem that doesn't exist and maybe created a few more. Whatever the case, we haven't tried raising humans in sensory deprivation pods into sexual maturity, where we are now, expectations are part of how people develop, good or bad. The idea of unlimited choice being ideal is funnily enough a western cultural ideal that was beat into people from birth. I mean think about giving someone thousands of options but no recommendations for fear of tainting their purity? It's kinda silly if you think about it, just as much as saying there's only one option so suck it up.
Click to expand...

Nobody is going to be raised in a sensory deprivation pod and everyone grows up with societal impressions. Being raised by a family that doesn't force those societal impressions is a far cry from your metaphor of raising kids in a vacuum.
 
A

Aselith

Member
catfish said:
My apathy was quite strong with this and then I became wildly angry at the stupid lawyer and her dumb name.
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That's why I'm glad she does it tbh. Like it doesn't matter in the slightest but so many people taking the time to call her out on it clearly means it really does matter to people a lot.

I hope more people do it until the uncaps outnumber the caps.
 
P

Poor GRIMES

Banned
Griss said:
People are talking about the first three elements when they discuss the sexual binary (and I suppose the fifth too). And on that score the vast majority of people fall as either male or female on all three. (1 in 500 means about 99.8% of people aren't intersex).

Obviously as we grow and develop people can have differing levels of hormones, differing sex characteristics, people can have hormonal disorders etc. No different from how some people are very short, some are very tall. Outliers exist with everything, including sex characteristics. But when you're talking about how much facial hair a person has or how wide their shoulders are then you've simply broadened the criteria as to what makes a biological male to a ludicrous extent in order to ignore the basic biological framework that sex is based upon.

Yes, a man might be low test without much / any facial hair, but if he has XY chromosomes, male genitals and gonads, he's biologically male. That's how the vast majority of humanity understand things. The fact that some biological males are less typically manly than others due to whatever reasons - hormones or otherwise - does nothing to prevent the 99.8% nature of the duality of the sexes.



And this.

I mean, the post contains this:


If you shout it enough you don't need research.
Click to expand...
Sex assignment at birth is based on the genitals. The purpose of my quoting those pieces, especially the latter, is how TERFs invalidate the lives of those that do not exist within the binary, and how those same arguments are popping up in this thread: how the minority is somehow asking for special recognition and special privileges above the norm and how trans, non-binary, and intersex people are somehow strange and wrong because of the notions of biological sex.

Hoo-doo said:
Two tumblr posts, one written by 'genderbitch'. Both struggling to post actual sources for their claims.
I appreciate any kind of 'evidence' but this certainly is stretching the definition a bit.

If there's this enormous ambiguity in the definition of the biological sex of humans, there should be some actual research on the topic.
Click to expand...
The purpose of my quoting those two pieces is to show that sex goes beyond physcial characteristics, not to dispute the existence of identifying genitalia as "useless." It goes beyond the physical.
 
N

Not

Banned
Selddon said:
snowflakes-snow-28194297.jpg
Click to expand...

Maybe she sees all the people who capitalize their names to feel like big, awesome important people in the universe who can Make A Difference as snowflakes.

Sure, deep down she might just be trying to stand out for the sake of standing out, or she could be sincerely rejecting the idea that a name should be anything other than a way to differentiate between relatively-complicated organisms that communicate, instead of a means of glorifying human self-importance.
 
Audioboxer

Audioboxer

Member
Xe4 said:
I read the OP, and the article, and the thread and I'm still confused. They didn't assign the child no gender (which is what originally confused me, as birth certificates have no gender option), they assigned it no sex, which is quite a bit different and comes with its own set of problems and complications.

Generally doctors make the determination of sex based on genitalia (though a more rigid definition of sex is based off of chromosomes, that option is not usually available to doctors) and off of obvious intersex characteristics of a child (such as puffy feet for women born with Turner's syndrome). If a child is raised outside of traditional gender norms, that's great and I wholly appreciate that, but I feel as if marking a sex should be something done when the child does not appear to be intersex. Of course this runs the complication that the child may develop characteristics that are those of an intersex person in puberty (such as Klinefelter syndrome), which must be addressed. However, to say the child has no sex feels a tad strange, seeing as those who doctors do identify as intersex have a number of difficulties throughout life that are wholly different than people who identify as transgender.

For instance, doctors may decide to treat an intersex child with surgery or hormonal medication, which comes with a whole slew of ethical and moral dilemmas (I tend to strongly disagree of surgery on an intersex child, for instance). Furthermore, intersex children can have medical complications that could be known of ahead of time by knowing the child is sexually neither male nor female. For instance, Turners syndrome makes it more likely that the woman will have a kidney developmental problem, and thus the sexual disorder would be a clue to the doctors to look for kidney problems first (as an example). Individuals may also be discriminated against socially and legally based not off any gender identification they follow, but solely on having intersex characteristics that were forced upon them at birth.

All in all, I don't know that I can agree with the parents conflating sex and gender like that. While it is true gender identification causes a large number of problems for people throughout the world, intersexuality causes a wholly different and equally troublesome set of problems for individuals. It almost feels as if the parents are softening how difficult it is to be born intersex by implying that all children should be marked intersex based on gender identification issues that the child may or may not develop later in life.
Click to expand...

I'd assume they would argue they are not trying to belittle DSDs because this is about societal norms. However as you put it, yes, the parent(s) themselves do seem to be somewhat conflating gender with sex. We cannot escape our biology, but we can try to construct more open, tolerant and less pressure filled societies that push to behave in certain ways or only do certain things. That's on parenting, nurturing, education and expanding societies, not necessarily on trying to frame biology as oppressive or needing to be rewritten.

Well thought out post though, as it's bringing up further points for consideration in a complex debate.
 
N

Nerazar

Member
Ketkat said:
What special treatment is being demanded here?
Click to expand...

This whole "we don't need to specify the sex of the baby even though it has a biological sex" thing, I suppose. We might as well stop counting the height, the day of birth and basically every detail, because someone doesn't feel like it.

That's great if I can withhold that information from the government, but the ramifications might be severe. Just like with the anti-vax movement, as long as a critical mass of people do what is being the norm, some people can get a free pass and potentially endanger other people. Of course the ID/BC thing will not harm anyone else, but the whole context just feels like attention grabbing. But that's maybe the newspaper's fault.

I would understand it if the BC would ask the gender, but since it doesn't, I don't really see the point here. You cannot "unspecify" the sex as you cannot "unspecify" the baby to be human.
 
C

CrunchyFrog

Member
Ketkat said:
What special treatment is being demanded here?



How will this kid's health be at risk from being raised as gender neutral?
Click to expand...

The parents aren't just denying the child's gender identification, aka the social/cultural/individual identity and behaviors associated with being male/female/intersex/etc., they are also denying this child's sex identification, aka undeniable facts based on the child's verifiable genetic makeup and which determine largely through hormones that child's growth and development. If this child has a developmental abnormality linked to sex hormones and the parent refuses to allow doctors this information then the child could be in serious danger or significant loss of quality of life. Don't mix up social and cultural mores with medically necessary fact.
 
A

Aselith

Member
Nerazar said:
This whole "we don't need to specify the sex of the baby even though it has a biological sex" thing, I suppose. We might as well stop counting the height, the day of birth and basically every detail, because someone doesn't feel like it.

That's great if I can withhold that information from the government, but the ramifications might be severe. Just like with the anti-vax movement, as long as a critical mass of people do what is being the norm, some people can get a free pass and potentially endanger other people. Of course the ID/BC thing will not harm anyone else, but the whole context just feels like attention grabbing. But that's maybe the newspaper's fault.

I would understand it if the BC would ask the gender, but since it doesn't, I don't really see the point here. You cannot "unspecify" the sex as you cannot "unspecify" the baby to be human.
Click to expand...

Tell us more about how not knowing a person's height is dangerous?
 
S

Somnid

Member
TheLostBigBoss said:
Nobody is going to be raised in a sensory deprivation bod and everyone grows up with societal impressions. Being raised by a family that doesn't force those societal impressions is a far cry from your metaphor of raising kids in a vacuum.
Click to expand...

That's what I'm saying, you can't raise someone with that purity. Even parents who are against forcing ideals will force ideals, they just won't notice it. Or imagine that the kid grows up to be a pedophile, how many people who are super open about sexuality are going to treat that like a personal choice/biology? I'd bet very few. There is always a point at which people get culturally uncomfortable.
 
K

Ketkat

Member
CrunchyFrog said:
The parents aren't just denying the child's gender identification, aka the social/cultural/individual identity and behaviors associated with being male/female/intersex/etc., they are also denying this child's sex identification, aka undeniable facts based on the child's verifiable genetic makeup and which determine largely through hormones that child's growth and development. If this child has a developmental abnormality linked to sex hormones and the parent refuses to allow doctors this information then the child could be in serious danger or significant loss of quality of life. Don't mix up social and cultural mores with medically necessary fact.
Click to expand...

Oh, I see. So the issue isn't raising the kid as gender neutral. Its if the parents for some reason, didn't take their kid to the doctor when a problem was presented. Aka, a completely bullshit thing that you have absolutely ZERO reason to think would happen.

Nerazar said:
This whole "we don't need to specify the sex of the baby even though it has a biological sex" thing, I suppose. We might as well stop counting the height, the day of birth and basically every detail, because someone doesn't feel like it.

That's great if I can withhold that information from the government, but the ramifications might be severe. Just like with the anti-vax movement, as long as a critical mass of people do what is being the norm, some people can get a free pass and potentially endanger other people. Of course the ID/BC thing will not harm anyone else, but the whole context just feels like attention grabbing. But that's maybe the newspaper's fault.

I would understand it if the BC would ask the gender, but since it doesn't, I don't really see the point here. You cannot "unspecify" the sex as you cannot "unspecify" the baby to be human.
Click to expand...

I'm really not seeing any special treatment in this. And I'm definitely not seeing how this is harming the majority.
 
N

Nerazar

Member
Aselith said:
Tell us more about how not knowing a person's height is dangerous?
Click to expand...

Well, why do we need Birth Certificates at all, hm? You're right, get rid of that and IDs. Might be worth a test. And your sex-based medicine will certainly work in any circumstance. Maybe modern medicine is also a social construct?

@Ketkat:
I see, so everyone is doing that U thing now for the sex or is it just this one case? I suppose it is the very definition of special treatment if it's the first time and (for now) only time of anything.

But: Maybe the government decides to get rid of that info in that certificate. Only then it's not special treatment.
 
H

Hoo-doo

Banned
PSqueak said:
Not really, definitely the birth certificate can do without sex and gender.

Medical record tho? Yes, totally.
Click to expand...

For archival and lineage purposes, why wouldn't the birth certificate state the sex? I genuinely don't get it.
Like it or not, but someone's biological sex still has meaning in today's society. Maybe less than 50 years ago but damn. Feel free to decide on any gender you feel identifies you, but your sex you were born with shouldn't just be erased from history.
 
A

Aselith

Member
Nerazar said:
Well, why do we need Birth Certificates at all, hm? You're right, get rid of that and IDs. Might be worth a test. And your sex-based medicine will certainly work in any circumstance. Maybe modern medicine is also a social construct?

@Ketkat:
I see, so everyone is doing that U thing now for the sex or is it just this one case? I suppose it is the very definition of special treatment if it's the first time and (for now) only time of anything.

But: Maybe the government decides to get rid of that info in that certificate. Only then it's not special treatment.
Click to expand...

You specifically compared it to the antivax movement which has a specific medical reason to be dangerous. I want to here more about the danger of anti-heighters.
 
P

Poor GRIMES

Banned
Hoo-doo said:
For archival and lineage purposes, why wouldn't the birth certificate state the sex? I genuinely don't get it.
Like it or not, but someone's biological sex still has meaning in today's society. Maybe less than 50 years ago but damn. Feel free to decide on any gender you feel identifies you, but your sex you were born with shouldn't just be erased from history.
Click to expand...
Other countries already don't document sex on a birth certificate, such as Argentina:
Dean Spade, a trans activist, lawyer and academic, describes self-identification in the following terms:
I would like people to have the freedom to determine their own gender identity and expression ... And I would want no person to be required to show medical or psychiatric evidence to document that they are who and what they say they are I would like self identification to be the determining factor for a person's membership in a gender category to the extent that knowledge of the person's membership in such a category is necessary.
The self-identification model is illustrated by Argentina's Gender Identity Law 2012,60 which has been praised by activists around the world.
amended on their birth certificate and national identity card: they have to be at least 18 (there is a separate process for minors); submit a request to the relevant authority; and provide a new first name that they want to be registered under.
Click to expand...

Blincoe E. Sex markers on birth certificates: Replacing the medical model with self-identification. Victoria University of Wellington Law Review. 2015;46(1):57-83.
 
K

Kinyou

Member
Poor GRIMES said:
The purpose of my quoting those two pieces is to show that sex goes beyond physcial characteristics, not to dispute the existence of identifying genitalia as "useless." It goes beyond the physical.
Click to expand...
What exactly isn't physical about sex? Chromosomes are easily observable. I didn't see anythung in those pieces that's not physically observable
 
M

MazeHaze

Banned
Straight Edge said:
Do you think they weigh and measure kids at the doctor's office for fun or to see if they are healthy and developing correctly?
Click to expand...

I'm sure this child's doctor will know if they were born male or female, this is all more a matter of keeping it off of public record, which is fine and hurts nobody.
 
K

Kinyou

Member
Poor GRIMES said:
Chromosomes don't just dictate genitalia. The conversation is that genitalia, today, determines sex assigned at birth. You can have XX chromosomes and have a penis.
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Your claim was that sex isn't physical. All the determinators listed are however physical
 
G

GameAddict411

Member
The chance of the kid having gender dysphoria is not very high. I would imagine it's even more rare being born gay or bisexual. I think they will subject the kid to many problems growing up. If the kid grows up to be have gender dysphoria, then there are ways to change the legal documents to reflect that. It's not rocket science.
 
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