I was originally going to ask how many legal genders there should be, but I fail to see a compelling argument against 0.
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Agree. Physical sex is impotent but gender identity does not have to be binary.
Physical sex is impotent
TMI? Talk about your Freudian slips!
🤪
More like “say you’re an iPhone user without saying you’re an iPhone user.” Modern iOS is infamous for hallucinating stuff in the keyboard, often after you typed/sent it.
I’m gonna leave it. Everyone knew what I meant, and now it’s attributed to Apple “Intelligence”.
Not necessarily legal but tracking genders is extremely important for data analytics in almost every field. For example knowing certain diseases affects genders differently allows scientists to create better medicines or medicines that target different things. Like medicines that are specifically designed to be safe for pregnancy.
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While true, thos doesn’t mean the state has to track the gender. It can be part of medical files. The state also doesn’t care about my blood type, which is also super important in some medical situations.
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When it comes to the “state” tracking sex demographics it can be very important when it comes to future planning for citizens. It can matter if you want to transition for example. The state can make long term plans based on that data to encourage an increase in facilities that can offer more support and services to those areas than need trans people.
Just tucking that information away in a medical file that only you and a doctor or two will see does nothing to make society better for trans people as a whole.
Because there are many laws that grant some benefits to one gender but no the other. For example:
- In Poland women get to retire earlier
- In many countries there’s mandatory conscription only for men
- In many countries maternal and paternal leaves are different
- Physical requirements for some jobs (police, firemen) are lower for women
- There are legally mandated proportions of genders in companies or in political parties (in parliamentary clubs to be exact)
- In Spain there are laws that specifically protect women from violence committed by men and special courts that handle them
- Many other laws/rules that require some % of public grants to go to women
You can remove all those laws but that will make feminists unhappy because most of them are pushed by them and leftists governments. As long as those laws exists you need legal genders.
Reading the comments I’m surprised how many people don’t know about them.
It might be less about not knowing about gender disparity, and more about wanting to get rid of that too.
- global retirement age is bullshit anyway; tell me that someone that worked 50 years in a coal mine (and survived somehow) should retire at the same age that someone that worked in an office. Gender is not needed there
- mandatory conscription is already a dicy subject; if one assume it makes sense, making it men-only doesn’t. No need for gender disparity here either; plenty of military roles that can be done without being a beefcake
- many countries are actually looking into extending paternal leaves because they finally got that both parents are important to raise a child
- physical requirements should be physical requirements. If they exist, they should match the job requirements. Having different bar of entry because of gender makes no sense. If the job is lifting iron all day, and you can lift iron all day, that’s all that matters.
- parity requirements related to gender exists to curb all the disparity that’s ingrained in society because we decided to make men and women a different thing. remove the difference, remove the need to “make amend with a mandatory quota”
- same as previous point
- and same as previous previous point
The only need to keep distinguishing gender for legal stuff is because we keep the “women are lesser than men” mentality, coupled with “women needs protection”.
Guess what: there isn’t a gender that is “less” than the other, and everyone needs protection. Sounds like an equality thing to me, where genders only get in the way.
remove the difference, remove the need to “make amend with a mandatory quota”
Have you seen what’s going on in the US lately? Abolishing DEI programs that recognize race or gender helps whoever has the most institutional power. White men have run the world for their own benefit for centuries. You think taking them off the leash now will result in a gender-neutral equitable utopia?
It’s one of those funny cases were far left and far right go full circle and collide on the other side. Like with opening stores on Sunday which the left and right both oppose or support depending on the country. Here we see people attack gender violence laws from the left but in Spain it’s the far right Vox party that is against them.
Fr
I think gender mixed prisons might be considered problematic as well.
This is a very interesting topic but it’s too complex to discuss on lemmy. Most people would not be able to understand the legal nuances and would just start lashing out. I will just leave this here for those interested.
For anybody wondering, it’s about a male criminal that is allegedly not transsexual but claims so to be held in a female one prison.
Interestingly there is a similar case here in Sweden.
I too abstain from posting any judgement in a complex issue that goes beyond quick opinions based on headlines.
Is that the problem or is the problem that prisons are largely badly designed in the first place?
No, gender mixing would obviously be a problem leading to an insane increase in sexual assaults. Couldn’t imagine being a woman in a mixed prison no matter the design. Quite unethical.
It’s almost like prisons are a terrible idea and shouldn’t exist
Maternal and paternal leave also applies in adoptions and surrogate births so it is gender based.
I wasn’t sure about that as each country has different rules. Thanks for clarifying, I restored that point.
Yes, it turns out if you want to use the mechanisms of the legal system to try to counter the marginalization of any group by the whole system, it has to recognize them in law and provide a method for distinguishing them in practice.
But, once you have some method of distinguishing them, the people that want to strengthen hierarchical structures will use that to identify them and (further) marginalize them.
This is true whether you are talking about chromosomal properties, internal anatomy, external anatomy (not limited to genital shape, but also melanin quantity and distribution), gender-assigned-at-birth, current gendered behavior, religious practices or associations, etc.
Still legal recognition might be the best way to reduce harm until we can achieve a future where the category or distinguishing characteristics no longer make one a target of (extra-judicial) marginalization.
You act like there’s no option to create GENDER EQUALITY, and instead the only option is to remove those laws.
Do I? I said that as long as those laws exist legal gender also has to exist. I didn’t say that those laws should or shouldn’t be removed.
Most of those laws are passed by leftists governments and many were passed very recently. Those laws are how the left is trying to create gender equality right now. If you have other ideas you’re free to propose them.
It’s a case of those laws need to exist, because of gender inequality, but when things become more equitable then it should be changed to not the removal but the widening of them
All genders getting the same amount of (increased) parenthood leave, for example
All genders being allowed to fight in wars if they want to. Nobody being forced to fight in wars.
But the way you were wording it felt like you’re saying “THOSE DAMN FEMINISTS GET AN UNFAIR ADVANTAGE”
I’m curious how you create GENDER EQUALITY without forcing people to acknowledge and correct for systemic biases. It’s not like there was GENDER EQUALITY before such laws existed.
The idea of affirmative action laws is that, systemically, white men in western countries were born on third base thinking they hit a triple, and everyone else needs some amount of help to catch up to their institutional and generational wealth and power. A law can’t correct for that difference if the difference is no longer recognized, and that means white men get to retain their position.
It’s why the Trump administration focused so hard on dismantling DEI efforts. Their position is that we’ve achieved equality and these programs are an unjust bias. Obviously bullshit, but it’s what you immediately end up with if race and gender are not legally recognized characteristics.
I do think men getting conscripted because they’re men in kinda bullshit.
That one isn’t a feminist law, that’s a fascist one, under the fasc ideal “women are too weak to fight!”
It’s less “women are too weak” and more “the point if war is to kill off excess young men so there’s more young women available for powerful older men”
Like it or not that women will guaranteed face harsh realities.
Iraq.
A line of “Iraqi military” taking turns at a boy. Nothing you can do about it.
what
It can be both
I’ve always thought that it’s more ‘we need more women than men to repopulate our country after the war’ as us men are nearly useless when making new life to this planet. But obviously that idea is ‘a bit’ dated too today.
It can be all 3 things.
But no matter what, it’s outdated
There’s a funny story here in the US about that. We were trying to pass the Equal Rights Act (ERA) - equal pay for equal work, and some Republican tried to tank it by putting in the bill that women would also be subject to the draft - apparently he figured that was so horrifying it would sink it. Supporters just said “yeah, that seems fair, good idea” and he had to scramble to take that wording out because he had so misjudged the situation. Still managed to sink the bill though:(
Conscription is bullshit. If your war is so unpopular to your people that they aren’t volunteering, then you shouldn’t be at war.
Tell that to Ukraine.
I would say that if people don’t care about their country and don’t want to fight for it it’s OK for this country to lose a war.
Back when I lived in Poland, if it was invaded I would be the first one to flee the country. Let the people that want to live there die for it… Now that I live in Spain, if anyone tried to invade, I would definitely join the fight. Well, maybe not if they invaded Catalonia but once they reached Murcia I would be on the front lines.
Meh people aren’t really known to do the “right” thing if they would we wouldn’t have had war in the first place. Also people might be fully supportive of a war but don’t want to get their hands dirty themselves.
The natural conclusion would be that any country forcing its people to fight will probably have an advantage over any country that doesn’t and if that country overtakes you you get conscripted anyway.
Also, if there was a very great threat, people would enlist willingly, making conscription unnecessary.
You would have to believe that people are willing to sacrifice to protect their communities but people aren’t even willing to look at windmills to protect their communities from climate change. Which does not mean they don’t want to keep their community as it is, they might just be to afraid and/or selfish to join themselves.
If people were guided by some intristic “goodness” we wouldn’t have such a shit society in the first place.
Yep
We don’t.
Here in Germany one of the few good things that came out of our previous federal government was the SBGG, which - among other things - allows you to delete the entry. And before anyone points it out: I’m aware it isn’t perfect.
This can differ in Dutch cities, as well. Utrecht never noted my gender and government letters addressed me as “Geachte <name>”. When I lived in Amsterdam, they auto-assigned me as female so I was addressed as “Mevrouw <name>” while I lived there. Never bothered to have it changed, though. Seemed like it’d be a lot of effort
nothing has to be perfect. it just has to work sufficiently well.
the idea of just being able to leave the field blank, is a simple enough solution, but it won’t appease the extremists.
personally i like being able to put ‘unspecified’ in the gender/sex field of things. it’s a lot more elegant than the 50+ gender identities that are ‘available’ now.
You’ve discovered the transphobic argument.
We don’t.
I’d be okay if my sex was scrubbed from my driver’s license. Like, I doubt there will ever be a doppelganger with my name at my address with my birthday that is contrary in sex to myself, ever.
But sadly, when the cops receive a report, they’ll ask “were they male or female,” which they’ll use to in their investigation.
Government database defining what our names are is also backwards.
A name is what people call you. You should be able to change it whenever you want. Most people just don’t want to.
Like if you go to a new country, you can tell them anything, and that becomes your actual name, because that’s what names are. Pisses me off when the word “preferred” gets put there. Like, no, that’s not preferred, it is, the government database is just wrong and refuses to update their records because it’s run by a bunch of racist, sexist, misogynist ignorant old fucks.
Gender is the same way. I exist for now, and while I do, I have free will. Perks of being alive.
That may be how it is where you live, but where I live the name is very much checked and double checked when you switch countries and it’s next to impossible to change it. Gender is another matter and that is probably one of the exceptions that allow for a name change.
I think you’re misunderstanding. It very much is like this, basically everywhere, including were I am. But I’m saying that, it’s that way because civilization has fucked up its priorities and government is grossly overstepping reality. Because in reality the government doesn’t control what your name actually is, it just controls what it legally is in that country. Which, yeah, unfortunately has a pretty strong hold on you. But, still isn’t how actual names work.
Think of it this way: if nuclear war happened and all government databases and registries were wiped away, your name would still be whatever you say it is. If you get abducted by aliens, and they decide to call you something in alien, that becomes your new name. If you get sucked through a time machine wormhole into the past or future, your literal name is whatever you set it to be. Because that’s how names work: names are just what people call you - not what a government database has written down for your id number.
If your name is written down in the government database, and that aligns with your actual name, then yeah, it is your name - but not because it’s from the government. The government cannot set your name. Only you, and maybe the people around you can.
A government doesn’t have natural authority to set your name, just like they have no natural authority to set your hair color, height, butt position, dick length, who you’re married to, who you love, who your family is, what genitals you have, or where you physically are.
So unless they MAKE YOU A PRISONER, you control your life.
And if they’ve made you a prisoner… that is indeed a different story, for a similar time. I’m sure you understand the implications of that, though.
Excellent 👌
We don’t. There entirely immaterial to a modern world.
The instant 2 atheists got married, it opened the door to people of any gender pairing to get married. Marriage is just a social contact between 2 commenting adults ahemwith tax invectives. Only religion dictated which genders are allowed to do what.
Conservative hand wringing over public restroom use is mitigated by making all bathrooms gender neutral. Easy fix.
What else? Pink is for whoever the fuck likes it, you salmon short wearing closeted frat bros. You do you. Blue is for people doing Frozen cosplay. I dunno, gendered colors are so stupid.
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Because conservative rich kids wear pink “ironically” as a flex that they’re rich, and therefore “manly enough” that they de-gender pink as a color.
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That conservatives use gender as a weapon at their discretion.
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It can’t. Their identity is wrapped up in the expectation that most people, like them, lack impulse control and can’t be trusted in any situation where genitals are involved. They think every horror imaginable is only seconds away from happening in every bathroom.
I know it’s just a typo/autocorrect, but I seriously chuckled at “tax invectives.”
Thanks for the catch. I didn’t have my glasses so the blur of text looked like the right blur.
It’s extremely apt. I’m definitely going to remember it next tax season.
Those are good points. Genders and gendered colors always were inconvenient to me. I hate how women’s gym shoes are always shitty colors and I have to worry about people offended because of traditional gender roles. It’s annoying af.
Pink is not considered feminine in many countries. Also, marriage is not Christian. Hindus, muslims, Buddhists, pagans, and all kind of folks get married and have before Christians existed. It’s not one man and one woman. Massai warriors and Mormons have lots of wives.
Well and even in the West, pink and blue didn’t used to be gendered like they are. 100+ years ago yellow was boys, light blue for girls. So the gendering isn’t even static, it’s as fluid as gender itself.
Oh wow. I had no idea. That’s fun to imagine. I guess it’s easy to adapt the mind to the idea.
Some amount of gendered colors is a useful social shortcut. When our children were babies, we painted the nursery green because that’s my favorite color, and otherwise didn’t bother much with color. However when we went out we tended to have some obvious blue to make it simpler to talk about our baby. It’s easier for someone to say “he’s cute” because he has a blue blanket, than to have the “boy or girl?” Discussion.
Similarly our dog has a pink collar because it’s easier for someone to say “she’s cute” rather than “boy or girl?” And have some random person checking her genitals. It’s only here on Lemmy where people get pornographic about mention of a dog where they don’t know the gender
It’s just a problem when it’s forced, or excessive, or becomes someone’s identity
Good point. Also babies don’t have different body types so I guess you can use whatever you want. Unlike when I see cool shoes but the women’s sizes a pink or shitty pastel colors while boys get cool stuff.
Procreation is a big part of human experience. So things kinda lead one from another.
Traditionally, for inheritance & land tax purposes, the woman takes the owner’s name; her attributes, kids & possessions are settled or accounted for upon her husband/father’s death. Most of these laws were written in maritime law, where men were expected to die in battle or get lost at sea… So who gets a man’s valuables is mostly why there are only 2 genders by law, and always have been… The only reason 70 + pronouns were floated as a concept came from Marxist communist pseudo-philosophy, zionists in the White House trying to subvert the education sector and universities to push transgendeisum. That’s why all the Ivy League academic institutions have liberal democrats running them now, producing idiots. American education sector is being bought out, gutted and turned into political brainwashing camps for people who will believe anything.
It’s so the state can attack people. So it can control “marriage” privileges. Etc.
The two biggest reasons i can think of are:
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It’s medically relevant information. If you’re incapacitated, this could be vital information to whoever treats you.
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Legal protections. Gender is a protected class. To receive those protections and to know when they apply, this information is required.
The medical relevance just involves the parts you have, though. Instead of just documenting someone as male and female, just keep an inventory of the parts they have (especially when there are differences from the norm).
I’m not sure if OP meant sex or gender. I can’t think of a medically relevant reason to know an incapacitated person’s gender. Maybe someone with any experience or knowledge there can chime in.
My understanding of the legal discrimination argument is that whether someone holds a particular gender identity is irrelevant. If the perpetrator perceives someone to be of a particular gender, and acts with intent to discriminate against someone based on that belief, regardless of whether or not it’s true, that still constitutes gender discrimination. But IANAL.
regardless of whether or not it’s true, that still constitutes gender discrimination.
Pretty sure you’re right about that. A person’s state of mind (or “mens rea” if you’re in the profession) is an often crucial component of criminal acts. If someone assaults someone because they think they’re Muslim, the fact that they’re actually Mexican doesn’t make it ok.
BUT, the other side to that is, say for example someone’s gender is male and their sex is female, but they present masculine. If they reveal their sex to someone, and that person discriminates against them for being a woman, how is the victim supposed to claim their protected status? If it’s not apparent and it’s not documented, it will be difficult to claim those protections in court.
I am also not a lawyer 🤷♀️
Just spitballing here, but:
If they reveal their sex to someone, and that person discriminates against them for being a woman, how is the victim supposed to claim their protected status?
Maybe we need to turn this around, maybe we should consider defaulting to the assumption that people should not be able to discriminate against other people for any reason instead of just being protected against “certain” kinds of discrimination. If we are going to allow discrimination for certain reasons, maybe we should make those allowed forms of discrimination the ones that need to be spelled out explicitly. If you don’t have a good reason to discriminate against someone about something, maybe don’t discriminate them? Maybe that’s a bit outlandish, maybe I’m not thinking it through, I don’t know, but it seems reasonable enough to me.
because that’s not how people work. you are arguing form an impossible ideal.
you yourself incessantly discriminate people based on their appearances. the point is to prevent people from those discriminations institutionally.
every single day you are dismissing or admiring people based on how they look, they speak, etc. and your ‘reasonable’ for these things is wildly different than somebody else’s. human beings are not capable individually of the levels of self-awarenesss you are presuming exist, even in yourself.
the laws are largely to prevent systematic and institutional discrimination, individual human beings will always be discriminatory. A individual person hiring at a large org can still discriminate, but the institution itself can’t because legally if there is a pattern of multiple discriminatory practices that can be actioned against.
You’re getting into limiting free speech area there, im sure a lot of people would be very against something like that, however good the intentions may be.
discriminatory law is not about individuals actions, it’s about institutional ones.
Gender, and other factors that aren’t as “medically relevant”, may help the staff pick between two treatment options. The patient’s comfort and happiness can affect their overall wellbeing.
Say someone grows up in a culture where their gender (or some cultural group the person can belong to) usually has long hair. A particular treatment may have two options:
- shave the head
- something that doesn’t involve shaving the head
Knowing what gender (or other group) the person belongs to might inform their decision.
Note, this is about why medical staff might want to know about gender identity and not the original question of how many legal genders we should have.
For your shaving the head example I would argue that if the person is incapacitated and needing urgent care the solution with the most chance of success should be preferred regardless of gender norms. If both are equally likely the one that doesn’t remove hair should be preferred. You might be a man with attachment to your long hair even in a society where that’s uncommon, gender does not dictate anything of the sort. So I still don’t see a reason why gender is relevant medically.
As a guy with long hair i can tell you i would be pissed if they shaved my head while an alternative was available.
The alternative: Death
That’s fair, and it was a poor example on my part.
If one treatment is much better, then yes that one would be preferred. Generally when there are two treatments being weighed, both will have consequences (else one would obviously be better).
My point was that knowing things about a person, outside of their physical biology, can get better outcomes. It should never be REQUIRED for the patient to share it, but we should educate medical staff about their community so that they can use that information when it is helpful.
Some other examples, that aren’t specific to gender
- knowing what pronouns to use would make the patient trust the provider more and feel more comfortable
- if you know the patients literacy level or knowledge of medical terminology, you can adjust your explanations
- if the patient belongs to a group that might have an aversion to a particular treatment, you know to either spend more time explaining it or to let them know another option is available
- if you know the patient is poor, then you might take that into account when recommending treatments. Even in publicly funded health systems, the lifestyle recommendations might not apply to every person
At the same time, the person shouldn’t be making assumptions based on someone falling into a particular group, and they should confirm whatever it is they are checking for.
IMO, knowing about gender is less important in places where it doesn’t carry as much cultural weight. As another example, if someone identifies as a woman in a culture where they don’t want to be alone with a male figure, knowing their identity might remind the staff to bring someone else who identifies as a woman into the exam room.
We need to finish naming all 12,000 mushroom genders before we can make laws about them
(I am not arguing with you, just thinking through the ideas out loud) 1. It seems like it could be tracked in the same manner as all other necessary medical information, such as diabetes status 2. There are other protected classes that we don’t make a big deal of legally unless it’s relevant, such as orientation
Counterpoint to 2 - femme presenting people are often discriminated against whether gender is known or not. Orientation isn’t quite as visible.
Although I think I lean to the it shouldn’t be tracked the way it currently is, to further your point we do track other visual things by which people are discriminated against such as race.
people are discriminated based on religion faily often too, but the feds don’t need to know what church you do or don’t go to
Lol our answers were identical but yours came later and got more votes.
My comments are almost always sorted by ‘new’ and I bet that is what’s happening here - their comment is more visible as the post gains traction because it’s newer.
I’ve definitely had the same happen to me, so at least you’re not alone hahah
Up/down votes are weird. Good thing they don’t mean much here.
Could be because others (like myself) have tagged you as a troll
more evidence that discrimination harms communities
Whats your defence of that stance? Because I fight Tankies?
It’s medically relevant information. If you’re incapacitated, this could be vital information to whoever treats you.
This one is overlooked and can be literally a matter of life and death. Certain medications react differently based on hormone levels for example, so even if someone was born male if they have a nominally female balance of hormones they need to be treated (medically) as female.
That’s still different from gender. Gender is a set of social relations that often, but not necessarily, is associated with a particular body chemistry.
That’s not relevant for justifying legal sex or gender.
That’s sex, though, not gender
Is it? You can have female hormone levels and still have male genitalia. Science is cool like that. And no, people aren’t defined solely by their genitals, but they aren’t solely defined by their appearance either, or their biology. It’s a big mash up of those things and a few more.
Point being it’s really hard to describe that situation as being solely one or the other. It’s definitely something that needs to be indicated for medical reasons though, but most Identification Documents don’t draw any distinction between sex and gender, much less allow for notation of something like that. Once again, paperwork lags behind reality.
So for a trans person on hormones but without updated id markers they would die?
We only issue a passport with an M or F sex marker that matches your biological sex at birth.
— us gov
Counter point: Intersex
Intersex people don’t exist in statistically relevant numbers.
Siamese twins also exist, and there are lots of legal issues with them as well as to whether they count as one or two people. Oftentimes they are considered both or neither depending on the specific legal issue that comes up.
But we don’t base governmental policy on the existence of Siamese twins, we base it on the concept of singular individuals.
To be pedantic you’d want to know sex not gender for medical reasons.
I made an entire comment about this but I’ll address 1 point here quickly: people like to forget that transition drastically changes your body in a way that only recording “birth sex” does not encapsulate. Both are absolutely medically relevant.
It’s very difficult to know what will/not be medically relevant in any given situation.
Yes, but poliitcally it’s convenient to argue that gender is oppressive, or essential or something.
What’s ironic to me is the ‘anti gender’ people are the one who are the most obsessed with it and go around policing every else’s gender identity and their language use about it.
Like, if you want to be liberated from gender, why don’t you liberate yourself first, and stop agonizing about other people’s gender identity or lack thereof. Nobody informs/lectures me of my own gender identity more than people who claim to not believe gender exists…
People assume I’m a woman unless I disclose I’m a man anyway, which is also hilarious to me. Because I ‘type like a girl’, and then when they find out my gender they go back and the meaning of all my words suddenly becomes offensive and awful… which just reveals their own inherent gender biases.
You might want to know both in certain situations.
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Shelters for domestically abused women need to be female only.
do you think trans women count as female? do trans men count as female?
Who do you think deserves shelter from abuse?
Please explain why. Do you believe that all males are domestic abusers and that no women in same-sex relationships have ever been abused?
I volunteered at a shelter with my mother as a younger teen. Then overnight I went from someone who could reliably count cans of Habitant soup and diapers to someone who could not be trusted to know the address. My best friend at the time and his mother were victims of domestic violence. The inference hurt and still does 30 years later. So I would like to understand your position.
What??? I can, from personal experience, let you know that’s just bullshit. Do you think genitals at birth determines who receives domestic abuse? In fact, trans femme experience more domestic abuse by percentage. Should we shove trans femme into an all male shelter? There are more all male shelters by a large percentage in the USA, it’s difficult to get into an all female shelter. If they are there, it’s for a good reason. FFS. Terf talking points are ignorant.
I’m saying men don’t belong in women’s domestic abuse centers. I provided no definitions. You chose to jump to outrage.
Ahhhh, a troll. Ic, carry on trolling then.
Go rage someplace else.
You provided no definitions, just implications, because you’re too scared to stand behind your own beliefs.
Own your own transphobia, coward.
Little man spouting someone else’s ideas. Go away.
Weak attempt at insult, do better
We have laws making it illegal to discriminate according to gender. If there are zero legal gender categories, there is no legal basis by which one can say discrimination has occured, so nobody can technically commit such a crime.
