The terms sex and gender were used interchangeably by many for a very long time due to cisnormativity, because for most people their sex and gender matched. It's only due to the recent rise of awareness in trans issues that people have begun to use them to refer to separate specific concepts in general use.
Having your sex on your photo ID doesn't make any sense. The way that this information is used most of the time is to communicate to others what kind of a person they should be looking for. If I told you to look for a "female" person with specific attributes, you wouldn't go and pick a trans man out of the crowd.
Cis people don't have to think about any of this, of course, because they've never been confronted by the challenges that arise from having documentation that outs them in public. When a trans person shows ID that doesn't match their gender identity to someone in a position of power, it puts them at risk for mistreatment. Changing gender markers — or "sex" markers as you insist upon — on documents is a safety issue for trans people, and has the bonus effect of being affirming.
The only people who need to know your sex and see your ID are healthcare professionals, and even then, knowing what configuration someone's genitals had at birth does very little to help them know your current medical status and history. That's why they have long forms that you have to fill out when you start seeing a new healthcare provider, and why healthcare institutions share medical history records.
I'd also add the consideration that a photo ID also serves the purpose of some base level medical information (or else our listing organ donor status on them is super weird) so having sex on there if you're unconscious and the EMTs pick you up and need to check makes some sense. No reason both couldn't work.
I'm sure the EMTs at the scene of the accident are more worried about my head trauma than my genitals. If that becomes relevant later, I'm sure they can look with their own eyes.
I mean you can be unconscious for more than head trauma. My thought was in line with heart issues and if the differences in sex played any part there, due to the differences in the appearance of problems with them between men and women, but maybe that's not really relevant until they hit the hospital.(Since EMTs are stabilizing focused) Just having it on the card - avoiding the time needed to check especially if they've had surgery - seems helpful, if that was relevant. If its not of course it doesn't need to be there but if there's EMTs around chime in because obviously I don't know.
From a medical perspective, “biological sex” is a lot more complicated than the genitalia you had at birth. Sex hormones (androgens, estrogens, progestogens) have a huge impact on your body, your emotions, and your health. If you’ve been undergoing hormone therapy for a year or more, your biological sex cannot be accurately described as your assigned gender at birth.
It’s actually misleading to use the same set of terms to describe biological sex as we do for gender. In a medical setting you might think of a person’s biological sex as describing a suite of variables that impact that person and their care, e.g., a person should target a value of 100 for this metric; for this biological sex, adjust the target value by -35 to +5 at these age ranges; for this biological sex, adjust by these numbers.
Many of those target values change after a person begins hormone therapy, so it would likely be medically beneficial to list their gender and potentially harmful to list the gender associated with the genitals they had at birth. In cases where this isn’t the case, if the person’s health care provider believes the risk is high, they can provide verbiage that addresses the specific risk in language another health care provider (including an EMT) would understand.
If anything should be written into law on the topic, it should be to empower HCPs and their staff when dealing with government and ubiquitous corporate systems (like insurance companies), not to make blanket decisions that would be overall harmful to the people impacted.
Law enforcement. TSA. Many groups need to know your sex.
I believe they fixed it but the wrong sex would trigger an issue with the tsa scanners.
Law enforcement needs to know which group to put you with.
When you travel it is important as well since other countries may not care how you identify. Why passports are problematic.
Why do my genitals matter which metal box I get put into if I get arrested? Or are you going to parrot the "trans women are rapists" talking point the far-right is pushing?
A passport with a gender marker that doesn't match someone's presentation is going to cause them far more trouble, because it outs the person as trans and that may be a reason for someone to treat them with prejudice.
You really don’t get they put males with males and females with females? You don’t get why law enforcement would need to know how to classify you?
They’ll know they’re trans when they go through the scanner and the sex doesn’t match the gender. This has been an issue that’s been discussed in the past.
Trans people should not be forced to go into a prison with people of a different gender than them just because they had the misfortune to be born with genitals that didn't align with society's expectations of their gender. Genitals they may not even have anymore.
To insist that trans women should be housed with men is inherently transphobic. What benefit do you get out of sex-based segregation? All it does is put trans people in danger.
Who are you arguing against? I never stated an opinion on the topic. I only pointed out the flaw in your statement.
So maybe you should pay attention and stop accusing others of things they never said.
I am disputing things you are saying because they are harmful. If you don't believe them, then don't say them.
I cited an article from a pro-trans right group. Can you be anymore narcissistic? You’re not the voice of trans people. Your rant does more to harm them than anything else I’ve seen here.
You didn't cite anything for your statement about trans people being housed with their AGAB in prisons, and acted as if it was an obvious thing why they should be. I asked why. I'm really not being unreasonable here, but if you think I am then you're welcome to stop replying.
I will not be tone policed by someone who spreads harmful statements about trans people.
You are missing the point. All anyone ever thinks of is MtF but if you are FtM, especially presurgery, do you really want that?
The terms sex and gender were used interchangeably by many for a very long time due to cisnormativity, because for most people their sex and gender matched. It's only due to the recent rise of awareness in trans issues that people have begun to use them to refer to separate specific concepts in general use.
Having your sex on your photo ID doesn't make any sense. The way that this information is used most of the time is to communicate to others what kind of a person they should be looking for. If I told you to look for a "female" person with specific attributes, you wouldn't go and pick a trans man out of the crowd.
Cis people don't have to think about any of this, of course, because they've never been confronted by the challenges that arise from having documentation that outs them in public. When a trans person shows ID that doesn't match their gender identity to someone in a position of power, it puts them at risk for mistreatment. Changing gender markers — or "sex" markers as you insist upon — on documents is a safety issue for trans people, and has the bonus effect of being affirming.
The only people who need to know your sex and see your ID are healthcare professionals, and even then, knowing what configuration someone's genitals had at birth does very little to help them know your current medical status and history. That's why they have long forms that you have to fill out when you start seeing a new healthcare provider, and why healthcare institutions share medical history records.
I'd also add the consideration that a photo ID also serves the purpose of some base level medical information (or else our listing organ donor status on them is super weird) so having sex on there if you're unconscious and the EMTs pick you up and need to check makes some sense. No reason both couldn't work.
I'm sure the EMTs at the scene of the accident are more worried about my head trauma than my genitals. If that becomes relevant later, I'm sure they can look with their own eyes.
I mean you can be unconscious for more than head trauma. My thought was in line with heart issues and if the differences in sex played any part there, due to the differences in the appearance of problems with them between men and women, but maybe that's not really relevant until they hit the hospital.(Since EMTs are stabilizing focused) Just having it on the card - avoiding the time needed to check especially if they've had surgery - seems helpful, if that was relevant. If its not of course it doesn't need to be there but if there's EMTs around chime in because obviously I don't know.
From a medical perspective, “biological sex” is a lot more complicated than the genitalia you had at birth. Sex hormones (androgens, estrogens, progestogens) have a huge impact on your body, your emotions, and your health. If you’ve been undergoing hormone therapy for a year or more, your biological sex cannot be accurately described as your assigned gender at birth.
It’s actually misleading to use the same set of terms to describe biological sex as we do for gender. In a medical setting you might think of a person’s biological sex as describing a suite of variables that impact that person and their care, e.g., a person should target a value of 100 for this metric; for this biological sex, adjust the target value by -35 to +5 at these age ranges; for this biological sex, adjust by these numbers.
Many of those target values change after a person begins hormone therapy, so it would likely be medically beneficial to list their gender and potentially harmful to list the gender associated with the genitals they had at birth. In cases where this isn’t the case, if the person’s health care provider believes the risk is high, they can provide verbiage that addresses the specific risk in language another health care provider (including an EMT) would understand.
If anything should be written into law on the topic, it should be to empower HCPs and their staff when dealing with government and ubiquitous corporate systems (like insurance companies), not to make blanket decisions that would be overall harmful to the people impacted.
Law enforcement. TSA. Many groups need to know your sex.
I believe they fixed it but the wrong sex would trigger an issue with the tsa scanners.
Law enforcement needs to know which group to put you with.
When you travel it is important as well since other countries may not care how you identify. Why passports are problematic.
Why do my genitals matter which metal box I get put into if I get arrested? Or are you going to parrot the "trans women are rapists" talking point the far-right is pushing?
A passport with a gender marker that doesn't match someone's presentation is going to cause them far more trouble, because it outs the person as trans and that may be a reason for someone to treat them with prejudice.
You really don’t get they put males with males and females with females? You don’t get why law enforcement would need to know how to classify you?
They’ll know they’re trans when they go through the scanner and the sex doesn’t match the gender. This has been an issue that’s been discussed in the past.
https://transequality.org/know-your-rights/airport-security
Trans people should not be forced to go into a prison with people of a different gender than them just because they had the misfortune to be born with genitals that didn't align with society's expectations of their gender. Genitals they may not even have anymore.
To insist that trans women should be housed with men is inherently transphobic. What benefit do you get out of sex-based segregation? All it does is put trans people in danger.
Who are you arguing against? I never stated an opinion on the topic. I only pointed out the flaw in your statement.
So maybe you should pay attention and stop accusing others of things they never said.
I am disputing things you are saying because they are harmful. If you don't believe them, then don't say them.
I cited an article from a pro-trans right group. Can you be anymore narcissistic? You’re not the voice of trans people. Your rant does more to harm them than anything else I’ve seen here.
You didn't cite anything for your statement about trans people being housed with their AGAB in prisons, and acted as if it was an obvious thing why they should be. I asked why. I'm really not being unreasonable here, but if you think I am then you're welcome to stop replying.
I will not be tone policed by someone who spreads harmful statements about trans people.
You are missing the point. All anyone ever thinks of is MtF but if you are FtM, especially presurgery, do you really want that?