Kansas will no longer change transgender people’s birth certificates to reflect their gender identities, the state health department said Friday, citing a new law that prevents the state from legally recognizing those identities.
The decision from the state Department of Health and Environment makes Kansas one of a handful of states that won’t change transgender people’s birth certificates. It already was among the few states that don’t change the gender marker on transgender people’s driver’s licenses.
Those decisions reverse policies that Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s administration set when she took office in 2019. They came in response to court filings by conservative Republican state Attorney General Kris Kobach to enforce the new state law. Enacted by the GOP-controlled Legislature over Kelly’s veto, it took effect July 1 and defines male and female based only on the sex assigned to a person at birth.
Fuck Kansas.
What actual purpose does having sex on the birth certificate actually serve?
It is a useful form of a means of identification, but in that sense, insisting on identifying as birth sex over ones, represented gender identity, this forced representation makes no sense in that regard. Unless, of course, hate, bigotry, and cruelty are the point.
Is it actually a useful means of identification, though? What does anyone gain from knowing that Paul Blart is a boy?
Sex is useful for doctors and stuff, but does anyone else need to know it so badly that it should be a vital document?
One never even looked at my birth certificate. Sometimes, I feel like we can just let one go, and this is it. Who honestly cares what a birth certificate says?
Can we just have Sex and Gender. Gender for social shit, sex for like, your healthcare providers.
Your gender identity means nothing to a male-specific affliction.
In Afghanistan when someone wanted to get a visa to travel to the US or Europe they would be asked for their birth certificate as proof of citizenship. The problem is, their wasn’t a system in the country that regulated or even made birth certificates. But the Americans said it was required. So, what do you do? You make one. Now guys are making them everywhere, selling them to whoever wants one. Bam, American democracy established.
Don’t let them know your sex to begin with and they can’t list you at all.
Someone changing their gender does not change their sex, the thing recorded on a birth certificate. Remember when the activists argued sex and gender were separate things? Seems we have looped back to them being one thing, but with neither tied to biology.
The issue is that listed sex on a birth certificate has actual effects that limit the options available to trans people. Like if you otherwise pass as your gender but say your passport lists your birth sex you are immediately recognizable as trans to immigrations officials in airports or border officials will treat your documents as suspicious which means chances are way better of you being detained, harassed and abused by security personnel.
If it’s on a driver’s licence then that immediately opens you up to bigoted behaviour by anyone you need to hand that document over to. Cops can decide that maybe they want to find something worth arresting you for since they already have you pulled over, that apartment you were applying for to rent? Well you’re noticeably trans on your documentation so maybe they just put you to the bottom of the stack.
A lot of trans folk look at being able to pass as their window of hope to walk the world more safely. If you have a full on beard, deep voice, male sounding name but an F in the sex category on your passport travelling becomes an absolute misery.
You’re actually making an argument that government officials and authority figures need more training or different officers that can actually handle this shit.
In an ideal world people would be disqualified from these positions if they were bigots. But good luck getting any trans friendly protections on the books. People over the past decade have become way more comfortable in harassing trans people in public in a general sense. Enforcement is also spotty. Airline security particularly is given a lot of benefit of the doubt and not an amazing amount of oversight. Systemic persecution of Muslims has been an issue for decades and surprise - people still get hassled. Police, police unions and the courts of law they serve are also often very good at covering for each other.
In reality these issues apply on a worldwide scale. If you are traveling by air and have even a layover in a country where it is not safe to be openly trans you are in danger every time someone asks to see your documents.
Also every border guard or police officer in every country is a patchwork. All it takes is one particularly bad one and you could end up with PTSD, injured or dead. There is good reason why police officers in uniform are generally not welcome at Prides. It is a known trigger that causes folk who have experienced this kind of violence to have involuntary flashbacks or panic attacks.
It is ultimately safer to give someone the tools to be safer than to trust every official in every country you might ever want to risk visiting to be a good official. Even if you are going to one that is supposed to be safe.
Wow Kansas, you sure showed their genitals who’s the boss.
Just do it, jump Kansas.
This should have never been an option to begin with.
