I’m continuing this from the Current Events thread because I have some questions that seem better suited here.
Current event that affects me (and the rest of the LGBTQ community) very personally.
I have read this article, which states:
“Sex means a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth,” the department proposed in the memo, which was drafted and has been circulating since last spring. “The sex listed on a person’s birth certificate, as originally issued, shall constitute definitive proof of a person’s sex unless rebutted by reliable genetic evidence.”
Now, from what I’ve gathered elsewhere, and from the rest of this thread, is that gender and sex are two very different things. As such, I don’t really see how the bit quoted above is controversial, as that is what I’ve been led to believe for quite some time.
The main problem, far as I can tell, is that most laws were written before such a distinction was made, hence laws like Title IX will say that discrimination based on sex is not good, but did not make the distinction to mention gender. Have I got that right?
The article seems to be saying that the definition of sex itself is offensive, at least that’s the way it’s worded to me. Wouldn’t that be inaccurate?
Needless to say, I do think clarifying this all is necessary given how messy recent events have been, but to use it as an excuse to discriminate is abhorrent. It should be easy to see that all previous laws using “sex” should also extend to gender, seeing as they were written before there was such a distinction.
If I am misinformed, please do not hesitate to correct me. I don’t intend to be harmful, but this is how I’m currently understanding these events.
Reading the article, there seems to be an issue where it uses the terms sex and gender interchangeably, which muddies matters. Is the administration defining sex, or defining gender? The article said they were defining gender in the first two paragraphs, and then switched to saying they’re defining sex, and at least once switched back to saying they were defining gender. It could’ve used another editor, possibly one with some more experience with LGBT topics to help clarify what’s going on. That said, I think I have a rough understanding of what it’s trying to say.
The issue isn’t so much defining sex and gender as different. Canada has recently done that with C-16, though that was to make it clear that Gender identity and expression are protected concepts, rather than having to find relevant examples of case law which ruled that gender was protected by the same acts that protected sex.
Like you said, the issue is about the fact that this is an excuse to rollback protections. It would be one thing if they were doing an American equivalent of C-16, and then tighten up the definition of sex, but they’re not. They’re defining it so that they have an excuse to discriminate against trans people. They don’t intend on adding gender identity to Title IX; they want to erase that concept entirely.
Unrelated, but I’m actually kinda laughing at using chromosome tests to determine one’s sex like the administration suggests. There are a lot of problems with that, from Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, Klinefelter’s (XXY chromosomes), Turner Syndrome (only one X chromosome), cases where the SRY gene has been replicated on an X chromosome allowing for an XX chromosome male…