Make it easier
New Zealand passes a law making it easier to carry fake proof of identity.
Parliament has unanimously passed a sex self-identification law which will make it easier to amend a person’s sex on their birth certificates.
…
Once law, it will mean transgender, intersex, gender diverse, and takatāpui people will no longer need proof of medical treatment or a Family Court declaration to change the sex listed on their birth certificate, but instead apply for it to be changed on the basis of how they identify.
“Today is a day about inclusion–having the right to have a birth certificate that reflects who you know yourself to be,” Internal Affairs Minister Jan Tinetti said, during the third reading of the bill in the House.
Except of course that’s not what birth certificates are for. They’re not about “who you know yourself to be” but who you are in fact, as a matter of record. We all no doubt know ourselves to be perfected beings, beautiful as the dawn, swift as a cheetah, clever as a MacArthur Fellow, wise as Baby Jesus, but birth certificates are about a few dull literal facts. Sex is one of those facts.
“This bill has had some controversy. It’s been a tough journey for our trans- and non-binary community … there have been real people who have been hurt when they have been belittled, mocked, or discriminated against,” Tinetti said.
“A lot of the discussion has been aimed at our transwomen, who, as a cisgender woman, I am proud to stand alongside and call my sisters.”
There’s a reason for that. The reason is that transwomen are men, and their pretending to be women does harm to actual women, and some people actually think that women matter. Weird, I know.
The bill was strongly opposed by groups concerned it would damage women’s rights and protections, and became a lightning rod for culture wars issues.
But sod them, right? Sod women and sod their rights and protections.
H/t Rob
Why the on earth was there ever a pathway to changing the birth certificate sex? The birth certificate documents the particulars of a baby as they are observed on that day; sex of course, but also length, weight, date, time, parental details, location, possibly more that I have forgotten. Changing this record means lying about what was observed then, whether the detail being changed is sex or any of the others.
Imagine how preposterous it would be if there was a campaign to let people change the birth date, or weight, or anything else noted there. Everyone would see the lunacy of such an endeavour immediately, even those that want to enable changing the sex. I would like to hear an explanation from one of them as to how changing the sex observed then is any different.
Holms, I was assigned 1960 at birth, and I demand to have my birth year changed to reflect my identity. I identify as Hypatia of Alexandria, and she was born long before 1960, so my birth certificate should reflect my identity.
Though born in Sydney, NSW, I identify as a giraffe. If I went to NZ, taking my original and inadequate birth certificate with me, I would hope that the ever-obliging authorities there would alter it according to my specifications.
I see concept creep looming: “I identify as Abraham Lincoln, and I identify as being born in 1602, and I demand we rewrite the history books to show Abraham Lincoln (me) was born in 1602.”
Well they would except Lincoln is on their shit list so upon identifying as Lincoln you would be immediately validated and then cancelled.
AMAB/AFAB … “Assigned.” … as if it was some sort of whimsical, arbitrary decision. But it’s not “assigned,” it’s “observed.” And, some very rare exceptions aside, a baby’s sex is obvious.
Perhaps the TRA’s are confusing “sex” with “gender”? Especially those who use the whole AMAB/AFAB concept but who also feel the need to pursue surgery and hormones to (supposedly) make their “sex” match their “gender.”
If you feel that your sexed body does not match your “gender” then shouldn’t it be said that the hospital correctly “observed” your body’s sex, rather than arbitarily “assigned” it? Or are you one of those people in La-La Land who believes that a penis can be female if attached to anyone who claims to have a “female” gender, and that the same holds for a vagina attached to someone who decides they’re “male”? And if that’s the case, shouldn’t you have a talk with the surgery and hormones people and explain the error of their ways and how they’re undermining the truth that you’re trying to live about how sexual characteristics don’t matter when it comes to “gender”?
Actually, it seems that sex might not even exist, let alone matter. If both men and women can have either penises or vaginas, then what’s the difference? Some women just happen to have penises, greater upper-body strength, stronger jaw-lines, stand about six-feet tall, hair-lines that recede as they age, and a greater propensity to commit acts of sexual violence than those women who are born with vaginas and who tend to be physically weaker, with more delicate facial features, and shorter than their penised “sisters.”
If these physical traits don’t define “male” and “female” then what use are they? Since TRA Science has shown that they don’t define “male/female” anymore, then they don’t appear to be useful at all.
(Oh yes! Those sorts of women with the shorter statures and the vaginas are often able to get pregnant, while their taller, stronger sisters with penises never do. But, as we all know, a man can become pregnant as well! They tend to be the men who are on the shorter side, with less upper-body strength than most other men. Actually, come to think of it, those men who get pregnant seem to all have vaginas, while those men who never get pregnant all have penises. Funny that.)
I used to seek out writers who could explain to me how all of this insanity is common sense. I don’t anymore because I found so much of what I did read to be incoherent, frustratingly vague, or just as insane as I thought it would be. But so many “woke” individuals understand how it all adds up. I must be missing something.
I identify as Jeff Bezos’s son, and it would really help my non-support suit against him if I could change my birth certificate to reflect that.
It is not. As Holms and others observed, a birth certificate is certification of…. er… a birth. It is a statement by an appropriate authority that a birth took place and what the details were. Changing those details retrospectively invalidates that certification. Re-certification is obviously possible but has fairly clear consequences, which are being frantically handwaved away.
I don’t understand this, either. What is the purpose of it? Even if the person could change sex wouldn’t it be better record keeping to track that separately from birth?
And how many times can it be done, in order to accommodate genderqueerfluid people? Will there be an app that updates gender on the BC as the mood strikes?
Pandora? There’s more than one box, Dear.
And as if by magic:
Mexicans are now allowed to self-ID their age.
https://twitter.com/Leadinglady0609/status/1469404721849028608