Is it a boy or a girl?

[Uncle Sparky]

My birth certificate had my parents (therefore my) religion (according to the laws of the day) and my father's occupation. In other jurisdictions 'race'' was listed. These don't appear on current birth certificates in this province... why should 'sex'?

[Elok]

Biological sex is not subjective, but (a) why do we care so much about it (outside of medical scenarios) and (b) the tests we perform at birth to confirm the sex of the infant are good but not perfect.

A. Biological sex (and gender, which correlates with it more than 99% of the time) is very important to the way we relate to one another as both individuals and groups, even outside of narrowly sexual contexts. Males have mostly male friends, females mostly female friends. Almost all stable families result from a long-term bond between a male and a female. You can argue "but that's just socially constructed," but so is more or less everything we value, because we're social animals. Today marks the celebration of an enormous mass of social constructs in our social construct of a country, and its attendant mass of accumulated traditions, based on highly colored and misleading stories we tell about people who died about two hundred years ago. Objectively, this is all so much bull****, but that doesn't mean it's not important bull****.

B. No, not perfect, but what percentage of the general population has misleading genitals? Do we even have a percentage for that? And how does it make sense to ****** this child's formation as a boy or girl on the chance that s/he will grow up to be one of the one in five hundred or so who decide they are neither?

[Jon Miller]

Because we are not in a post-sex society and sex is the strongest identifying characteristic (people who get a 'sex change' do not get a real sex change, after all. They just become intersex).

Additionally sex has real scientific and biological definition unlike 'race'.

Finally, unlike family/job/race/sexual attraction I don't see 'sex' as something one can argue is going to go away shortly .First, we are nowhere near the ability to do a real sex change. Second, if you talk to transexuals they are very focused on genders and gendered behavior and being recognized as being in a gender.

However, we do appear to be going to a much less gendered society... in which case one could argue that far fewer people would even desire a real sex change (much less the current expensive, painful and only cosmetic 'sex reassignment' that goes on today).

Note that this doesn't address naturally 'intersex' people which is not an argument that there is a spectrum but rather an argument that there are always mutations and handicapped people (people born without limbs, colorblind people, etc).

JM

[Bereta_Eder]

When I was young (like 5 years old) (I'm told) I was very handsome. Also my mom (because it was the aftermath of the 60's/ 70's) used to have me with long hair.
A grandma, as I was walking down the road, said "what a beautiful girl". I got angry and said "I'm not a girl, I'm a boy"
Imagine if my mom actually got angry at that (and didn't just laugh)

[giblets]

When I was young (like 5 years old) (I'm told) I was very handsome. Also my mom (because it was the aftermath of the 60's/ 70's) used to have me with long hair.
A grandma, as I was walking down the road, said "what a beautiful girl". I got angry and said "I'm not a girl, I'm a boy"
Imagine if my mom actually got angry at that (and didn't just laugh)

Wow, can't believe your mom allowed you to be mistaken for a girl, that's clearly child abuse. /sarcasm

[giblets]

We don't like to press pink on our girl, but a lot of the girl clothes are pink.

I like yellow better, but honestly we got her a lot of 'boys' clothes. And strangely, the 'boys' clothes seemed to be better quality....

JM
(I was going to answer 'girl')

Oh my God. Making a girl wear boy clothes? Where's child protective services?

[Bereta_Eder]

You can't deny that in ancient greece, homosexuality was a choice and a social construct.



Now make no mistake. Not saying it is exactly like that today.

[Proteus_MST]

Likewise in other times gender specific clothes/looks were different.

In medieval times men wore tights. In late medieval times men wore high heels.
In ancient rome, both, men like women wore not very dissimilar dress-like garments.
In ancient egypt men wore heavy makeup

and so on

Gender specific attire, but also behavior, change with time.

As JM said, at the moment it seems like the differences between genders with regards to socially accepted looks and behavior seeem to decrease (at least among "liberals" ).
Sometimes to really huge extrees.
I mean look at Bill Kaulitz at the beginning of the career of Tokio Hotel:

Spoiler:

When I first saw pics of them I thought "Wow, cute girl which they have as lead singer" ... only later I found out that it is no girl


Well, I'd say the best thing parents can do is, to support their kids in (legal and non destructive) things these strongly feel about ... even if it is that they feel like /want to become a member of the other gender. (no sure about the baby in my opening posting however, that it is too young to express desires to be some kind of transgender, of course is clear)

[Lorizael]

A. Biological sex (and gender, which correlates with it more than 99% of the time) is very important to the way we relate to one another as both individuals and groups, even outside of narrowly sexual contexts.

We relate to others based on our perceptions of them. In the vast majority of cases, this means that we relate to them based on their expressed gender identity, because that's what we actually see. We don't sex our friends. Yes, in most cases, expressed gender identity matches up with biological sex, so the gender identity is merely serving as a proxy for something else, but everything is a proxy, really. We wear the clothes we wear to signal alignment with particular brands/ideas/media. We choose our words to sound more like people we admire/relate to. We should accept that perception is a fundamental fact of interaction and allow people to craft their own identities through their interaction with the world.

Tomboys can be "just one the guys" because we already accept that expressed identities (personality, mannerisms, interests) can be more relevant than incidental biological facts. No one is surprised that tomboys are "actually women" or feels deceived, no one demands that they cannot do guy things. You may argue that there is a difference, because transgender men are claiming to be men but tomboys are not. Well, then let it be that what they're claiming is based on what actually matters for the vast majority of our interactions: expressed identity. Then there is no deception and no delusion.

Let it be that biological sex is relevant when necessary, in medicine and reproduction (for now). Let it fall away in all other spheres, because humans are ****ing creative, goddammit, and if there is anything at all special about us as a species, it is our ability to transcend (to an extent) biological limits. (That is what culture and technology do.)

[Elok]

But gender is meaningless except as a referent to biological sex. There are somewhat effeminate men and somewhat masculine women, and the norms can change, but the norms are accepted as norms tied to sex, and the tie to sex is significant. Women, for example, relate best to other women partly because of normal patterns of behavior with a fairly solid basis in biology (e.g., they use speech more as a bonding tool than we do, and feel less of an urge to compete), partly from purely social conventions, and partly because the confounding elements of sexual tension and attraction are gone. Yes, there are deviations from the pattern, and I'm fine with making reasonable steps to accommodate the deviations, but the OP example is basically reversing what works for the overwhelming majority for the sake of a very small minority which the child may or may not even belong to. It's like if we all felt obligated to segregate our meat and dairy, and keep the lobsters out of sight, for the sake of not discomfiting Orthodox Jews.

[Lorizael]

But gender is meaningless except as a referent to biological sex.

Agreed. I think we should do away with it all entirely and start crafting new identities from the ground up. But I recognize that (a) that is even more ridiculous than my interim proposal and (b) we need some inspiration for the genesis of new identities and gender is as good a place as any to start.

...but the OP example is basically reversing what works for the overwhelming majority for the sake of a very small minority which the child may or may not even belong to. It's like if we all felt obligated to segregate our meat and dairy, and keep the lobsters out of sight, for the sake of not discomfiting Orthodox Jews.

As I've alluded to, respecting the identities of transgendered folk is only a part of why I think we should embrace this path. It is very important to those who need their identities respected, yes, but it also paves the way for a much larger and more interesting future. Technology will eventually allow for the creation of a great many different kinds of minds (through genetic enhancement, AI, nootropics, cybernetics, uploading, uplift, etc.), and new minds mean new ideas, new civilizations, new worlds. If we can't get over a hangup like some people not conforming to identities that developed out of the way our species happens to exchange genetic information, it's going to be a rough road.

[Aeson]

Babies are too young for sex!

[Elok]

Eh. I doubt any such thing will happen, and if it does I want no part of it. Most likely, to the extent transhuman business does occur, it will be a short-lived toy or fad of the idle rich, and wrecked at the first sign of social disruption, to be used as a cautionary tale or fuel for reaction. If we were genuinely interested in self-sculpting as such, we could have had some form of eugenics at any time for the past several thousand years. There's a reason we scarcely ever did, and the few cases wherein we attempted it (Sparta, Nazis) are held up as stock types of revulsion. We always were, and always will be, tribal animals. And nobody ever likes a freak.

[Lorizael]

As I've said before, civilization as it exists now is radically different from the way humans lived for 200,000 years. It's a mistake to think this blip of the last several thousand years is going to be what humanity is like forever. Technology and culture have changed us (not necessarily genetically) and they will continue to do so.

[Uncle Sparky]

I'm still not convinced that 'sex' needs to appear on a birth certificate...