Kansas to no longer change transgender people's birth certificates to reflect gender identities
Kansas to no longer change transgender people's birth certificates to reflect gender identities
Kansas will no longer change transgender people’s birth certificates to reflect their gender identities.
"Here's another chance to make people miserable," said some Republican, because making people miserable is their favorite thing to do. Your birth cert is needed for all manner of things — a driver's license, a job, a mortgage, etc — all of which will now be much more difficult, and involve telling your life story at every bureaucrat's counter.
Republicans are fucking monsters.
Everyone who is like "We should have it be a separate certificate" or "you shouldn't be allowed to change it" knows this and it is the ONLY reason any of them support it.
The GOP aren't just monsters, they're fascist scum that have no place in any civilized society. The party needs to be treated like the NSDAP after post war Germany.
Why isn't there a federal birth certificate by now? It's dumb that in 2023 states have that much control over people's identities.
Some blue state should offer trans people birth certificates there.
Birth certificates are issued by the birth state
Is there a federal law that says so? If not, who cares?
Only reason I could see this being logical in the first place is if being a biological male/female would impact the medical treatment of anything in a major capacity. Otherwise, fuck this law, it’s stupid.
Just to clarify birth certificates are never used for medical treatment. If this information is needed the kind approach would be to add a new field to record gender assigned at birth.
https://www.usbirthcertificates.com/articles/what-do-i-need-a-birth-certificate-for
Sure, but when is the last time your birth certificate mattered in a medical setting? Nobody asks for that to give care. And it makes no difference to care anyway, the patient will just give their medical history to their doctor.
That I could see, though the hormones (or other meds) that they would take and report should highlight the transition. Though cmiiw, I think the only real difference, aside from anatomical, will be metabolic which the referenced hormones would alter, making the case unique in and of itself. (eg. A F>M taking testosterone would have a metabolism that is a closer approximation to male than female and vice versa)
This is the best summary I could come up with:
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — 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.
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.
“As I’ve said before, the state should not discriminate or encroach into Kansans’ personal lives -– it’s wrong, it’s bad for business,” Kelly said in a statement.
The new Kansas law was based on a proposal from several national anti-trans groups and was part of a wave of measures rolling back transgender rights in Republican-controlled statehouses across the U.S. Montana, Oklahoma and Tennessee also don’t allow transgender residents to change their birth certificates, and Montana and Tennessee don’t allow driver’s licenses changes.
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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.
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.
As someone who supports rights for everyone because I don't care at all about any of this stuff - I think this is right, it is to record your gender at birth. It also records their weight which changes too but we don't change the snapshot of when you're first born. I think that another certificate should be issued to record how a person wants to be viewed be it changing their name or gender or whatever.
Except we all know this is not done in good faith to fix a real problem. Its real intent to further push a transphobic agenda and punish people who are trans.
But this should never have been the case, the birth certificate should never have been in this discussion. I don't want these people to be discriminated against but this is a stupid argument to have made in the first place. It is not transphobic to factually record whether a new born has a penis or a vagina - which is the entirety of what the intention of recording gender has been since the beginning of records.
This is a bad take. This law’s intent is 100% to hurt trans people. Don’t go looking for reason and justifying it.
However, because all other records take information from your birth certificate, this effectively bars trans people from having photo identification that aligns with their gender. This creates a safety issue for trans people every time they have to provide said photo identification.
Your birth certificate also records the name your parents gave you at birth, but we've allowed people to amend the document when they change their name for a long time. Why is this any different?
Safety issue? If someone is in danger from showing an ID they're probably in danger already. Regular people wouldn't care less.
Absolutely, this makes a lot of sense as to why this is dangerous and as to why these people need to change their birth cert.
But the answer to it is to have another legal document created to document the transition.
I didn't answer your second part, I disagree entirely with changing your name on your birth cert too. I, again, have no problem with people changing their name but it should necessitate a new document.
it is to record your gender at birth
Plenty of folks don't know. There are experts that are brought in to determine confusing cases, and they sometimes get it wrong. Be happy if your genitals just match one of the obvious binaries and you don't have this issue. But many folks do.
I don't understand this, I get there are very rare cases of a third chromosome or gene or whatever the X and Ys are. But the vast vast majority of cases it is completely down to if the baby has a penis or a vagina. That is it, I'm a supporter of people's rights and I don't like appearing on the same side as horrible people but the purpose of the document is to record the facts as they stand. If experts need to be called in to determine the result, then we take their determination as the result as they are the experts. If need be put an asterisk to show there was a consensus required.
If you're adopted, you can get your birth certificate amended to put the names of your adoptive parents on it. If you change your name, you can do the same. They're exclusively singling out gender here.
You make a good point. We can change who we are but we can't change who we were.
I can just see right wingers trying to make yet more laws to fuck over trans people tho saying they can only use their "assigned at birth certificate" or something.
That's exactly it, and it's really annoying for people to assume I'm a right winger because I have a very slight and specific difference of opinion.
I could see them doing just that and it should be tackled every single time.
Separate but equal isn't.
It records your sex and that never changes with current technology.
We should change the field to gender if we want people to change it.
I don't agree that there is a difference, I have tried but they were used interchangeably for so long. I think that people should be allowed to feel and be whoever they want but I don't understand how that relates back to gender or sex on your birth cert.
It seems reasonable to me, becoming transgender later in life doesn't change the official information recorded about you at your birth.
Then why do we allow people to change this official information later in life when they change their name, or to add/remove parents?
How does people changing their gender on a piece of paper affect you? It matters to them, why does it matter to you?