Re: Should transwomen be legally treated as women?
Why do you care? What difference does it possibly make in your life or your family's life for a transgendered person to be legally treated as the sex they transitioned to?
In the modern era of gender equality, the number of issues where the government deals with sex/gender is shrinking, but there are still a few. For example, men and women have separate prison facilities. Women aren't allowed in military combat. Gay marriage is illegal in some states. There are issues of custody upon the birth of a child. None of these situations may apply to me directly, but it is in the public's best interest to deal with them all.
Except for the military combat restriction, all of these issues are better defined by biological sex than by gender. The practical purpose of having separate prisons is so that a person cannot impregnate their cellmate. Gender reassignment surgery doesn't necessarily prevent this from happening, so it would be better to separate prisoners by biological sex. Basing same-sex marriage laws on gender would mean that there is a surgical operation that invalidates a marriage. Obviously this doesn't make sense for many reasons. Neither does allowing public exposure of breasts to be legal if the person defines those breasts as "male" rather than "female". These are some examples of why biological sex is a better criteria for lawmaking than gender.
Perhaps I missed it, but I haven't heard anyone who opposes say exactly what defines a person's sex.
Biological sex has been defined a number of different ways by science, and still there always seem to be exceptions. But the concept of sex comes from reproductive function, and as mentioned above that is the main purpose of differentiating between the two. So I personally would define it as such: anyone with a functional ovary is female, anyone with a functional testicle is male. This covers 99% of the population. For someone who has neither, we could define it by chromosomes, or by genitals, or simply use a third term such as "neuter" -- but it doesn't make much practical difference, as they can't reproduce so they are immune to most of the significant issues. There are intersex individuals with ambiguous genitalia born relatively often, but there has never been a true human hermaphrodite recorded by medical science with both ovary and testicle, so as far as I know this simple criteria applies to every human on earth.
This relates only to biological sex. Gender is a totally separate thing. It is based on cultural stereotypes that are mostly false. I understand sympathizing with someone who feels like they are the opposite gender, and I have no problem with treating them the way they want to be treated when feasible. That just comes down to human decency. But for legal and practical purposes, biology is better defined and a better practical criteria on almost every issue, and should be used as the basis for our laws rather than gender. This takes nothing away from a trans- person who should be free to live their life as they please, just not redefine biology.
The fact that this has 8 votes of no bothers me....
I voted no, not because I don't like transgender people or want to deprive them of their rights, but because basing laws on something self-identified like "gender" makes less rational sense than basing laws on biological sex, which currently cannot be changed by science.
