Comment by filleduchaos | Hacker News Reader

Comment by filleduchaos | Hacker News Reader

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This might be a bit of a strange take, but hear me out: this is good and should be the norm regardless of what you think or believe about trans people and/or gender being binary or not.

Gender as a social institution is a separate thing to me from gender as a facet of identity. By "social institution" I mean its involvement outside of interpersonal relationships, e.g. in situations like this where it's become the business of the state (and thus information that anybody even glancing at your ID card is privy to). That's patently absurd to me. How is it normal for a complete stranger to look at my ID and know (or at least think they know) what genitals I have? Or casually ask for that on forms? That certainly seems like information that I should have a measure of control over.

For a few years now I've been of the opinion that a person should have to opt in to disclose their gender/sex except where actually necessary (e.g. in medical contexts). "Prefer not to disclose" (e.g. X along with M/F) should be a valid answer to anyone else that asks including the government.

Gender is a social construction - the word was intentionally pushed into the narrative for that purpose - but sex is not. The extreme majority of people is born either male - XY chromosomes, external genitals, produces small gametes, wider in the shoulders than in the hips if they eat a healthy diet, can not bear children - or female - XX chromosomes, internal genitals, conspicuous mammary glands, produces large gametes, wider at the hips than at the shoulders, can bear children and lactate to feed them. There are some important differences between men and women which need to be taken into account when e.g. the person is taken to a hospital or is taken into custody for some reason. Men and women react differently to some medicines and get different diseases. A man who is taken into a hospital with complaints of abdominal discomfort is not going to be pregnant and as such can be treated differently from a women who is admitted with the same complaints. Sending a woman home with the advice to take a pain killer can and has ended up with disastrous results for the child she is bearing, sending a man home with the same advice does not run such a risk. Putting a man and a woman in the same police cell can easily end badly for the woman, especially where alcohol or other drugs are involved.

So, no, this is not a good idea, especially not when taking that passport across the border - and why else do you get a passport if not to travel across international borders - to countries which have not been touched by the gender craze. What is an Indonesian police officer going to do with an American citizen who chose to mark her gender as 'X', took a few drinks too many and ended up unconscious on the street on Bali? How will a Russian doctor treat her when she comes with the aforementioned complaints about abdominal discomfort?

More importantly, what purpose is served by ignoring the above mentioned fact of the majority of people being born either male or female? Reality does not change just because someone chooses to ignore it.

It's somewhat baffling to me that you wrote out this entire paragraph about how sex is a pertinent factor in medical contexts when my proposal was literally "a person should have to opt in to disclose their gender/sex except where actually necessary (e.g. in medical contexts)".

It's generally more productive when people don't make such clear knee-jerk responses to comments.

Did you miss where I wrote about the woman lying unconscious on the street in Bali after drinking too much and the question what the Indonesian police officer would do with her? Being unconscious she would not be able to tell him that she was a woman. The same goes for medical emergencies where being unconscious is not uncommon. How would an unconscious person disclose their sex?

Please read the whole entry before commenting about 'knee-jerk responses to comments*.

How does an unconscious person disclose their blood group and genotype, that they are diabetic, that they have a history of migraines, that they have an allergic reaction to X medications, or any of the other things that are more immediately and more dangerously pertinent in a medical emergency than their sex?

Should we start putting all of these things on general-purpose IDs as well, since medical personnel need to know them?

As an aside, it seems to me that it's only profoundly healthy people that wring their hands this much about sex in medical contexts. Those of us who actually have to pop in and out of hospitals fairly often know that there are a host of other things we would need a new doctor or nurse to know first, and know that there are already ways to communicate existing conditions to the people that need to know them: medical IDs.

In the case of the police officer, this might be a shock but I am 0% in support of taking unconscious, unresponsive people into custody and not to a medical facility (and it's frankly completely baffling once again that you seem to think that the police officer is supposed to process someone that is unconscious into jail. Just...what?).

People with specific diseases - diabetes [1], epilepsy [2], etc - and those using specific medicines - corticosteroids [3], etc - carry documents which tell emergency services about them. This also goes for severe allergies - think Penicillin allergy. They tend to carry these documents in their wallet or with their ID, especially when travelling abroad. The documents often carry messages in several languages so as to be intelligible to as many people as possible.

[1] https://www.diabetes.co.uk/diabetic-products/medipal-card.ht...

[2] https://www.epilepsy.org.uk/info/daily-life/safety-aids-equi...

[3] https://www.dorsetccg.nhs.uk/Downloads/aboutus/medicines-man...

Yes, that is literally what I said - medical IDs, which are presented where and to whom it is relevant and necessary. Not on general purpose IDs that need to be presented to anybody including a random bartender or some web service that's asking for KYC docs.

I don't mean to insinuate but I do have to ask if you're actually reading what I'm saying in good faith or just reacting.

> I don't mean to insinuate but I do have to ask if you're actually reading what I'm saying in good faith or just reacting.

I am reacting to the increasing trend of renormalisation of the exception to make it the new norm(al). If the new normal is not to denote sex in the passport this would mean that everyone would need to carry an additional document - like the medical IDs mentioned - to identify themselves as male or female to the aforementioned police officer [1] and doctor to avoid the mentioned risks.

[1] as to your earlier remark about me seem[ing] to think that the police officer is supposed to process someone that is unconscious into jail. Just...what? - realise that different countries have different norms, no matter what you may think of that. The Indonesian police officer will act according to Indonesian norms, not according to yours. While what you or I think about those norms is up to us, it is decidedly not up to us to dictate our norms to others.

> I am reacting to the increasing trend of renormalisation of the exception to make it the new norm(al).

So in essence you really are not paying attention to what I'm actually saying, you just have an axe to grind and are determined to grind it regardless of what I say.

If that's not the case, I'm very interested indeed to know how exactly you arrived at "everyone would need to carry an additional document" from "denoting your sex on general-purpose identification should be opt-in". To me it would seem patently obvious to anybody who is not jumping to argue that the only people who would need to carry additional papers are those who have chosen to (by deciding not to put their sex on their passports, driver's licenses or what have you).

I think it would be worth your while to interrogate why your kneejerk reaction to "it should be the individual's choice to disclose this information" is to translate it to "nobody should disclose this information".

> While what you or I think about those norms is up to us, it is decidedly not up to us to dictate our norms to others.

First of all I guarantee that we are not from the same country nor do we share norms. Second of all, it's not the norm in Indonesia to (for example) recognise same-sex marriages, but I fail to see how this is an argument about those in such marriages owning documents that reflect their union (or making their own decisions about where they can take those documents to and what workarounds they might need where their validity is not recognised). And finally I frankly do not understand what your point is with the police officer. What exactly happens to an unconscious woman in a street in Indonesia found by a police officer with an X in her passport as opposed to an F (or with no passport at all, which is by far the most likely option)?

> I'm very interested indeed to know how exactly you arrived at "everyone would need to carry an additional document"

This is in reaction to the proposition to not denote sex in ID documents at all as is proposed elsewhere in this discussion.

> First of all I guarantee that we are not from the same country nor do we share norms

You are assuming a lot here, both about where I am from as well as what my norms are. Don't do that, both because where we come from is of no concern but mostly because it makes it much more difficult to have an open discussion.

> Second of all, it's not the norm in Indonesia to (for example) recognise same-sex marriages, but I fail to see how this is an argument about those in such marriages owning documents that reflect their union (or making their own decisions about where they can take those documents to and what workarounds they might need where their validity is not recognised).

In which way is this related to my suggestion that it is not up to you or me to impose our standards on e.g. Indonesia? If the fictional couple in your example were to go to Indonesia they would be treated according to Indonesian norms no matter what their own ideas would be, just like they would be treated according to Swedish norms in Sweden, Indian norms in India and Russian norms in Russia.

> And finally I frankly do not understand what your point is with the police officer. What exactly happens to an unconscious woman in a street in Indonesia found by a police officer with an X in her passport as opposed to an F (or with no passport at all, which is by far the most likely option)?

If the woman with the X in her passport were to look somewhat like a man [1] she could end up in a holding cell with men. As to whether it is far more likely she would not be carrying a passport at all is doubtful given that she is travelling abroad and as such will be carrying one by necessity. In many places it is mandatory to carry ID, both foreign and domestic, at all times.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27773590

> How is it normal for a complete stranger to look at my ID and know (or at least think they know) what genitals I have?

Ignore naughty bits entirely! Everyone fixates on the naughty bits. Sheesh.

Imagine a 5'6" male. Imagine a 5'6" female. Imagine them wearing the same outfit. Do they look, stereotypically, different enough that you could tell which one is standing in front of you with high accuracy? Do you think this outward difference might be a useful identification tool to assess if a passport belongs to the passport holder? Must this indicator be sinister? Is it so sinister that the government should reject it for other, possibly more sinister indicators?

Height isn't required on passports. Even though it identifies people more specifically than sex.

I would assume someone is trans if they matched the description and appearance on an identity document except for apparent sex.

Sinister is a straw man.

Who says they even have to be trans? If your security agents' brains are broken by a person not looking like a narrow stereotype of their sex, they're just bad at their jobs full stop (especially considering that they also have to identify children for example)

Most people look distinctly male or female. I think they meant someone who looks distinctly male and presents a passport marked female should be assumed an impostor. Not it would break anyone's brain.

> Most people look distinctly male or female

In my actual experience most people are neither broad-shouldered Adonises nor voluptuous femme fatales, and it only takes an unflattering angle or non-mainstream fashion choice (or even nothing but their own imaginations) for people to start questioning someone's sex.

> neither broad-shouldered Adonises nor voluptuous femme fatales

You have some narrow stereotypes if you think just those bodies look distinctly male or female.

> it only takes an unflattering angle or non-mainstream fashion choice (or even nothing but their own imaginations) for people to start questioning someone's sex.

Let's assume that's true. Are most angles unflattering? Are most fashion choices non mainstream?

> Ignore naughty bits entirely! Everyone fixates on the naughty bits. Sheesh.

Sex literally is about "naughty bits". That is what it is, by definition. That is the information that we go about disclosing to all and sundry.

> Imagine a 5'6" male. Imagine a 5'6" female. Imagine them wearing the same outfit. Do they look, stereotypically, different enough that you could tell which one is standing in front of you with high accuracy?

If your system of identification depends on assessing people's (secondary) sex characteristics, it's pathetically bad.

> Do you think this might be a useful identification tool to assess if a passport belongs to the passport holder?

You mean rather than use the picture?

You mean the one that can be years and years and years old? That likely was taken at Walgreens some Saturday morning? And which is not verified during the passport renewal? That one?

Yes, the one with more information, even when old, than any assumptions made based on sex.

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