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ajvs

So?

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People can be nonbinary, in which case neither "son" nor "daughter" is accurate.

What if it's asking about their sex rather than their gender identity?

There can be non-binary sexes, too. It's a thing that happens, but it's much more rare than non-binary gender.

> What if it’s asking about their sex rather than their gender identity?

Legal sex (which is really ascribed gender, and starts out as assigned gender at birth) has the exact same problem as gender identity here. As does assigned gender at birth itself (since there are people for whom that is neither male nor female as legally recorded.)

But given the mix of gendered and non-gendered terms in the instruction, its just a product of the fact that both law, and even more the bureaucratic processes and documents supporting its application, is very much not DRY, so “we recognize the existence of non-binary gender” isn’t a point change to the “gender” module of the legal system, rather it requires changes throughout a “code base” that is giant, and has no version control or test suite.

Turns out you need to pick a side for tax purposes.

For what purpose?

Are you sure you are not committing an is-ought fallacy?

For the purpose of filling in the tax form.

I suspect the problem is one of people mis-understanding the complex rules for claiming dependents. In decades past, the term "child" was actually allowed by tax software approved for IRS filing, but presumably too many people thought that meant any child they happened to have some financial relationship to, rather than the very specific relations required by tax law. By requiring more specific terms, it made it harder for people to mis-claim children as dependents.

Which is exactly the hilarity that was pointed out

Son and Daughter refer to a sex binary, so non-binary non-physical stuff doesn't come in to play here.

First, why does the tax man need to know what genitalia your children have and are you comfortable with that? Second, what do you consider people with neither or both kinds? Subhumans ineligible to be dependents?

> Second, what do you consider people with neither or both kinds?

Male/female is determined by chromosomes, either XX or XY.

Ah. Totally relevant this piece of information when tax is concerned. /s

Seriously however, any link to where this is specified in the way you claim it to be? How does it see SRY gene disorders? If your child is a daughter to you but technically has XY, will the law mandate you to declare her as a son? etc.

> Male/female is determined by chromosomes, either XX or XY.

This isn’t true legally (where “sex” is really an ascribed gender assigned at birth and possibly updated later for a variety of reasons) or medically (since an individual with a 46,XX karyotype can be male or female medically, as can an individual with a 46,XY karyotype.)

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