UK Supreme Court: No to gender-neutral passports

Biological sex is not necessary displayed on a UK passport, so the question of how many biological sexes there are, or whether any particular term is one or not, is entirely moot.

The sex displayed on a UK passport can be self-identified, and does not have to confirm to the individual’s biological sex.

Yet 20 years ago we had people tell us that we are leading a lifestyle, that same scenario is raising its head again for trans people. Are we forgetting where we came from? Solidarity ?

I have to ask again, how does this impact YOUR life as you claimed earlier in the thread?

I would contend that state-sponsored lying on official documents, is important to the whole of society.

It has potential knock-on effects for everyone.

What next? You don't wish to identify as a human being, or perhaps not even a mammal? Maybe you have a preference for living as an invertebrate or a reptile? It may seem like I'm joking here, or engaging in mockery - but I'm really not. When you are being given the green light to deny facts/science in favor of people's feelings, you could argue that you've now crossed a line in the sand. Why stop at gender/sex? Why stop anywhere?

And this tired worn out argument of "why do you care?" or "How does it affect you?" is getting fairly old and cliched at this point. The classic tactic used, when people know there is a controversial topic and they want to passive aggressively brow beat and bully people into not giving their opinion. It's a pretty low-ball unintelligent approach tbh.

"When you are being given the green light to deny facts/science in favor of people's feelings, you could argue that you've now crossed a line in the sand."

But we do this every day, People of faith go to churches/mosque/synagogue or whatever and pray to a "god" even though there is no scientific proof of any "gods" existence.

We don't deny them thier beliefs, should we tell them all to stop? Tell them not to be silly and that there is no magic sky fairy watching over them? I mean why not? Why should we "deny facts/science in favor of people's feelings" right?

But we don't do that, We allow them thier beliefs because that's thier belief and its nothing to do with anyone else, I would say a person choosing to identify as invertebrate or a reptile is a lot less dangerous to society than some of the religious zealots out there.

So again I ask, and yes you can claim its "old and cliched at this point" but How does it impact yours or my life if someone chooses to put an X on thier personal private document?

The heading on that section of the passport is irrelevant. One of the judges in the ruling even said the two terms were interchangeable. It's an academic argument, but not one that has any application in the real world, as language is fluid. It's the reason that even you use the qualifier "biological sex" in many of your posts.

And in any case, that section of the passport does not record biological sex, so that argument is totally irrelevant. The right to have your subjectively-defined declared sex on your passport is already enshrined in UK law and practice. The case and ruling was simply about what terms could be used in one's subjective declaration.

Now, the question is: what happens next. Inaction, most likely in the short term. But longer term.

Which do you think is the most likely scenario? Objectively, I mean - not what you'd like to happen in an ideal world. What will happen in this world?

A) The current legal practice of subjective self-identification of sex, limited to the options of male and female, is rolled back and only biological sex is recorded.

or

B) The current legal practice of subjective self-identification of sex is expanded to include a gender neutral option.

To me it's obvious that B is most likely.

You are attempting to conflate two different things here.

We don't have official state-sponsored documents acknowledging the existence of someone's "god". We simply acknowledge, as a society, people's right to believe in their "sky fairies" (your words).

I'm not suggesting we should prevent anyone from believing what they want to believe, or living how they want to live.

But if your particular gender identity cannot currently be proven factual through science, then I don't see how an official government document can acknowledge this. Your date of birth is not a record of which date YOU choose, it's a factual record of the actual date you were born on.

If you want to go around identifying as 20 year old, when you're actually a 65 year pensioner, knock yourself out. Enjoy your life as a 20 year old. But this doesn't mean your government should grant you the right to lie about your age on an official document.

None of that means that sex isn't binary, or sex is a spectrum.

"The Karyotyping looked at the XX and XY chromosome - within that it found approx 97.5 % conformed to the standard XX/XY chromosome however that leaves approx 2.5% who are not, in the grand scheme of things that is still a sizeable amount of the population on the grand scale."

Most people with non-normal sex chromosomes, ie. other than XX or XY, are still predictably genetically male or female.

That's because it's the presence or absence of a Y chromosome, and more specifically the SRY gene, which determines sex. So, for example, people with Klinefelter syndrome (XXY) are male, and people with Turner syndrome (X) are female. Those syndromes are not evidence of a sex spectrum.

The actual number of exceptions to this classification is much smaller. Less than 0.2% afaik. So, sex is genetically predictable for over 99.8% of the population.

“We might not have the science behind it yet, but we will.”

That’s the key issue for most people. When/if you get that science behind it a lot more people will be in agreement with you.

There’s no requirement for surgery or life changing treatment for trans person to legally identify as either male or female in the UK.

the requirements are:

1. Being over 18
2. Being diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
3. Living as your acquired gender for at least 2 years.
4. Intending to do so for the rest of your life.

Apart from the age limit, the remaining 3 criteria are ultimately based on self-identification already.

So I ask again, how is a person with XY chromosomes legally self identifying on their passport as a female any more objectively true than someone identifying as gender neutral?

"allowing people to believe what they want to believe"

Why can't you do that?

But we’re not talking about identifying as a rhododendron plant. We’re talking about gender neutrality.

Someone asks you if you want tea or coffee. Your reply that you don’t want anything. They refuse to acknowledge your response, and insist that you declare whether you want tea or coffee. But furthermore they say that if you want you can ask for tea and get coffee, or ask for coffee and get tea. But you simply cannot get nothing, and the reason is that they’re afraid that someone will ask for a rhododendron plant.

Would that not be an absurd situation to be in?

Letting them at it would be one thing. But anyone wanting to be recognised legally as a something would be requiring others to participate in that. And you could argue that participating in a delusion that they are a plant may not be the right thing to do.

But this is a bad analogy anyway, as I don’t think you’d get anywhere near as many people who would support it as they would a gender neutral passport.

Edit: Just to add, I do understand the ‘live and let live’ point you seem to be coming from, and I agree with that for the most part. I just think the law should be based on the science evidence, whichever way it is or if it changes.