Althouse: "I am neither a man nor a woman. I will remain the patchwork created by doctors, bruised and scarred."

November 1, 2013

"I am neither a man nor a woman. I will remain the patchwork created by doctors, bruised and scarred."

Said the type of person who is the reason for the new law in Germany that allows parents to leave the "gender" line blank on birth certificates.

15 comments:

BarrySanders20 said...: He/she said it best -- a Neither.

Boy

Girl

Neither.

You could use Neither/Both to be more inclusive.

There may even be a German word for that.; 11/1/13, 1:47 PM
MadisonMan said...: How easy is it to reassign yourself to F or M from X once you realize your parents were idiots for putting you in the X category?; 11/1/13, 2:33 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "You could use Neither/Both to be more inclusive."

No. The person might decide on female or male at some point. The freedom in question has to do with reserving judgment on which sex to identify with and what if any surgeries to do. Filling out the birth certificate shouldn't pressure people toward doing things that may be regretted.; 11/1/13, 2:38 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "How easy is it to reassign yourself to F or M from X once you realize your parents were idiots for putting you in the X category?"

Why are you calling the parents who encounter this sad problem idiots?; 11/1/13, 2:39 PM
lemondog said...: Interesting Wiki article including the prevalence of intersex births.; 11/1/13, 2:47 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "He/she said it best -- a Neither."

The quoted person is upset that surgeries were done and a "patchwork" was imposed by doctors. This person would prefer to have been left with what came naturally and if that had happened he or she might have made a personal decision to undertake whatever changes were considered best. What if you had a baby with abnormal genitalia -- which the article says happens in 1 of 2,000 births -- and you had to pick male or female within the first few days? You might make the wrong decision.; 11/1/13, 2:47 PM
paul a'barge said...: What if you had a baby with abnormal genitalia -- which the article says happens in 1 of 2,000 births -- and you had to pick male or female within the first few days? You might make the wrong decision.

Nope. Pick male every time.; 11/1/13, 2:54 PM
Kirby Olson said...: Many people have second thoughts and continually revise their account of what something was worth. You have to invest time and only later can you evaluate the time spent. Memories are the harvest. If all the memories are meaningless then the time spent was meaningless unless of course you get a better sense of how to spend your time in the future, which is a worthwhile investment overall.; 11/1/13, 3:11 PM
Anonymous said...: I find it amusing that one of the first countries to accept the concept of "intersex" people is that hotbed of liberal enlightenment, Pakistan.

Peter; 11/1/13, 3:21 PM
kjbe said...: "Why are you calling the parents who encounter this sad problem idiots?"

Thank you.; 11/1/13, 3:35 PM
Michael K said...: I don't really have a problem with indeterminate genitalia in newborns. My issue is with the sex change crowd. They are not indeterminate, except in their own minds. They are jut unhappy people. Nothing, including sex change surgery, will make them happy. Johns Hopkins, which had the first sex change program in the US, has closed their clinic. Too many people wanted to be changed back to their original anatomy.

With all the gay rights stuff, there is no good reason to alter anatomy.; 11/1/13, 3:39 PM
MadisonMan said...: Why are you calling the parents who encounter this sad problem idiots?

Because I suspect there will be idiot parents who use this method of gender selection to make a statement, seeking to show how enlightened they are.

I did not say that all parents who choose Route X are idiots, as you seem to infer.; 11/1/13, 3:42 PM
MadisonMan said...: Plus I feel really crabby today.; 11/1/13, 3:43 PM
BarrySanders20 said...: OK then. Mark

Male

Female

or

TBD

There may be just as many people who wished their parents would have chosen for them upon birth than those who, like this poor creature, wished they hadn't. You don't know at the time. So pick door number three.; 11/1/13, 5:14 PM
AlanKH said...: What gender? Depends on the gender disorder in question. Those with Klinefelter syndrome (XXY syndrome), for instance, are all males.

It is dishonest and insane to use the term "transgender" to lump these people with a) sex-change recipients and b) those who are biologically one gender but identify themselves as the other. Thus the "T" in LGBT comes with some serious PR problems.; 11/2/13, 1:59 AM