There are only two sexes – male and female – with gender (nowadays) being the corresponding personal feelings and social manifestation of each sex. You can’t change your sex but some people feel very uncomfortable with their body and feel that they are the opposite gender. This is known as gender dysphoria. It is a disorder that may arise from a combination of chromosomal, hormonal and psychological factors. People should get help if they have this disorder but no one should commence medical transitioning until they are an adult, particularly because the vast majority of gender-confused children will get over their dysphoria through puberty.[1],[2]
The sound medical response for people with chromosomal or hormonal disorders, the so-called intersex, is to identify the predominant underlying sex and then take measures to provide health and functioning, as far as possible, through hormones and possibly surgery.[3] Sometimes it may not be discovered until well after birth that a person’s sex is different from their anatomical appearance, in which case the birth certificate will need to be amended. In all other cases, birth certificates should remain unaltered as they are records of the sex of a person.
As adults, if transgender people are taking hormones of the opposite sex with the intention of evoking characteristics of that sex and have undergone sex reassignment surgery, they should be able to change their ‘sex’ on identity documents such as passport and driver’s license but not their birth certificate. This recognizes that, although sex cannot be changed, anatomy can be modified into a reasonable representation of the opposite sex. In most other documents, government and private, there is no need to know a person’s sex, instead their gender or the gender-neutral honorific Mx can be used.
Similarly, with pronouns in social interaction, the polite thing to do is to try and accommodate a person’s gender and just do what makes sense. For instance, if a transgender person looks male, call them he, if they look female, call them she. If you don’t, no one else will know who you are talking about.[4] For those individuals who don’t want to identify as either male or female, their name or the third person singular ‘they’ can be used. Although there will be some people who baulk at this accommodation, legislative enforcement would be an overreach and likely counterproductive as well.
On the other hand, it’s appropriate to reject all the other so-called gender categories and fourth pronouns such as ze, zir. These categories and pronouns are attempting to institutionalize the change of gender from a binary concept of male/female to one based on a spectrum of subjective thoughts and feelings. People have a right not to be compelled in thought or speech and to reject the new subjective approach. There is a big difference between tolerance and safeguarding of the basic civil rights of transgender people versus agreement to, or affirmation of, transgender ideology.
With bathrooms, change rooms and accommodation there are issues of privacy and safety. Sex-specific intimate facilities exist in order to provide bodily privacy and to protect girls and women from male predators. The latter concern is not that people who genuinely are transgender will engage in inappropriate acts but that predators will abuse subjective gender identity policies to gain easier access to victims. Consequently, only transgender people who have met the criteria for changing ‘sex’ on their identity documents should be permitted in the relevant sex-specific intimate facilities, while others who are uncomfortable using the bathroom designated for their sex (e.g. cross-dressers or partially transitioned transgenders) should be given reasonable accommodation such as single occupancy facilities.[5]
In relation to sporting competitions, there are a range of biological differences between the sexes that would make it unfair and unsafe for males to play in female competitions.[6] These differences cannot be equalized by hormones, although in relation to the intersex who have hormonal levels above or below the average for their sex, it may be fair and safe to raise or lower their hormone levels to correspond to the sex category in which they are competing. This would avoid leaving the intersex in a sporting limbo of having hormone levels too high for female sports and too low to be competitive in male sports.
There are other instances where sex is also relevant, e.g. single-sex schools and children’s activities, sex-specific associations and clubs, prisons, medical treatment, and provision of male and female goods and services (in this last case the issue is not who procures the goods and services, but the provider not being forced to change what goods and services they provide, e.g. a barber provides men’s haircuts to whoever, male or female, wants a men’s haircut).
Anti-discrimination law forbids double standards for men and women – disadvantages directed at individuals of one sex. Such law requires equality and neutrality, not asexuality and androgyny.[7] Accordingly, there should be an exemption in anti-discrimination legislation to permit discrimination on the basis of sex where this is reasonable. The legislation should also make it clear that upholding the traditional scientific view of sex is not irrational, bigoted or unjust, and neither does it, by itself, constitute discrimination, harassment or medical malpractice.[8]
Note on Disorders of Sexual Development (DSDs)
There are a very tiny number of cases where the baby’s chromosomes have some anomaly such as XXY or XYY instead of the normal XX for a female and XY for a male.[9]
Similarly, there are disorders such as the complete androgen insensitivity syndrome, which is a genetic disorder that makes XY fetuses insensitive (unresponsive) to androgens (male hormones). Instead, they are born looking externally like normal girls. The person has some or all of the physical traits of a woman, but the genetic makeup of a man. Another disorder is congenital adrenal hyperplasia, which is the excessive production of male hormones by the adrenal glands (can affect both males and females).
Individuals with DSDs do not constitute a biological third sex.[10] Feminist theorist Rebecca Riley-Cooper says: “The fact that some humans are intersex in no way diminishes the truth of sexual dimorphism [occurring in two distinct forms], any more than the fact that some humans are born missing lower limbs diminishes the truth of the statement that humans are bipedal [beings using only two legs for walking].”[11]
Note on ‘They’
The pronoun they is generally used in the third person plural to refer to two or more people previously mentioned, people in general and people in authority regarded collectively.
The word they (with its counterparts them, their, and themselves) as a third person singular pronoun has been used since at least the 16th century to refer to a person of unspecified gender, ‘ask a friend if they could help’. It is now generally accepted in contexts where it follows an indefinite pronoun such as anyone, no one, someone or a person, as in ‘anyone can join if they are a resident’ and ‘each to their own’.
In other contexts, coming after singular nouns, the use of they is now common, though less widely accepted, especially in formal contexts. Nevertheless, in view of the growing acceptance of they and its obvious practical advantages, they is used in many cases where he would have been used formerly.
In a more recent development, they is now being used to refer to specific individuals who identify as neither male nor female.[12] This represents an extension of the third person singular usage of they. This is not an issue in direct conversation where third person gendered pronouns are never used.
Note on Terminology
‘Cis’ means ‘to align with’. So, cisgender means to align one’s gender with one’s sex, while transgender means to align one’s gender with the opposite sex or some other concept of gender.
Sources
[1] “Listen to Carlotta: ‘Don’t give the child hormones’” by Miranda Devine, The Daily Telegraph, 24 September 2017, https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/rendezview/listen-to-carlotta-dont-give-the-child-hormones/news-story/6038bee648fa2af97089f6d9a6256aa0
[2] “Experimenting on Children with Gender Dysphoria – Does the ‘Dutch Protocol’ Offend the Nuremberg Code?” by John Whitehall, Quadrant July-August 2018, http://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2018/07/experimenting-children-gender-dysphoria/
[3],[5] When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment by Ryan T. Anderson, Encounter Books, New York, NY, 2018, p.91, 181-190 & 202
[4] The Michael Knowles Show, Ep. 39 “Day of the Girl ft. Blaire White”, 11 October 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-Tf7IRl-7I
[6] “Transgender playing in women’s football league gains attention” by Patrick J. Byrne, News Weekly, 2 June 2018, http://newsweekly.com.au/article.php?id=58099
[7] “The simplistic logic of Justice Neil Gorsuch’s account of sex discrimination” by Ryan Anderson, News Weekly, 11 July 2020, https://ncc.org.au/newsweekly/life-marriage-family/the-simplistic-logic-of-justice-neil-gorsuchs-account-of-sex-discrimination/
[8] “The Pied Pipers of gender dysphoria” by Dr John Whitehall, News Weekly, 15 July 2017, http://www.newsweekly.com.au/article.php?id=57737
[9],[10] “Transgendering children is formalised child abuse” by Babette Francis, On Line Opinion, 3 November 2017, http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=19391
[11] “Queensland proposes transgender birth certificates” by Patrick J. Byrne, News Weekly, 21 April 2018, http://newsweekly.com.au/article.php?id=58035
[12] Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, accessed 19 August 2018, https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/they
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Policy Statement – Transgenderism is provided under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.