Dutch man, 69, who 'identifies as 20 years younger' launches legal battle to change age

[untermensche]

His hatred for chronomorphism blinds him to the possible, even when it's right before him. There are none so blind as those who will not see.

Tell me how exactly a feeling changes historic events.

Explain the process.

Gender identification is not known at birth.

It is not an historic event. It is something in the mind.

Birth certificates don't state your gender identification. They state your sex.

If they change it then it should say gender.

 

[ruby sparks]

Birth certificates don't state your gender identification. They state your sex.

That's what I thought too. But apparently:

"Birth Certificate: All babies are assigned a gender on their birth certificate."

http://www.thefocustrust.com/info/legal-documents/birth-certificate/

 

[ruby sparks]

Now, I guess you might think the differences between female and male minds are not the psychological differences that are relevant to gender differences. But then, what are the latter....

I don't know.

.....and why is there reason to believe they exist?

Gotta be biological ultimately, surely?

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Birth certificates don't state your gender identification. They state your sex.

That's what I thought too. But apparently:

"Birth Certificate: All babies are assigned a gender on their birth certificate."

http://www.thefocustrust.com/info/legal-documents/birth-certificate/

But why should we believe the claim of thefocusoftrust.com?

In fact, that seems to be false, given that most birth certificates predate the 2004 law. Moreover, even if that is correct from 2004 on, it's about the UK, not about other countries.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Gotta be biological ultimately, surely?

If they exist, sure. But my point is this:

There are differences between female and male human minds. Looking at external sexual organs is generally a reliable method (even if not perfect) to tell whether a person has a female or a male mind. But my point is there seems to be no good reason to believe there is a distinction between the sort of mind of a woman and the sort of mind of a man other than the distinction between female and male adult human minds, and whether a baby will grow to have a female or a male mind is something we can predict in a generally (though not perfectly) reliable fashion by looking at the external sexual organs.

 

[ruby sparks]

Birth certificates don't state your gender identification. They state your sex.

That's what I thought too. But apparently:

"Birth Certificate: All babies are assigned a gender on their birth certificate."

http://www.thefocustrust.com/info/legal-documents/birth-certificate/

But why should we believe the claim of thefocusoftrust.com?

Dunno. After googling I also found an article entitled, "New Yorkers to get third gender option on birth certificates".

Personally, I thought Birth Certificates identified sex. I'm nearly sure that's what mine does. And after googling, this seems to be the norm:

 

[ruby sparks]

Gotta be biological ultimately, surely?

If they exist, sure. But my point is this:

There are differences between female and male human minds. Looking at external sexual organs is generally a reliable method (even if not perfect) to tell whether a person has a female or a male mind. But my point is there seems to be no good reason to believe there is a distinction between the sort of mind of a woman and the sort of mind of a man other than the distinction between female and male adult human minds, and whether a baby will grow to have a female or a male mind is something we can predict in a generally (though not perfectly) reliable fashion by looking at the external sexual organs.

I think I agree. But I'm not sure what you're getting at.

Hypothetically, a baby might have male genitalia and gametes and there might be, from the outset, something in their brain which means they are going to later identify as female. No? Are you asking a sort of nature versus nurture question? If so, I have no idea what the answer might be.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

But why should we believe the claim of thefocusoftrust.com?

Dunno. After googling I also found an article entitled, "New Yorkers to get third gender option on birth certificates".

Personally, I thought Birth Certificates identified sex. I'm nearly sure that's what mine does. And after googling, this seems to be the norm:

View attachment 18919

Indeed, that one identified sex, not gender, and I would say probably so do nearly all if not all birth certificates, even recent ones.

Moreover, if a birth certificate says "F" or "M", what genders could they possibly be identifying?
I mean, if they're saying that the sex of the baby is either female or male, that is understood. But are there two genders called 'female' and 'male', or at least called something that starts with an 'f', and something that starts with an 'm'? If so, what are those genders called, and how can we tell them apart?

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Indeed, that one identified sex, not gender, and I would say probably so do nearly all if not all birth certificates, even recent ones.

This may seem strange to modern readers, and saying this doesn't imply that I agree or disagree with this statement, but one upon a time long time ago sex and gender were thought to be basically the same thing.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

To me, broadly, sex is biological and gender is psychological (not that the latter isn't ultimately biological of course) and since no one can tell the psychology of a baby, I assumed birth certificates recorded sex, and called it that.

I was saying that we generally can tell whether a baby will have a female or a male mind, based on their genitalia.

That said, with respect to your hypothetical (i.e., " baby might have male genitalia and gametes and there might be, from the outset, something in their brain which means they are going to later identify as female. No?"), here I would like to ask what you mean by "female".

In particular, if there is something at the outset that will get that person to claim to be a female - a claim that would be almost certainly false, as he would almost certainly have testes, not ovaries -, and certainly epistemically irrational, then I guess there might be some problem like that in the brain. But I'm not sure why that would be important.

Now, maybe you mean the thing in the brain would cause the person to later identify as a member of the female gender? I don't know that classification. Is there a female gender? What's the difference between the female gender, and the male gender (if there is one of the latter?).

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Indeed, that one identified sex, not gender, and I would say probably so do nearly all if not all birth certificates, even recent ones.

This may seem strange to modern readers, and saying this doesn't imply that I agree or disagree with this statement, but one upon a time long time ago sex and gender were thought to be basically the same thing.

True, most people seemed to believe so. I'm not sure whether they were correct (though I'm pretty sure they were generally closer to the truth that present-day ideological claims), or whether that was a matter of synonymity or empirical evidence.

When I say 'female' and 'male', I take it that those words are defined ostensively, like most words, and they were so defined in the past. But while usually femaleness and maleness was ascertained by looking at the external sexual organs, gametes seem to be what distinguishes females from males, in humans and other species (to be clear the colloquial meaning is not about gametes, but the sex of an individual (human or not) depends on the gametes they would, under some normal circumstances, produce. It's analogous to how to the meaning of 'water' is not about H2O, but whether a liquid (to make it simpler) is water depends on whether it is composed of H2O, at least primarily).

But let's consider one example, to try to disambiguate this: suppose A is an adult human being, and A has a vagina, a female voice, breasts, etc., and a female mind. However, A has testes (even if underdeveloped and internal), rather than ovaries. I'm inclined to think A is a rare case (there are real cases like that) in which A's sex is male, but A is a woman (so, that's her gender). That would justify changing a birth certificate - when her condition is discovered - to state that A is male, not female. It's one of those unusual cases in which external sexual organs fail to provide accurate information about gonads.

So, my question is how you would classify A?
Would you say A is female, or male? Woman or man?
Depending on your reply, we might have a case of miscommunication, and then we would have to discuss whether birth certificates that say 'F' mean that the baby has a vagina, or they mean the baby is female (where 'female' is defined ostensively, and turns out to be tracking gonads), and use the fact that she has a vagina as very strong evidence that she's female. In the vast majority of cases, this will not make a difference, but there is a small number in which it will.

 

[dismal]

Indeed, that one identified sex, not gender, and I would say probably so do nearly all if not all birth certificates, even recent ones.

This may seem strange to modern readers, and saying this doesn't imply that I agree or disagree with this statement, but one upon a time long time ago sex and gender were thought to be basically the same thing.

True, most people seemed to believe so. I'm not sure whether they were correct (though I'm pretty sure they were generally closer to the truth that present-day ideological claims), or whether that was a matter of synonymity or empirical evidence.

When I say 'female' and 'male', I take it that those words are defined ostensively, like most words, and they were so defined in the past. But while usually femaleness and maleness was ascertained by looking at the external sexual organs, gametes seem to be what distinguishes females from males, in humans and other species (to be clear the colloquial meaning is not about gametes, but the sex of an individual (human or not) depends on the gametes they would, under some normal circumstances, produce. It's analogous to how to the meaning of 'water' is not about H2O, but whether a liquid (to make it simpler) is water depends on whether it is composed of H2O, at least primarily).

But let's consider one example, to try to disambiguate this: suppose A is an adult human being, and A has a vagina, a female voice, breasts, etc., and a female mind. However, A has testes (even if underdeveloped), rather than ovaries. I'm inclined to think A is a rare case (there are real cases like that) in which A's sex is male, but A is a woman (so, that's her gender). That would justify chaging a birth certificate - when her condition is discovered - to state that A is male, not female. It's one of those unusual cases in which external sexual organs fail to provide accurate information about gonads.

So, my question is how you would classify A?
Would you say A is female, or male? Woman or man?
Depending on your reply, we might have a case of miscommunication, and then we would have to discuss whether birth certificates that say 'F' mean that the baby has a vagina, or they mean the baby is female (where 'female' is defined ostensively, and turns out to be tracking gonads), and use the fact that she has a vagina as very strong evidence that she's female. In the vast majority of cases, this will not make a difference, but there is a small number in which it will.

You just provided a bunch of irrelevant information and didn’t say what A identifies as so we don’t know A’s gender.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

But let's consider one example, to try to disambiguate this: suppose A is an adult human being, and A has a vagina, a female voice, breasts, etc., and a female mind. However, A has testes (even if underdeveloped), rather than ovaries. I'm inclined to think A is a rare case (there are real cases like that) in which A's sex is male, but A is a woman (so, that's her gender). That would justify chaging a birth certificate - when her condition is discovered - to state that A is male, not female. It's one of those unusual cases in which external sexual organs fail to provide accurate information about gonads.

So, my question is how you would classify A?
Would you say A is female, or male? Woman or man?
Depending on your reply, we might have a case of miscommunication, and then we would have to discuss whether birth certificates that say 'F' mean that the baby has a vagina, or they mean the baby is female (where 'female' is defined ostensively, and turns out to be tracking gonads), and use the fact that she has a vagina as very strong evidence that she's female. In the vast majority of cases, this will not make a difference, but there is a small number in which it will.

Well, how does A identify?

What you're discussing is  Androgen insensitivity syndrome, a very interesting and real condition. But it is also very rare and I'm hesitant to shape public policy around conditions of such a small portion of the public and instead treat exceptions as exceptions.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

True, most people seemed to believe so. I'm not sure whether they were correct (though I'm pretty sure they were generally closer to the truth that present-day ideological claims), or whether that was a matter of synonymity or empirical evidence.

When I say 'female' and 'male', I take it that those words are defined ostensively, like most words, and they were so defined in the past. But while usually femaleness and maleness was ascertained by looking at the external sexual organs, gametes seem to be what distinguishes females from males, in humans and other species (to be clear the colloquial meaning is not about gametes, but the sex of an individual (human or not) depends on the gametes they would, under some normal circumstances, produce. It's analogous to how to the meaning of 'water' is not about H2O, but whether a liquid (to make it simpler) is water depends on whether it is composed of H2O, at least primarily).

But let's consider one example, to try to disambiguate this: suppose A is an adult human being, and A has a vagina, a female voice, breasts, etc., and a female mind. However, A has testes (even if underdeveloped), rather than ovaries. I'm inclined to think A is a rare case (there are real cases like that) in which A's sex is male, but A is a woman (so, that's her gender). That would justify chaging a birth certificate - when her condition is discovered - to state that A is male, not female. It's one of those unusual cases in which external sexual organs fail to provide accurate information about gonads.

So, my question is how you would classify A?
Would you say A is female, or male? Woman or man?
Depending on your reply, we might have a case of miscommunication, and then we would have to discuss whether birth certificates that say 'F' mean that the baby has a vagina, or they mean the baby is female (where 'female' is defined ostensively, and turns out to be tracking gonads), and use the fact that she has a vagina as very strong evidence that she's female. In the vast majority of cases, this will not make a difference, but there is a small number in which it will.

You just provided a bunch of irrelevant information and didn’t say what A identifies as so we don’t know A’s gender.

A lived in the past, before the English language existed, so A never uttered the words 'man' or 'woman'. So, it seems that going by your classification (which you explain here), the vast majority of people were not men, and were not women, and A was neither. But I'm not talking about your classification, which obviously does not match common usage.

Synonyms?
How can there be synonyms? For example, if the necessary and sufficient conditions for being a woman is to say 'I identify as a woman', and the necessary and sufficient conditions for being a mujer is to say 'Soy una mujer', then clearly 'woman' and 'mujer' do not mean the same. How do you get around that one? You can try to make a list, but it will not work for many languages.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

But let's consider one example, to try to disambiguate this: suppose A is an adult human being, and A has a vagina, a female voice, breasts, etc., and a female mind. However, A has testes (even if underdeveloped), rather than ovaries. I'm inclined to think A is a rare case (there are real cases like that) in which A's sex is male, but A is a woman (so, that's her gender). That would justify chaging a birth certificate - when her condition is discovered - to state that A is male, not female. It's one of those unusual cases in which external sexual organs fail to provide accurate information about gonads.

So, my question is how you would classify A?
Would you say A is female, or male? Woman or man?
Depending on your reply, we might have a case of miscommunication, and then we would have to discuss whether birth certificates that say 'F' mean that the baby has a vagina, or they mean the baby is female (where 'female' is defined ostensively, and turns out to be tracking gonads), and use the fact that she has a vagina as very strong evidence that she's female. In the vast majority of cases, this will not make a difference, but there is a small number in which it will.

Well, how does A identify?

What you're discussing is  Androgen insensitivity syndrome, a very interesting and real condition. But it is also very rare and I'm hesitant to shape public policy around conditions of such a small portion of the public and instead treat exceptions as exceptions.

You said earlier that once upon a time, sex and gender were thought to be basically the same thing. What I'm asking is: as you generally understand the words (which I'm pretty sure is not about self-identification), is A a woman or a man? Is A male or female?
Yes, the cases are very rare. I'm not talking about basing public policy on them, though. Rather, I'm using the examples to study the meaning of the words 'female', 'male', 'man' and 'woman'. And rare cases like these helps us study that sort of thing.

 

[TSwizzle]

Well the silly old duffer lost his case.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Poor dutch equivalent of dismal.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Clearly the judge was trans-age-phobic.

 

[dismal]

Clearly the judge was trans-age-phobic.

It's like Dred Scott all over again, except in the Netherlands.

 

[untermensche]

What will that man that looks 60 but claims to look 40 do now?

How will he possibly get laid?

Which seemed to be what the whole thing was about.

Being able to lie to women with some evidence.

What a great social movement.

Getting this guy laid.