More legislative idiocy.

[kengr]

About that Mississippi "religious protection" bill. This section is going to give some lawyers *lots* of fun.

that “male” and “female” refer to someone’s “immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy and genetics at time of birth.

Ah yes, ignorance of biology strikes again.

Sex is *subjectively* determined by doctors at time of birth. There are "standards" for making the determination, but they aren't always followed.

And even when they are followed they are pretty damned arbitrary. Stuff like length of penis/clitoris.

Genetic testing is rarely done on newborns. When it is, it's because genetic problems are suspected *or* because doctors are having trouble figuring out what sex the baby is.

So a lot of intersex babies *don't* get IDed at birth. Anybody with AIS/CAIS for example. Or guevedoces.

There aren't just two sexes even if the public (and most doctors) would like to believe there are.

And gender is even *more* complicated.

Some day we are going to have to get laws put in place recognizing the *spectrums* of sex & gender. Because that's what it's going to take to end this sort of nonsense.

Comments

[seawasp]

You'll need laws, a lot (and I mean a LOT) of education, and a lot of time. You'll need to go at least until my generation dies off before it really starts to go away, because we were raised with that binary as such a basic assumption that even for those of us -- like me -- that agree with you, it is a very difficult mental effort to even for a moment let go of the Man-Woman binary and grasp anything else. For those who cling to the simplicity of it (with some misguided and weak understanding of biology/genetics as a talisman)? You'll have to wait for them to die.

[kengr]

Well, it *is* starting. We are getting more and more places that are offering "O" as an option for the sex marker on Id (including passports). Even a few states in the Us if I recall correctly.

That *alone* is going to cause problems for that sort of law. :-)

And the fact that 1 in 1000 births has *some* degree of intersex and the pushback against doctors "correcting" *functional* genitalia (especially doing so without consulting the parents) has been growing for decades. So sooner or later we'll have somebody in the news who is intersex and not trying to hide it. That'll drive another nail in this.

My short story Intended Consequences deals with somebody trying this with some near future tech. And all the fun that ensues.