If I define myself as female, can I hang out in the girls' locker room from now on?

Carol Lloyd is a transsexual monkey.

I'm kind of shocked that a feminist writer would make this elementary mistake. The NYC authorities are not proposing to allow people to change their gender on their birth certificates. Birth certificates do not currently say 'feminine' or 'masculine', or indeed 'butch femme', 'androgyne', 'he-man', etc. These are genders. People already change them all the time, and they aren't legally defined.

For the billionth time: biologically, gender doesn't exist, for it is socially constructed; and it is indeed, theoretically at least, a smooth continuum.

The story here is that NYC is talking about letting people redefine their sex - for which most authorities currently only allow a binary choice, male or female, based on a presumption about the external appearance of a person's genitalia. This is genuinely radical, though it would bring the NYC authorities in line with what a large number of scientists and philosophers now think about sex also being at least partially socially constructed.

In the meantime, please note that the word 'gender' is not a polite synonym for the word 'sex'. It actually means something different.

...statistics. Yes, I know, Statistics is one of the duller topics... but I wonder about anyone doing "research circa 1987 at the UC Berkeley Anthropology department," who can then proceed to make a statement about "...two percent out of every 1000 babies." Did she mean 2 per 1,000? 20? 0.02? All three are possible interpretations of this phrase.

At minimum, the two ratios as juxtaposed are confusing. The construction calls into question at least the scientific credibility of any statement associated with it, and potentially whatever scientific bona fides Ms. Lloyd herself may claim.

This is all something of a shame because I agree with and support the larger point being made in the essay. But such sloppiness in presenting the objective facts supporting that point only enables the reactionary critics.

"Two percent out of every 1000 babies" is a silly thing to say. Do you mean "two out of every thousand babies" or do you mean "two percent of babies"? (Two percent strikes me as high.)

Personally, I think this is a mistake. The phrase "Birth Certificate" indicates, well, your state at birth. Your name (as it was then), your parents names (as they were then), in some places your height and weight, where you were born, and your external genitalia (or lack thereof). Amending it after the fact is pretty crazy. Having some other useful way to describe gender that can be amended? Great! We already do that for name changes, after all, without messing with the BC. What makes gender changes need to be retroactive?

One's birth certificate may be viewed as a static record of a pariticular event, but the problem is that one's current ID and so-called gender marker is often based on one's birth certificate. (The link will become more widely required and more indelible as the Real ID Act goes into effect.) People who are living in a role other than that implied by the sex recorded at their birth experience significant problems if their ID indicates a 'gender' based on their recorded birth sex. Where I work, for example, one can be arrested for using the 'wrong bathroom' and that determination is based on the 'gender' indicated by one's ID. As a trans person I'm not expecting to be understood; I just want to be able to live with a little less daily fear. Having one's papers in order really helps achieve that goal!

Speaking of ambiguity, "two percent out of every 1000" is a fairly confusing phrase. Did you mean "two percent" which would mean 2 percent of any number, i.e., two out every 100? Or did you mean "two out of every 1000", i.e., .2%? Two percent does seems high to me.

...to the letter writer who notes the difference between the definitions for the words "gender" and "sex" (nicely worded, BTW), and to the letter writers who note that "two percent of 1,000" is...odd, at best: certainly confusing.

There's a typo in this sentence ("the they"):

"Many transsexuals don't have the money or desire to undergo surgery, yet the they have managed to cross over nonetheless."

And the word choice below of "women", when babies are being discussed, is awkward. Same with the observation about people's appearance "throughout their lives". It just seems that the terms "female" and "male" would be more appropriate, as they do not (by their definitions) indicate anything about age or maturity (physical or otherwise), but simply about sex.

"What about people who are born with ambiguous genitalia? Why should they be forced to choose a side that isn't scientifically valid? Like plant and animal, male and female is scientific category which sometimes is too crude for the subtle variations in nature. Controversies vis à vis the incidence of intersexuality (ambiguous sex) rages on but according to my own research circa 1987 at the UC Berkeley Anthropology department, an estimated two percent out of every 1000 babies are born with some significant form of ambiguous genitalia. Sometimes people are born seeming to be women; later, when puberty hits, they present more as men. Others look very much like women throughout their lives but at a chromosomal level are actually considered male."

Interesting article, though.

But what's downright fabulous about this new law is that it's only the beginning. Taken to the logical extreme, it unfurls the fallacy of gender to its incoherent core.

There are times when you really need to know someone's true identity.

It's all well and good to say to that lovely that person traipsing down the street -- Go! Be yourself! Be whatever gender you want to be! Any time you want to be it!

But what if that lovely person has just bonked you on the head and run away with your laptop?

You'd want a reliable description for the police, right? So they might be able to find the person and prevent another crime. They should also be able to identify this person reliably enough so the person could be brought to trial and convicted.

So maybe you don't want gender to be THAT fluid after all.