GenderLife Forum: The Information Exchange

It is far more complicated than requiring SRS in order to change your gender legally. The laws vary dramatically by state (in the US). First of all, it depends on whether we are talking about birth certificates or other legal documents.

I got a court order to change all my documents to female in a state that supposedly requires SRS (prior to my SRS). With this and a letter from my doctor stating that I hoped to have SRS in the next few years, I was able to get a 10 year female passport, YMMV. The state I live in now doesn't require SRS or even an orchie to change your documents. A form filled out by your general practitioner suffices.

The laws are different every where as is there enforcement. The legal language is also very ambiguous in many places without specifically spelling out that SRS is required.

Yes, it varies wildly. But the short of it would be (based on what I know) that in most cases loss of reproductive function is needed from MTFs and not from FTMs in order to change the gender marker in their birth certificate.

Hence, legally, Thomas Beatie is a male and was a pregnant man, or pregnant legal male, if you wish.

Biologically, Thomas Beatie is and will always be female, though. Just like (biologically) all MTFs are and will always be male.

The original news tidbit read:

"Born a woman, Beatie, 34, who had had his breasts surgically removed and legally changed his gender from female to male, leaped to prominence around the world in April when the wispy bearded man revealed he was pregnant."

Emphasis mine.

And, it is by such excessive stretching of the truth in the face of the legal definition of sex, genitalia, that we could see much more red tape and hoops to jump through for those of us who have actually had SRS. And Goddess forbid they grandfather it in so that all of us who did take the legal steps and shelled out the expense to obtain our court orders have to undergo additional steps and expense to retain our legal change of sex, all because some girl tried to get away with gaming the system.

Well, that is how it works. We're all on our own, trying to do the best for ourselves. Of course, most of us have the good sense to hide our selfishness under better labels, like "doing activism" or "trying to enforce standards of conduct" or what not.

The bottomline is, though, that so far you're not paying someone's rent or buying her food, you have no moral right to stop them from trying to do things their way. If they cannot afford SRS but only orchi, and need the F in their documents to get a decent job, they'll go for it and, well, to put it bluntly, the rest of us can go to hell.

We could try using the laws to stop them, of course. But using the laws require two things: a) for those breaking them being caught; b) that those enforcing the laws have more power.

In the end, as with everything, it comes down to survival and might makes right. Those going around the legalities may be screwing me up, but so far I cannot catch them, I cannot harm them legally. And, as I said above, I don't see how I have the moral right to stop them from trying to make a living.

Let's tackle this from outside the box. Is there anything wrong with a man having a baby? My gosh, how many countless wives throughout history wished for exactly that for their husbands so there might be a better understanding of what she went through? And with all the research going on who is to say that soon a gg contributing what is needed to fertilize her lesbian partner's egg is out of the question? Surely that is within scientific or medical reach.

I fail to understand all the reproductive hangups people seem to hold so dear. Its like hey! What is all this binary crap smearing the walls of our society? Must be the Leviticus thingie again.

You're becoming a left-wing religious fundie Deena.

It's going to be a lonely road...

Ironic how people are ready to deny others their chosen gender based on biological reasons, but get upset when using the same biological reasons they get denied their gender.

Now there's a bird of a different feather!

I'm sitting here shaking my head at some of the rubbish that is being written about rights ect ect.

I am bowing out of this discussion.

Did you mean etc. etc? Whose rights are rubbish?

I think your a little wrong there, some of us are genetic females born with male genitalia and visa-versa with trans-men. That is the definition of Harry Benjamin syndrome HBS is. I have been requestin these tesat since I came out to see if I was a genetic female. If this were the situation I could get sex affirmation surgery with no difficulty at all.