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First baby born without a gender in Canada

C

CoolOff

Member
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40480386

An eight-month old Canadian baby has been issued a health card without a gender marker, in what could be the first case in the world.

Parent Kori Doty - a non-binary transgender person who identifies as neither male nor female - aims to allow the child to discover their own gender.

The health card has been issued with a "U" in the space for "sex", which could be for "undetermined" or "unassigned".

Kori Doty is fighting to omit the gender from the birth certificate.

The parent gave birth to Searyl Atli in November at a friend's home in British Columbia. Kori Doty, who prefers to use the pronoun they, argues that a visual inspection at birth is unable to determine what gender that person will have or identify with later in life.
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Interested in hearing Gafs take on this.

Bonus:

The family's lawyer, barbara findlay, who chooses to spell her name without capital letters, told Global News: "The assignment of sex in this culture is done when a medical person lifts up the legs and looks at the baby's genitals. But we know that the baby's own gender identity will not develop for some years until after they're born."
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E

eizarus

Banned
I thought gender and sex had nothing to do with each other? 🤔 I'm having a tough time keeping up. Maybe I'm just too old for this shit.

LOL at the lawyers name 😂
 
W

Wiped89

Member
Stupid.

We all are born male or female (save for a few hermaphrodite cases etc).

Now, if you want to raise them gender neutral, fine. But scientifically, biologically, that baby has a gender.
 
shira

shira

Member
Cool. Interested to see how this spreads in the future while a lot of online forms have started to allow for a third choice, a lot of basic government or official stuff still require Male/Female like plane tickets.
 
U

Ushojax

Should probably not trust the 7-11 security cameras quite so much
The lawyer sounds like they belong in Arrested Development.
 
Chuckie

Chuckie

Member
Why does Findlay spell her name without capital letters? Is it some kind of statement? I don't get it.
 
SinCityAssassin

SinCityAssassin

Member
A documented genderless baby is intriguing as the first such case in the world, and I'm interested in seeing if this could pave way for more parents to follow duit and how society will react to it.

But that lawyer's name, what the fuck.
 
R

ReplacementPelican

Member
I get people being cynical, moody or whatever about this but I really don't care. You do you, it's not harming anyone. I personally feel it's a bit redundant but I'm also not going to jump on the outrage bandwagon for this one.

That lawyer though. Would love to know her logic for not using capital letters.
 
C

caliph95

Member
Not to sound ignorant and i probably would, i understand trying not to enforce traditional gender roles and be supportive of potentially transgender children.

What would this accompolishe as far as i understand it therpy and talk with experts before confirming a child is transgendered right.

Though i guess it's the parents way of avoiding biases but i don't know
Jope i don't sound insulting but this is strange (the baby being non-binary not gender queer or transgenders) i don't get it
 
S

Siegcram

Member
Wiped89 said:
Stupid.

We all are born male or female (save for a few hermaphrodite cases etc).

Now, if you want to raise them gender neutral, fine. But scientifically, biologically, that baby has a gender.
Click to expand...
No, biologically this baby has a sex. Hence why it says that on the medical chart. Not "gender".

Which makes all of this kind of a pointless exercise, but it's ultimately harmless.
 
J

Jarate

Banned
This is not the first non gendered baby to ever be born. Pretty much no baby has a concept of what gender even is, so they're all born genderless

Im pretty sure the idea though is too convey the "Sex" of the baby, IE it's genetic sex. So IDK if this will stand just out of practicality, or if theyre just going to change the word.

Also, the Lawyers name is amazing, don't hate, that's IRL shitposting
 
I

Impeccable

Member
ReplacementPelican said:
I get people being cynical, moody or whatever about this but I really don't care. You do you, it's not harming anyone. I personally feel it's a bit redundant but I'm also not going to jump on the outrage bandwagon for this one.

That lawyer though. Would love to know her logic for not using capital letters.
Click to expand...

On the flip side, it's not doing you it's forcing your child to make a decision normally they don't have to in an official capacity.

I don't know personally, initially I ws like wtf cmon, but I don't know anymore.
 
K

Kolibri

Member
Really not fair on the kid. Just raise tham as their biological sex until they are old enough to make their own decision.

In fact, I'd go as far as to say this could be child abuse.
 
Trojita

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
Gender and Sex aren't the same thing, so which is it?

An eight-month old Canadian baby has been issued a health card without a gender marker, in what could be the first case in the world.

The health card has been issued with a "U" in the space for "sex", which could be for "undetermined" or "unassigned".
Click to expand...

Did the BBC possibly fuck up the most important part of the story?
 
C

CaviarMeths

Member
I mean sure, let the child discover their own gender, but biological sex seems like important identifying information to include on a birth certificate.
 
Robin64

Robin64

Member
On her name:

My name is spelled without capital letters. People make many assumptions about why that is. Here is the story. I have always signed my name without capital letters. When I was taking a Master of Laws degree in 1990, I had letterhead designed and my name was in lower case. I liked it, so I continued it when I returned to private practice in 1992. What an uproar! Lawyers called me up to say that they had a vote in their firm about why I chose that spelling; a court rejected an Order because my name was not properly spelled; and the local queer newspaper refused for years to spell my name without capital letters.

I realized that I had a perfect illustration of how we react when someone moves even a tiny bit away from a norm of behaviour, even with respect to something that has no impact on anyone else. So I have kept that spelling, and I tell this story in unlearning oppression workshops.
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