What? No 'This week in trans' thread about Passport X?

[Bomb#20]

I do not see any 'gender' field.

I see a field marked 'sex'. If the US wants to replace biological sex (which is observed and recorded at birth) with gender identity, it should get rid of 'sex' and put 'gender identity' in its place. And if the US wants her people to have 'gender identity' on their passports, I would ask 'why'?

The US doesn't want that. The US doesn't give a rat's ass about any technical distinction between sex and gender. The two words are synonyms in the usage of most Americans and the US is conforming to that usage. (And probably not from any policy but merely because the bureaucrats who designed the passports were typical Americans.) The US just wants to have its customs agents who've practically nodded off because their jobs are so dull perk up and notice when the sex/gender listed on someone's passport doesn't match their intuitive pattern-matching-based perception of the sex/gender of the person handing it to them, and take a more careful look at the person to see if that's really who the passport contains a picture of.

To stifle your right to free speech and create an Orwellian dystopia where the tyranny of trans people rules supreme. Duh. Honestly, I'm amazed that this whole thing slipped by you, you're normally very quick to point out such horrific atrocities.

What the State department has done is certainly Orwellian: they've made the sex marker on passports an incoherent field. The field is labelled 'sex' but it no longer means 'sex'.

For introducing an incoherent field to count as Orwellian, the purpose would have to be to induce people to think incompetently for political effect. But it appears they introduced an incoherent field for the apolitical but entirely coherent purpose of making people not be mad at them.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Presumably, the "sex" of a passport holder is in the passport to aid in the identification of the holder and is not meant as a biological imperative. The customs agent is not going to test the DNA of all of the persons entering the country nor are they going to check the genitals of everyone. They are going to look at the person in front of them and use their own judgment as to the sex of that person. So in the context of the passport and its uses the sex designation is the gender identity of the person.

Why does that need to be done? Can't the customs agent just look at the picture and look at the person and see that they match? What additional *necessary* information does the identification of sex provide for the agent? What if a person is one sex but the agent just thinks they look like the other sex, because of hairstyles or facial/body features?

 

[Metaphor]

My goodness. If using unapproved terminology makes a passport field "incoherent", the apocalypse must be on us.

Where do you get the idea that the problem is "unapproved terminology"?

What makes it incoherent is that the field is called 'sex', but it now may mean either sex or gender identity and there is no way to know which from looking at it.

What makes you think it uses gender identity?

Because the press release in the OP uses only the term 'gender' and does not use the term 'sex' a single time.

Let me get this straight - a press release is causing these boring conniption of yours?

No, there's nothing wrong with the press release per se. The problem is the policy that the press release details.

You do realize the State Department has the legal right to release any statement without your prior approval.

Why on earth would I think otherwise?

You do realize you are under no legal or moral compunction to read them.

Why on earth would I think otherwise?

 

[Metaphor]

I do not see any 'gender' field.

I see a field marked 'sex'. If the US wants to replace biological sex (which is observed and recorded at birth) with gender identity, it should get rid of 'sex' and put 'gender identity' in its place. And if the US wants her people to have 'gender identity' on their passports, I would ask 'why'?

The US doesn't want that. The US doesn't give a rat's ass about any technical distinction between sex and gender. The two words are synonyms in the usage of most Americans and the US is conforming to that usage. (And probably not from any policy but merely because the bureaucrats who designed the passports were typical Americans.) The US just wants to have its customs agents who've practically nodded off because their jobs are so dull perk up and notice when the sex/gender listed on someone's passport doesn't match their intuitive pattern-matching-based perception of the sex/gender of the person handing it to them, and take a more careful look at the person to see if that's really who the passport contains a picture of.

To stifle your right to free speech and create an Orwellian dystopia where the tyranny of trans people rules supreme. Duh. Honestly, I'm amazed that this whole thing slipped by you, you're normally very quick to point out such horrific atrocities.

What the State department has done is certainly Orwellian: they've made the sex marker on passports an incoherent field. The field is labelled 'sex' but it no longer means 'sex'.

For introducing an incoherent field to count as Orwellian, the purpose would have to be to induce people to think incompetently for political effect. But it appears they introduced an incoherent field for the apolitical but entirely coherent purpose of making people not be mad at them.

The triggering incident--the court case outcome--does not necessitate an incoherent 'sex' field shaped by the current grip of gender ideology. The unnecessary incoherence will shape thinking in the future, as all language does, especially official language.

 

[Metaphor]

I think Metaphor want pictures of the person's genitals in their passport too.

I think Metaphor wants everyone and everything to fall into neat little pre-approved by Metaphor boxes so that he can feel better. I understand that for some people, ambiguity or outside of pre-determined boxes creates some anxiety and discomfort but other people, ideas and things do not exist to preserve our comfort.

I think people ought to ask me what I want if they want to know what I want, instead of fantasising about what I want and then providing pop psychology explanations for the fantasies.

 

[Metaphor]

I'm curious why genitals matter. I mean, yes, for doctors, that'll matter. But drivers license? Why is a gender needed? Passport? Are you John Smith... the male? Job application? Well, yes, for porn, it'd make sense, but for normal (Non-genital related work)... why does it matter?

It doesn't matter if you are a boy or a girl... you can do anything... but for the meantime, please fill out all of these forms detailing your genitals.

Who are you asking, the State Department?

 

[Metaphor]

Seems like right wing Kancel Kultcher.
They want people who don’t fit into pre-ordained sex/gender categories to get the X.
Pretty blatant IMHO.

Who is they? The State Department?

 

[Toni]

I think Metaphor want pictures of the person's genitals in their passport too.

I think Metaphor wants everyone and everything to fall into neat little pre-approved by Metaphor boxes so that he can feel better. I understand that for some people, ambiguity or outside of pre-determined boxes creates some anxiety and discomfort but other people, ideas and things do not exist to preserve our comfort.

I think people ought to ask me what I want if they want to know what I want, instead of fantasising about what I want and then providing pop psychology explanations for the fantasies.

I think that is excellent advice—and I really sincerely think you should apply it to your own posts.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I'm curious why genitals matter. I mean, yes, for doctors, that'll matter. But drivers license? Why is a gender needed? Passport? Are you John Smith... the male? Job application? Well, yes, for porn, it'd make sense, but for normal (Non-genital related work)... why does it matter?

It doesn't matter if you are a boy or a girl... you can do anything... but for the meantime, please fill out all of these forms detailing your genitals.

Who are you asking, the State Department?

Most forms that ask for gender. How did it get onto the forms in the first place? What is the origin?

 

[Elixir]

I think that is excellent advice—and I really sincerely think you should apply it to your own posts.

Or ... say what it is that (s)he/they really wants, instead of simply railing against the fact that (s)he/they doesn't know what's in other people's pants.
That might reduce the level of speculation about the reasons for this seemingly perverse infatuation.

 

[Toni]

I think that is excellent advice—and I really sincerely think you should apply it to your own posts.

Or ... say what it is that (s)he/they really wants, instead of simply railing against the fact that (s)he/they doesn't know what's in other people's pants.
That might reduce the level of speculation about the reasons for this seemingly perverse infatuation.

My post was actually not directly about the topic of this thread—and apologies for that. It was about a general tendency by Metaphor to use his interpretation of what he decides posters ( like me) REALLy mean and then it’s a big derail —which unfortunately I just did. I think that Metaphor’s posts/points stand or fall on their own merits not on speculation or projection about other people’s posts. I think it makes discussion more interesting and more productive.

 

[Metaphor]

I'm curious why genitals matter. I mean, yes, for doctors, that'll matter. But drivers license? Why is a gender needed? Passport? Are you John Smith... the male? Job application? Well, yes, for porn, it'd make sense, but for normal (Non-genital related work)... why does it matter?

It doesn't matter if you are a boy or a girl... you can do anything... but for the meantime, please fill out all of these forms detailing your genitals.

Who are you asking, the State Department?

Most forms that ask for gender. How did it get onto the forms in the first place? What is the origin?

I don't know the history of form development in the U.S., but I can relate my perception over my own lifetime (and through watching popular media from the 1970s and earlier).

In the 1980s and probably into the 1990s (in Australia at any rate) it was common to see 'sex' on most any form that was asking about sex. This led to many a sitcom joke where a character would write 'nil' or 'once a month' in the option. Presumably the sex field was asking for sex. Australian birth certificates and passports and many other documents have a 'sex' field.

At the same time, the term 'gender' was gaining currency as a polite-sounding synonym for sex, and it is still used by many people in this way today. I do not believe that 'gender', as a term, was applied to humans in any meaningful way before the 1960s. 'Gender' was a grammatical construct applied to nouns, not people. But soon forms had a 'gender' option that still really meant sex.

From about 2015, the explosion in gender ideology and trans activism has sought to replace 'sex' (not just the word, but the actual reality of it) with 'gender'--which is a thought in a person's head. For some purposes, this makes sense, but for others, it makes no sense at all.

A passport has a sex field because, presumably, it is (or was) one of the markers that helped identify people (along with their name and their picture and date of birth). It may be useful to add a 'gender' field to a passport, in cases where somebody's gender identity may lead to significant deviations in clothed appearance from what is expected given their sex.

I have not been overseas in many years, but I understand some body scanners are sexed, in that they are programmed to detect 'anomalies' based on the sex of the person being scanned. Here, the gender identity of the person seems to me completely irrelevant, and it is their sex that matters.

 

[Metaphor]

I'm curious why genitals matter. I mean, yes, for doctors, that'll matter. But drivers license? Why is a gender needed? Passport? Are you John Smith... the male? Job application? Well, yes, for porn, it'd make sense, but for normal (Non-genital related work)... why does it matter?

It doesn't matter if you are a boy or a girl... you can do anything... but for the meantime, please fill out all of these forms detailing your genitals.

Forms don't ask about your genitals. They ask about your sex. (Or, as we are seeing here, they are incoherently asking for either sex or gender, depending on what the applicant decides they want to write).

If you believe passports don't need a 'sex' field, then that's an argument to remove the 'sex' field. But it is not an argument to make the 'sex' field an incoherent mish-mash of sex and gender markers.

 

[Metaphor]

I think that is excellent advice—and I really sincerely think you should apply it to your own posts.

Or ... say what it is that (s)he/they really wants, instead of simply railing against the fact that (s)he/they doesn't know what's in other people's pants.
That might reduce the level of speculation about the reasons for this seemingly perverse infatuation.

It seems rich to me that 'what I really want' is being called out, in a thread started by somebody else, essentially kvetching that I had not started a 'this week in trans' thread, and being disappointed that I had not provided some kind of imagined histrionics for the OP writer's entertainment.

There are also accusations that I am 'anti-trans', but when I challenge people to explain what statements I've made that are 'anti-trans', nothing is offered.

And there appears to be an obsession with some posters who appear to believe (or at any rate, are willing to imagine that) I want to know what's in everyone's pants. This fetish (about the imagined fetishes of other people) appeared to have originated with Jarhyn but has spread to other posters.

 

[Elixir]

I think that is excellent advice—and I really sincerely think you should apply it to your own posts.

Or ... say what it is that (s)he/they really wants, instead of simply railing against the fact that (s)he/they doesn't know what's in other people's pants.
That might reduce the level of speculation about the reasons for this seemingly perverse infatuation.

My post was actually not directly about the topic of this thread—and apologies for that. It was about a general tendency by Metaphor to use his interpretation of what he decides posters ( like me) REALLy mean and then it’s a big derail —which unfortunately I just did. I think that Metaphor’s posts/points stand or fall on their own merits not on speculation or projection about other people’s posts. I think it makes discussion more interesting and more productive.

Hey, relax - it's an internet forum, not a court of law. FWIW though, I think it was clear that you were making a "side" point. A valid one IMO, too. At the end of the day, posts standing or falling is of little consequence. This is an entertainment medium - learning anything is a bonus. But the entertainment value is significant enough to keep me around, easily entertained as I am. I find right wingers pulling their hair over what is in other people's pants, pretty hilarious. Every attempt so far to make it seem like a matter of import, has only made it successively funnier.
Yes, it's finally getting to me - when this began I could hardly imagine anything more boring than hashing out what's up with "this week in trans", but now I actually look forward to seeing the latest contortions and vexations. Kinda perverse, I know. But not as much so as the infatuation that spawns those contortions and vexations in the first place. </$.02>

 

[laughing dog]

My goodness. If using unapproved terminology makes a passport field "incoherent", the apocalypse must be on us.

Where do you get the idea that the problem is "unapproved terminology"?

What makes it incoherent is that the field is called 'sex', but it now may mean either sex or gender identity and there is no way to know which from looking at it.

What makes you think it uses gender identity?

Because the press release in the OP uses only the term 'gender' and does not use the term 'sex' a single time.

No, there's nothing wrong with the press release per se. The problem is the policy that the press release details.

Let's review. The State Department has no problem with its policy. Apparently, neither our President nor our Congress has a problem with that policy. To date, no evidence that other countries have a publicly complained nor has the US populace. What gave you the impression there is a problem?

 

[Metaphor]

My goodness. If using unapproved terminology makes a passport field "incoherent", the apocalypse must be on us.

Where do you get the idea that the problem is "unapproved terminology"?

What makes it incoherent is that the field is called 'sex', but it now may mean either sex or gender identity and there is no way to know which from looking at it.

What makes you think it uses gender identity?

Because the press release in the OP uses only the term 'gender' and does not use the term 'sex' a single time.

No, there's nothing wrong with the press release per se. The problem is the policy that the press release details.

Let's review. The State Department has no problem with its policy. Apparently, neither our President nor our Congress has a problem with that policy. To date, no evidence that other countries have a publicly complained nor has the US populace. What gave you the impression there is a problem?

I consider incoherent use of language on official documents, for any reason but in this case motivated by pressure from trans ideologists, a problem. I'm not speaking about other people's subjective impressions of what they consider to be a problem. If you think it's not a problem, I believe you think that.

 

[Arctish]

I'm curious why genitals matter. I mean, yes, for doctors, that'll matter. But drivers license? Why is a gender needed? Passport? Are you John Smith... the male? Job application? Well, yes, for porn, it'd make sense, but for normal (Non-genital related work)... why does it matter?

It doesn't matter if you are a boy or a girl... you can do anything... but for the meantime, please fill out all of these forms detailing your genitals.

I agree completely.

Sex and gender don't affect citizenship or the right to travel, so why is declaring one a requirement on a passport application? If it's for identification purposes then a fingerprint is more than sufficient.

 

[laughing dog]

My goodness. If using unapproved terminology makes a passport field "incoherent", the apocalypse must be on us.

Where do you get the idea that the problem is "unapproved terminology"?

What makes it incoherent is that the field is called 'sex', but it now may mean either sex or gender identity and there is no way to know which from looking at it.

What makes you think it uses gender identity?

Because the press release in the OP uses only the term 'gender' and does not use the term 'sex' a single time.

No, there's nothing wrong with the press release per se. The problem is the policy that the press release details.

Let's review. The State Department has no problem with its policy. Apparently, neither our President nor our Congress has a problem with that policy. To date, no evidence that other countries have a publicly complained nor has the US populace. What gave you the impression there is a problem?

I consider incoherent use of language on official documents, for any reason but in this case motivated by pressure from trans ideologists, a problem. I'm not speaking about other people's subjective impressions of what they consider to be a problem. If you think it's not a problem, I believe you think that.

Ah, so the problem only is in your mind. Moreover, the problem in your mind is based on your issues with parsing language and your belief on what prompted the State Department.

In simple terms, the problem is with you.

 

[Metaphor]

My goodness. If using unapproved terminology makes a passport field "incoherent", the apocalypse must be on us.

Where do you get the idea that the problem is "unapproved terminology"?

What makes it incoherent is that the field is called 'sex', but it now may mean either sex or gender identity and there is no way to know which from looking at it.

What makes you think it uses gender identity?

Because the press release in the OP uses only the term 'gender' and does not use the term 'sex' a single time.

No, there's nothing wrong with the press release per se. The problem is the policy that the press release details.

Let's review. The State Department has no problem with its policy. Apparently, neither our President nor our Congress has a problem with that policy. To date, no evidence that other countries have a publicly complained nor has the US populace. What gave you the impression there is a problem?

I consider incoherent use of language on official documents, for any reason but in this case motivated by pressure from trans ideologists, a problem. I'm not speaking about other people's subjective impressions of what they consider to be a problem. If you think it's not a problem, I believe you think that.

Ah, so the problem only is in your mind.

No. The problem is the State Department policy. That some people do not subjectively assess it to be a problem is a sign of their conformity to trans ideology, or their ignorance of it.

Moreover, the problem in your mind is based on your issues with parsing language and your belief on what prompted the State Department.

By 'my issues parsing language' you mean 'my disapproval of incoherent language, servicing ideological ends, on official documents.

In simple terms, the problem is with you.

No. The problem is the State Department policy.