The overall majority of newborns is clearly male or female, but sometimes identifying is impossible. For these cases German law now accepts a 'no gender' status.
Later in life if this person wants to change it, it's allowed but the status can also be kept indefinitely. The German decision to recognize a third gender was based on a recommendation by the constitutional court, which sees legal recognition of a person's experienced and "lived" gender as a personal human right.
Its unclear what will happen with the myriad of laws and regulations which are based on being either male or female. German legal experts differ in their opinion if this really creates a complete status in all matters of law. It will be interesting to see how this pans out.
Meanwhile it's great that a large state now accepts the existence of the 'undefined' category instead of forcing parents to make a choice.
How this will pan out in ordinary life is an open question: kindergarten is not really ready for this new status.#Politics
they've already got a pronoun for it.
+Keith J Davies well even in English you have neuter pronouns, to some extent 🙂
Better than the doctor making an arbitrary choice and lopping off something he shouldn't!
What a bizarre decision. No gender? Seriously?
I was with it on the first bit, a bit difficult to determine gender at birth (rare but possible I suppose) but it lost me on the "later in life, if this person wants to change it"
Surely, if gender is not determinable at birth, it will be within days?
Some poor kid is now allowed to grow up genderless because of some nonsense parental political correctness?
The kid will grow up to be who s/he is. I don't see a problem.
No psychiatric problems from not belonging to the "boys" or the "girls" in the school playground?
Some people never identify with either male or female.
There is a massive difference in identifying with one or other gender when one is older and has some knowledge or experience to make a decision, and parents "identifying" their kids at birth as having no gender
+Paul Wooding But is 'a kid growing up genderless because of nonsense parental political correctness' any different to a kid growing up the wrong gender because their parent's pick it for them? Either way, the parent is making a decision for the child, and any decision could be a bad one if it later turns out to be incorrect. And I really don't think gender can be determined within a couple of days. I mean, it takes some people decades to be sure what gender they are. At any rate, the initial decision is almost irrelevant – the problem only comes if there is undue pressure for the person to conform to that initial assignment, even if they later start to doubt it. But as society becomes more accepting of the existence of trans people, surely it is not a big leap to accept people not assigning their children a gender, and waiting for them to be mature enough to make their own choice.
That being said, there I can see the argument that it is not right for parents to make their children be the first to grow up 'genderless', since this is not a perfect world, and the first children will find life difficult.Should parents make that decision for their children, since it will make their lives harder? I mean, it is a fight for acceptance, and I think there is nothing wrong with it, but unlike other civil rights fights the parents did not have to choose to involve their children in it.
Je me souviens des paroles de la sociologue Louise Vandelac (http://goo.gl/lAu6QW) : "Nous risquons de sortir en douce de l'espèce humaine". C'était en 2000 et en 13 ans seulement, l'immortalité, le clonage, le génie génétique, l'homme cyborg ont quittés le domaine de la science fiction et n'attendent plus que le feu vert des législateurs pour transformer notre humanité connue.
Alors, bienvenue au troisième genre.
Merci +Max Huijgen pour tes posts qui agitent nos neurones et bonne nuit à toi 🙂
+Paul Wooding there are apparently rare cases where people are born with differeng reproductive organs than normal for either of the sexes. It's uncommon but when it happens, it could understandably be difficult to navigate in society in a culture where we are expected to identify and behave either flagrantly masculine or feminine. Furthermore, most cultural stereotypes about the roles we expect the different genders to llay are ridiculous anyway.
I've always thought thag it is silly at best and delusional at worst to support the concept that little girls play as princesses and identify with certain colors.
While I do think gender roles and reasonable stereotypes are important, I think that the more distant the female and male cultural stereotypes become, the less society and families will understand each other.
Because males and females pass through remarkably different social engineering customs, don't couples find it difficult to understand each other?
bonne nuit +Jean-Marc Luna Give those neurons a well deserved rest 🙂
In Finnish language he=hän and she=hän. Here only thing that still puts really a difference on boy and girl is army.
True. Also in Chinese same word "ta" for she and he. And still a big difference between role families expect for boys and girls.
+Azzedine Bouleghlimat often this is not about a parent's politics at all. Growing up intersex can mean that puberty, bathrooms and changing rooms are all harrowing. If you are anatomically unlike other people, it is hard to miss. And surgery doesn't always fix the problem.
There are also people that appear "anatomically" male or female but do not identify as their apparent gender. Rarely these people dont identify as male or female. It is unclear to me how much support they get in this new policy.
In all cases, parents need to be aware that humans don't always fit neatly into male or female boxes. If a child starts exploring a gender different from their apparent gender or wants to remain as or choose "no gender" that is OK. Forcing a child to choose may end well or badly — as a parent, all you can do is do your best.
It's disgusting…., anti-natural.