Hey Paula, while i am a bit late i hope one day no one needs to have a âcoming-outâ anymore. Either because it is totally accepted to transition or the hegemonic binary gender system has been abolished. 
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And thank you for yours. If you donât mind, I would like to raise some follow-up questions. Not necessarily to challenge your beliefs, but to try and gain a better understanding. Some of them might sound as if I come from a conservative stance, but I can ensure you Iâm not. My personal belief essentially boils down to âdo as you like, as long as you donât harm othersâ, and I believe that your investment in making a change on the gender issue indeed does not harm anyone. On the contrary, harm is done to groups of people by intolerant/discriminatory forces in society, and you aim to right those wrongs! I sincerely admire your determination, but want to better understand the means you choose to achieve that. I fear though that the best way to discuss this is to explain my views in a bit more detail, and see if we can converge on common understanding of each other. Forgive me if my curiosity doesnât come through straight away!
I understand that you see this label as different from gender and I acknowledge that the comparison is ultimately skewed. However, I also believe that in some respects they are more alike than it appears on the surface. Particularly the fact that both the value for the label ânationalityâ and âgenderâ appears to come to many people with a large set of presumptions.
In the case of nationality, the label âDutchâ comes with the expectation of white, secular-but-christian-inspired values, forwardness (sometimes rude), humbleness etc. The label âmanâ seems to come with expectations of dominance, rationality, emotionlessness, chunky etc.
Thereâs an obvious flaw with these stereotypes. The Netherlands has about 1 million citizens who have ancestors in former colonies or countries whose people we invited to work for us after WW2. These people donât necessarily fit the description of Dutch as depicted by the stereotypes listed. Does that somehow make them non-Dutch? Of course it doesnât. Even those with a longer ancestral history in this country donât quite fit with the stereotype; thereâs plenty of more reserved Dutch. Likewise, I observe that there are similar problems with the label âmanâ/âwomanâ.
The problems donât end simply with classification though. It is blindingly obvious that throughout society there exists discrimination based upon these labels. There does exist a gender pay-gap. White and non-white Dutch donât mix well enough to relieve tensions between groups. People applying for jobs will be judged by their perceived nationality, not to mention the judgement made of people of genders that donât fit the binary. While you can shrug off an arbitrary label, you canât simply shrug off the results of such discrimination. This has a tangible negative influence on people of minorities.
In my eyes, what would make a difference in solving the problems around such discrimination is not necessarily diversifying the label of nationality or gender further (on the contrary, I think documenting things like âMoroccan-Dutchâ might just exacerbate the problem), but rather start reading less into the labels. For me, nationality is nothing more than a declaration that somebody was born on a particular part of land that happens to be declared Kingdom of the Netherlands. This has implications on nurture, as some countries have better opportunities for education and a professional life than others, but at the end of the day thatâs not what you judge people by. Depending on the goal you judge people by their core values, beliefs and/or competences. And I believe that the development of such values and beliefs is much more complex than just a result of living within a certain countryâs borders.
For me, the same applies to gender. The distinction between âmanâ and âwomanâ in a passport to me is nothing more than a distinction between âborn with a phallic reproduction organâ and âborn with a yonic reproduction organâ, which covers all but the very few cases in which neither (or both) develops during birth. This for me is distinct from the stereotypical image of âmasculinityâ and âfemininityâ which I believe are ultimately social constructs that put often unrealistic expectations on individuals. Individuals are many times more complex than can be covered by any label, and in fact can have different expressions of their personality in different social situations, which leads to different perceptions and âlabelsâ others choose to describe the same person. I personally believe trying to accurately label anyway through greater diversification is a futile attempt at ordering chaos.
As I said, I believe and see with my very own eyes that discrimination is still very much alive. However, from the sound of it you and I seem to disagree on the approach to tackle such issues. I think we should (continue to) raise awareness to collectively stop reading so much into these classifications and encourage everyone to be more curious towards the subtleties of complex individuals. We should try and give people greater freedom throughout their period of being nurtured, free from (unconscious) bias. You believe that acceptance and more unbiased judgement comes from making classifications, that are unacknowledged by some, official. Am I right in this observation, or do I oversimplify?
So one thing I think I find difficult to understand is how matching the classification in your passport with your perception of gender would make a difference to you? Is this a means to deal with the expectations that come with the label, that you feel donât apply to you? Is this about your personal feeling about yourself, or would this be a sign of acceptance by others in society? How do you see this?
Can you agree with me that there is a distinction between âmaleâ and âmasculineâ? Between âfemaleâ and âfeminineâ? If not, why would my view be problematic? If so, do we agree that the classifications of âmasculineâ and âfeminineâ (âalpha-maleâ, âmetro-manâ, âtomboyâ, etc.) are too restrictive for what really is a many-dimensional spectrum of personality-traits, and can put significant burden upon those that donât fit any of these generalisations? Before I continue with further questions, perhaps I should let you answer first to see how far our contexts might lie apart. 
I think here you hit the nail on the head when trying to explain the difference between the ânationalistâ and those fighting for gender inclusivity. I have found many people who identify themselves strongly with a nationality seek to find reasons for (perceived) superiority.[1] On the contrary, those who fight for gender inclusivity battle instead for equality. Despite highlighting some similarities in my previous paragraphs, I think this point perfectly highlights why I have considerably more respect for people that bring gender forward for discussion!
And Iâm really sorry to hear you had to go through this. I cannot even imagine what this must feel like. For what itâs worth:
I think the fact that you care about the bigger problems in the world enough to try and make a difference is something to be incredibly proud of. Such values make you a hugely constructive and contributing person, and I sincerely hope that this will continue to be recognised and appreciated.
[1] Nationality here is (ab)used as a proxy for values and beliefs, overly generalising the difference between people by the acts of their political leaders. I can support people coming together and fighting for their values, but make sure you know which values are worth fighting for rather than making yourself vulnerable to mass-manipulation by political leaders who successfully cultivate beliefs of false generalised differences.
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One day sure, but how would you get ignorant people to do so?
I think if we now simply abolished gender as a legal term that wouldnât teach the population about gender but simply confirm some of them in their believes that there are people who âcanât decide which on of the only two existing genders they belong toâ.
If we first allow the option to specify any gender you want in your passport some day most people will acknowledge that there is an infinite number of gender identities and maybe then we will all be at a point when weâd rather get rid of gender labels altogether.
But labels can be a helpful tool too. Have you ever put your Fairphone face down on a table and someone read the logo and asked you what the Fairphone is? The same can happen if you casually mention your gender identity in a conversation. If the other person is just a little curious theyâll learn something new that will broaden perception of the world.
Every time I learn about a new label it enriches my way of thinking.
E.g. I recently learned about polyamory (has nothing to do with gender) and the concept(?) of compersion. If you have someone who has experienced it explain it to you Iâm sure it will be impossible for you not to overthink some values you might have held high before.
Another thing to consider: Abolishing gender-labels wonât ever be very practical as long as there are different sexualities. Just imagine you were skoliosexual (only into non-binary people). It would be much harder to find possible partners if they didnât label themselves.
I had to dig out my passport to look this up: Yes you are right, my Austrian passport doesnât mention gender at all, but sex. This is really backwards to me. Why should it be the governmentâs or anybodyâs business what private parts I have?
What about trans people who decide not to have a gender affirming surgery?
So next time I have to renew my passport Iâll insist that under âsexâ it will read ânone of your fucking businessââŚ
One thing we seem to see differently: You say that since many people have prejudice or unsubstantiated expectations based on labels we should get rid of labels. I say we should get rid of prejudice, but let everybody who feels comfortable with a label keep it.
There are never two words that mean exactly the same in every situation and to everybody.
Of course, but those words are usually not used as gender labels to describe yourself, but as stereotypes to negatively describe someone else.
Though there is always the phenomenon of a person or group adapting a derogatory term for themselves and using it with a new positive meaning - most notably the N-word.
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Hi!
I donât participate much, but itâs interesting to read this thread!
For those reading (or understanding some) French, I just read an article called âBeyond Binarity: The Trouble Between Gendersâ (https://www.revue-glad.org/961).
Not exactly the same subject (more about binarity in language), but should be of interest for people reading this thread.
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@paulakreuzer, your first post in this topic is from before i joined the forums here, so i just noticed this topic when you wrote your update.
Thank you very much for opening up, it can be a big step to write something like this on a public forum. I wish you all the best and courage you need to throughout the emotional roller-coaster which is your transition. Iâve spoken several transpersons during different stages of their transitions, and itâs amazing to see all the changes it makes, physically and mentally.
As for the sex registration in official documents, i never understood why it would be so important to have it there. In my country there is the possibility to have an X, meaning not male or female, and there is a discussion to make it easier accessible for people to need it (for example people intersex conditions, non-binaries, i think some transpeople might like it too). As far as i know the only way you can have it right now is if 3 months after your birth a doctor canât work out what your sex is.
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I suspect the reason is largely historic. I can think of one or two reasons why a registration of sex could be useful, whether the passport is the right place is a second question.
Doctors (abroad) might need to know the sex make an informed decision about rare cases where treatment efficiency is affected by hormones. I suspect the EHIC would be a better place for this information, but thatâs a relatively new card.
Sex is also relevant for sports events where e.g. strength is a factor. I recall the story from a physiotherapist claiming that research suggests that hormonal differences causes - on average - a greater muscle growth for men than for women when exposed to the same training. If this is true, a competition where no distinction is made between sexes would give men an advantage that has nothing to do with the level of commitment or investment. As hormone therapy is banned from sports, having different competitions for different sexes is the most effective way of levelling the playing ground.
If Iâm honest, these are the only two examples that spring to mind, although derivatives might exist. But enough walking on thin ice, I donât want to sound like I believe in implicit superiority. In the vast majority of times, differences between sexes are wrongly attributed to biological variations. Nurture has a much greater influence than many wish to believe. On the other hand I donât believe that we should assume no biological differences exist at all. While Iâm on this tangent, equal treatment for me then doesnât necessarily come down to âpretending everyone is the sameâ but rather âgiving everybody the same opportunities in life, finding satisfactory solutions to coexist respectfully as equals despite these differencesâ. And as a society we have a long way to go before we reach that state.
As for registering sex in a passport: I wouldnât oppose scrapping it. But for medical reasons it might still need to be registered elsewhere. But does that not simply shift the implicit problem from one document to the other?
@paulakreuzer Thank you for your reply. I was planning to reply at some point, but with a focus not so much on the practical aspect (as this reply did), but rather trying to focus more on emotional aspect of the matter for you. Itâs easy to have a discussion about the technicalities, but that would completely ignore the difference between our emotional attachment to the broader issue. Iâll need to take a bit more time for that, as I donât want to give the impression that youâre not heard .
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Not for transgender persons. At least not in some countries.
Your two examples (medical concerns & sports) are interesting, but since they are about hormone levels and not genetics or reproductive organs Iâd gather them under âendocrinological genderâ and not âsexâ.
I donât think there is a single reason for the state to know your sex instead of your gender.
I could see that itâs your gynecologistâs or urologistâs business for their non-public medical records of you. In Austria - with ELGA - every patient gets to choose which of their medical records from one doctor can be made available to another doctor. If you choose to make your sex publicly available to the medical community so be it, but you shouldnât have to make it available to everybody.
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Before we continue any debate, we have to separate the lexical question of what is gender and sex from the discussion of whether any of them should be documented and in which official documents. The quoted response gives me the impression that goalposts are shifting, which will not help us come closer together.
The most specific definition I have found so far in the free dictionary [0] makes note of endocrinologic sex alongside chromosomal sex and gonadal sex. All of these refer to different parts of the biological side of the story, and make no notion of a persons identity. They claim that sex and gender are interchangeable, and make a special notion of ``gender identityââ as the personality trait. This is refuted by the Oxford dictionary [1], in which sex is declared as mainly for the biological features, while gender refers to the social and cultural differences.
For the discussion at hand, I donât see a particular reason to consider the distinction between endocronological, chromosomal and gonadal sex. Endocronological sex is a result of cellular processes steered by chromosomal sex, and gonadal sex defines chromosomal sex - potentially incorrectly - by proxy. Suffices to say that I believe the overarching term âsexâ should be used when it concerns the biological, or perhaps more accurately: the âmechanicalâ intrinsics. My assumption has been that âgenderâ refers to the conscious and social aspect, the identity side, but if it helps I would happily refer to this as âgender identityâ instead (in which case I assume that the term âgenderâ itself is then an ambiguous term that could mean either).
Is this something we can agree upon? Feel free to clarify if you feel these are unacceptable definitions, but do bear in mind that since the matter at hand at this point is the âsexâ as described in our passports, we do have to find an acceptable and broadly accepted definition of âsexâ. This is not necessarily the same as used in the circles of medical- or gender-studies, as their definitions are unlikely to convey the intent of those ancestors that invented our passport a gazillion-hundred years ago. 
[0] Endocrinological sex | definition of endocrinological sex by Medical dictionary
[1] Oxford Languages | The Home of Language Data
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Yes, I agree completely. I think you misunderstood me though. With âendocrinological genderâ I meant âendocrinological status based on sex and intentionally altered by intake of hormones based on gender identityâ.
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Excellent!
Acknowledged, although because weâre talking about mechanics that leaves me wondering whether this isnât more accurately covered by gonadal sex. But I think thatâs perhaps slightly derailing the conversation.
My take on this is that I donât think any government or politician (/campaigning team) should know anything about my personality. I only need to cite the Cambridge Analytica scandal to show how someoneâs personal data can be abused to sway a voter base, not to speak of the possibilities if the data is verified by the subject rather than derived from behaviour. By extension, I donât feel that registering gender in a passport or other official document is desirable.
Aside: By the same reasoning I oppose to the German government registering residentsâ religions. I understand the practical reason behind it, but I donât think that outweighs the invasion of privacy.
Iâm less concerned (but still concerned) about registering âmechanicalâ information in my passport. Although Iâd like to believe it says nothing about me because I have had no influence on them, it turns out that a lot of generalisations exist because they end up being statistically sound. Every parent is unconsciously biased, most advertisers aiming to influence apply bias consciously, so itâs inevitable that these mechanical facts seep into my personality through nurture. Even if this category of information is not a 100% accurate proxy of personality, 85% (a number which by the way is a complete arse pull) is often good enough for an advantageous edge. Regardless of whether that goal is sales or propaganda. Thatâs an argument that could convince me to scrap sex from my passport, but then again, Iâm one of those that doesnât have a facebook account for privacy reasons.
In the Netherlands a similar set-up (EPD) is currently under debate and development. This information unfortunately does not cross country borders, which makes it problematic to access for external doctors. Thereâs other points that make this example feel a bit contrived (if a patient is on hormone treatment already this will interact with whatever treatment the doctor might potentiall be considering, at which point a doctor needs a proper medical record rather than just a registration of sex anyway). Iâm not sure what the answer is to this one. I wouldnât oppose from removing sex from a passport, but I think it would be good to have a wider debate in which political experts set out the uses of this information and the consequences of scrapping it before I can make an informed call.
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Wow, a really sophisticated and interesting discussion, in which I really donât want to interfere.
Thereâs just one point concerning the âElectronic Health Recordâ like ELGA in Austria and Germany and EPD in the Netherlands. Admittedly, I did not study the details of the concepts with regard to Austria and the Netherlands.
Yet, concerning privacy and data protection, I will never willingly agree to any such concept. As soon as such kind of data on everyone is electronically available in a database destined to be accessed by a multitude of person and institutions, itâs just a matter of time until itâs hacked or abused âŚ
And all of a sudden, you will not get a life-insurance or have to pay an absurd high charge, without you knowing the reason why. Thatâs already happening, if e.g. your doctor is diagnosing you with a recurrent depression (ICD10 F33) instead of a single episode (ICD10 F32) or even a reaction to severe stress (ICD10 F43). Of course, you can demand your files for inspection, but do you really have the means to alter the wrong diagnosis by one medical practitioner? Obviously you can get another diagnosis by a different doctor, but that will not erase the other one from the database, while you would not have to present that one as a paper file.
Sorry, no âElectronic Health Recordâ for me.
Regarding the medical need of distinction between sexes, the ICD10 at least has lots of âFemale Only Diagnosis Codesâ as well as âMale Onlly Diagnosis Codesâ. Most of them concerning specific organs of course; and hardly a reason to mark this in the passport.
One reason, I guess, why the sex is registered in official documents is for means of identification. Even though the label male/female obviously is no 100% visual indicator, itâs still quite helpful in identification, especially, if the name is ambiguous; and maybe just because itâs a foreign name.
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The current EPD in The Netherlands is called LSP, and is not a database with medial information by itself but acts as a middle man in connecting the information supplying and requesting parties. However, I still donât like it because itâs still an all-or-nothing concept. Either you share or you donât share, you canât just share with a specific person or organisation.
I believe that such a system should provide full control to the patient, with the only possible exception being emergencies, but as far as i know itâs quite rare to check the complete medical file if you have just a few seconds/minutes for live-saving activities.
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Congrats just got late to wish.