On the fence

If they are doing this as a general rule across all birth certificates, then I think it would be okay. But if this is due to a parental request, I think that is going a bit too far.

From the link:

"It is up to Searyl to decide how they identify, when they are old enough to develop their own gender identity," Doty said in the statement. "I am not going to foreclose their choices based on an arbitrary assignment of gender at birth based on an inspection of their genitals."

I guess the child, "Searyl" is more than one person.

That's just vernacular for more gender-fluid people. They don't really identify as male so they don't say 'he', but they don't identify as female either so they don't say 'she' either. 'They' is just easier to use in replacement of those two even though it does give the grammatical implication that Searyl is more than one person. I can think of some substitutes that the gender-fluid community might use, but I can't imagine that any of them would be understood by the 'average outsider' because none of them are actually common words.

Why? Both for the first and second sentences of your post.

Well that's astoundingly obvious, and not altogether unlike god calling himself us in the bible (note: no intent to high jack this thread, just responding to the obvious).




Hmmm.... I guess you are correct, using "they/their" five times in two sentences is easier than being direct and concise and saying something like:

I think that choice of gender should be up to my child, Searyl, not the government or society.

or

I don't think that the government or society have any business dictating the gender of my child, Searyl

There is so much about this that gives me a headache.

As opposed to Donald Trump referring to himself as " Donald Trump"
(or maybe that's a psychological issue)

Hey I'm not saying that using they/their five times in a single statement was good syntax, just that the alternative of being that specific doesn't always work from a flow perspective.

I fully understood your point.


I probably should have remained silent on the topic and keep my sarcasm to myself.

Searyl's parent has every right to refer to the child in any way the parent sees fit...even if, to me, it smacks of being a publicity stunt (hopefully not at the expense of the child).

Really, however, it is none of my business and I should not expect anyone to speak as I see fit.

I would lean in the other direction:
Declare what the apparent sex of the child is, by default (as is the case today), but if the parent wants to "Opt Out" of the declaration - for whatever reasons - let them.

I'm wondering how Kori Doty, Searyl's non-binary trans parent, is going dress Searyl.

Will Seryl wear "boy's" clothes, "girl's" clothes, "androgynous" clothes....or perhaps switch between the various gender "orientations"? Mondays boy clothes, Tuesday girl, Wednesday androgynous...etc.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that Searyl will not be able top choose and/or put on clothes for at least a year or so.

At what age will Searyl actually be "allowed" to truly choose for themselves.

It seems to me that the idea of allowing them to choose their own clothes runs the risk of actually influencing them one direction or another and thereby guiding them to choose their gender as opposed to actually allowing them to choose their own gender...which might actually defeat the purpose.

I am really bad at identifying sarcasm apparently, and I mean that as a legitimate thing not as a jab as I've been running into that problem more recently than I would like as of late.



You know, I never considered that. Being an attention whore isn't just relegated to straight people after all.

The former doesn't impose on certain individuals. It's just a stat that is left out of all birth certificates. I think that would be okay. Not needed.

The latter makes one's birth certificate unique to all others and which the individual had no say on.