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Sex is not binary. I don't mean that in a fluffy pick-yer-gender-identity way, but in a very real biological way. Sex is a spectrum. In this essay, Rick Moen provides a series of examples of the many ways that labeling sexes can be difficult (Exhibit A: Caster Semenya), and how opposite-sex marriage laws could actually legally mandate same-sex marriage for some people.
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First, “fluffy pick-yer-gender-identity”
Um…
I’m not sure I get what you’re going for here. People don’t pick their gender identities, no more than they pick their sexual orientation. Anyone saying they are transgender, for example, isn’t “picking” a gender binary–it is a very real part of their lives. I may be over-reacting– I’m a member of the executive board for the nation’s largest transgender health conference, so I know way more about gender identity, trans issues, etc., than the average person. (Also, do you mean “sex” or “gender”? The two are totally different things. Neither are binary, but you seem to be using them interchangably…) I should warn you, though, ask me one question, and you’ll get more resources and information than you could get through in a lifetime…
“how opposite-sex marriage laws could actually legally mandate same-sex marriage for some people.”
Yup. Except for how gender identity is still such a hard subject for a lot of people to understand (I certainly don’t know it all–and even activist trans folk don’t know it all. It can get very confusing and subtle especially if you haven’t lived it!)
In some cases, the couple gets married, and then unhappy children or family members challenge the will and there are massive problems after the death of the non-trans spouse. See, e.g., in Re Gardiner, 273 Kan. 191, 42 P.3d 120 (Kan. 2002), cert. den. 537 U.S. 825.
In other cases, the couple isn’t allowed to marry, because the government twists their gender identities so much that it defies all sense of logic. For example, a colleague of mine was working on a marriage case with the following couple:
1. Trans-man. This individual was assigned the female gender at birth, and transitioned to presenting as the male gender in conformance with his affirmed gender.
2. Trans-female. She was assigned the male gender at birth and transitioned to female, again in accordance with her affirmed gender (not sex, that’s between the legs–gender is between the ears, and is considered more a cultural construct than sex is, which is considered more biological).
OK, so if you respect their gender identities, you’ve got a man marrying a woman. (Which should have happened; both partners had all their gender markers changed on all their identification documents). If you respect neither of their gender identities, meaning, you go off their genders assigned at birth, you’ve got a woman marrying a man.
The state was still all, “nope, no marriage for you!”
I can’t even comment. Seriously? Ugh.
*Trans with the asterisk is becoming popular in the community, because gender identity, as you said, is really more complicated than even just trans-man, trans-woman, cis-man, cis-woman. It’s an umbrella term for all folks who don’t fit the gender binary, just as, in some communities, queer is used as an umbrella for all folks who don’t fit “straight, cis-gendered.”
I’m recognizing that many people believe that gender dysphoria is a psychological problem, and that any other condition of people caught between sexes is a manifestation of this. These people are wrong. But there are more of them than there are of us, and one must pick one’s battles.
Not at all. I used the phrase “gender identity” because that is the accepted term for that concept. I used sex in every other instance because what I’m talking about is sex, not gender.