gender legality

[teamnoir]

Aside from the traditional methods of dna contribution towards procreation, is there really any reason why the government needs to know my gender? I mean, does it really show up in the law to speak of?

Comments

[queen_of_wands]

The way the laws are written currently they'll need to know your gender if you want to get legally married (except in Mass. - and now I wonder if they ask that when you get married here). I'm not saying that's a *good* reason, but it is a reason by law.

As long as there as all kinds of gender inequalities in our society the government does have an interest in awareness of genders in populations in order to provide social services related to things such as healthcare.

[teamnoir]

I think that's a matter of opinion. I don't agree that our government has an interest. And I don't agree that gender discrepancies are the solution to gender discrepancies. That's kind of like saying that if we only hate hate enough, we can hate it out of existence.

I hear that you want gender inequity to exist, though. I get that. I was more questioning legal precedent behind making the gender distinction.

[queen_of_wands]

The people who need access to abortions have a particular kind of biology which is directly linked to their sex. I guess you're right that it is my *opinion* that our government should have an interest in that. Perhaps I'm inappropriately conflating sex and gender here. Whether or not we're talking about legal issues -- and I understand that legal issues are what you're really interested in here -- I do think having a language and framework for talking about people's sex and gender is actually useful. I don't advocate for eradicating those categories; I advocate for expanding them. But that's getting beyond what you asked. And off the top of my head the only really clear examples I can think of where the laws are based on sex are state laws around marriage, which I think are shitty laws, but they are in fact laws. I'd have to give it some thought to come up with more. Oh, actually, there are state laws around sodomy where your gender matters. And I suspect there is case law where gender is significant for custody and alimony

excellent question

[froganon]

Cool link: http://faculty.uml.edu/sgallagher/Glp2000net.htm... )

Re: excellent question

[teamnoir]

I don't think society is naturally or primarily het. I think it's naturally and primarily bi. So if binary division is a result of it being "primarily het", then both of them are completely arbitrary artificial constructs, imo.

[al_fate]

Don't know why the government would need to know your gender exactly, but I do think that the question stems from just old fashioned needing to know whether to address you as Mr. or Mrs. or Ms. Some people are highly offended if you get this wrong. Could be people never thought to remove that box off the forms when creating new ones. I can understand some agencies needing to know it in certain situations such as which prison to send someone too if convicted of a crime, needing a specific doctor like a gyno, or even the need for a male or female counselor for victims of abuse or rape. Also, although this seems off topic, they ask for demographic and marketing research, to know what type of commercials to air or junk mail to send you. But as far as the Federal Government needing to know nothing much pops to mind save just for Identification purposes. That is my assumption, I could be way off on what you were actually asking.