Abolish the legal gender marker entirely. No government can be trusted to have a database of which people have changed theirs, no government has any business tracking what your gender is "supposed" to be in the first place.

February 26, 2026 - 13:15 UTC

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The only justifications I know of are both bad:

1. How will we know which jail to put you in - they don't really follow gender markers on this anyway

2. What if you're unconscious in the ER - then the staff will undress you and start work on getting your medical records
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Also like, the number of things that you actually need to know sex for for health reasons is vanishingly small
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There is really no medical necessity for doctors urgently knowing your sex either. Unless it directly affects specific organs, in which case it will be obvious.

The "differences" are just rules of thumb and nobody actually knows how much of them are due to height/bodymass/hormonal/social factors.
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i feel like there's got to be some kind of census problem - like, if the government stops tracking gender then it also stops tracking the rate of violence against women, for example. i don't know how accurately they do that in the first place though, so it may be a moot point.
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1. Should be based on what the person self identifies as, prisons should be more humane and better.

2. Medical professionals should have all your medical data on record for this reason including your birth sex and if you're on hormones which are under medicinal data, protected from the government.
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so now we're down to "what if you're unconscious in the ER and you had surgery so good it left no scars and they can't find anyone who knows you or any medical records for you and also don't do any kind of abdominal/pelvic exam or imaging and this is relevant to your care"

we do take that risk
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This is the only correct take
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Yeah, actually, why do we need to share our genders at all?
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Really, the only time it's needed is if you break a bone and you've transitioned. The skeletal build will differ. Other than that, it's like asking for a fave colour.
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It's useful info in certain medical situations, none of which should be relevant to anyone looking at your ID verification. None of which are relevant for employment, renting an apartment, or getting married.

My blood type isn't on my ID card; why should info about my genitals be there?
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It wasn't any issue for me when I injured myself. They will X-ray you and find out if what the state of anything is rather than assuming stuff from ASAB.
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That's...not how it works. For any and all healthcare that doesn't directly affect reproductive organs the only thing me or any competent colleague will care about is your current dominant sex hormone.
It dictates pretty much all care you will receive because it decides how your body reacts to it.
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Bone structure is going to depend on a lot of factors that the gender marker won't say anything about, both because you can change the gender marker and because of all the developmental factors that go into bone structure, particularly for someone transitioning early.
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from someone who broke both legs a year on testosterone, this means literally nothing. you're going to get an mri before the doctors even consider surgery. the idea that natal sex is going to have some crazy effect on your skeleton is bioessentialist
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Not really even that. Trans women on HRT might break bones *slightly* more easily but the treatment is going to be the same either way.

(At least the first aid is. Mayyyybe surgical choices would differ but there would be time for a conversation about that between you/your proxy and the surgeon.)
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Honestly, complete agreement.

I hear of countries where you have a legal ethnicity, race or religion and am just baffled by it.

The same applies to legal gender, it fills little purpose except to fascilitate discrimination.
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they will know about name changes but the gender marker is weird to have
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I was a former person who "identified gender at birth". It seemed so benign then.
I repent.
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X markers were a terrible compromise. Being more legible to the state is a shift of the power dynamic in their favour
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Why is the government keeping track of babies' genitals anyways?
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I say we have separate gender expression and sex markers they are different and they should be treated separately.
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Like id’s only need gender expression
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Your mouth to the almighty's ear.
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In the UK, there are cases of cis people who had the wrong marker logged at birth due to clerical errors. They’re unable to change it because the law is set out to punish trans people

The only way to change it is a long legal process that was made exclusively for trans people so they can’t
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even change it on their birth certificates and such so have to deal with the repercussions of that tiny error some random nurse made

And all for a letter in a database that anyone could realistically sort out in less than a minute

The system serves no purpose other than frustration
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The gender marker was introduced as a paranoid reaction to the idea that it was possible to be unsure of someone's gender, and it will always be a mechanism for reprimanding those whose appearance doesn't meet expectations in line with what it says on the ID.
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Cis people assume it's like height or something but the difference is *that can actually be used to determine if an ID belongs to the bearer*

The gender marker provides EXACTLY ONE BIT OF INFORMATION and that's "can discriminate y/n"
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In Qld Áustralia we actually dont have them on our licenses anymore :D saved me the trouble of getting it changed and be asked weird unrelated questions to my driving habits xD

(I doubt our current local government likes that but they can go pound sand xD)
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was trying to interface with a hospital which had my deadname. to update my name; i the archive guy said i had to say my previous gender. for what
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Cops and other government officials didn't want to risk thinking they were sexually harassing or assaulting a women and turning out to be wrong, that would be gay!
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Maybe it could still be a valid id if you holepunch it to remove gender completely?
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Definitely questionable why an ID that has a picture of your face on it also needs a marker for Probable Underwear Contents.
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Isn't it "sex" specifically over there?

I'm not in the US, and find it weird how much info is on your IDs.
Like eye/hair colour, height, weight, etc. None of those are on mine.
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But actually. Why do our IDs need the marker in the first place?

All that matters is if I got my license or not
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If we supposedly have equal rights regardless of gender, why does the government even need to know?
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Too right. It's no-one's business but one and one's doctor. Photo ID makes it completely irrelevant, if it was ever relevant at all.
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Counteroffer: national registry of dick pics
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A good idea but what would that do for something like title 9?
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I'm cool w/ that
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I don't think the law the law is supposed to be applied differently to genders. I agree and don't think they should have any knowledge of our genders.

I wanna just be a number and a name.
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It's an outdated relic from the days when only men were allowed to own property and women WERE property.
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No no no, Palantir desperately needs this information to save the world
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Why would gender even be a useful category? It isn’t, unless the government intends to provide different and inequitable status based on gender.
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We should it's pointless to have on the ID. The only thing that should matter is Name , DoB and photo
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It's in the same camp as how some drivers licenses also list your height and weight. Why?? Do they need to know??
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Height and weight are relevant to ID - or they would be, if they updated it when a card got renewed. Mine says I weigh the same as I did before having 2 kids, even though I put in my current weight on each application.

Checking H/W might spot a kid using a cousin's ID to buy beer.
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I think it's so if the police want to issue a BOLO, they have a rough description of your build.

Fuck the Police.
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in OH prior to RealID compliance we used to have hair and eye color on there too

(we also used to allow people to wear Halloween makeup/costumes in their license photo so I feel like there were some conflicting messages there)
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lol. My driver's license still says I'm 5'4". Because that's what my permit said when I was 15. Every time I've renewed my license I've tried to change that field and the workers clearly don't even look at that section of the paperwork. I'm 5'11".
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Genuinely scared to transition and I sometimes wished the gender marker didn't exist
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If you live in the US that is completely understandable. Despite making small steps towards medically transitioning, I ultimately determined that socially transitioning is no longer feasible in this country. My current challenge is finding a therapist who knows gender issues but understands that
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People who don't understand the difference between sex and gender really shouldn't bother commenting on either.
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The gender marker is nothing but needless trouble. Just some useless bureaucracy. Expensive and oppressive.
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There's nine potential combinations with the SRY gene involved, though some end up in sterility, which has been known (but kept quiet) since the 1970's. It's political and potentially religious, are we surprised by this.
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Gender is a lie fabricated by clothing companies and porcelain manufacturers to crank up clothing prices and sell more urinals
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Additionally, why the fuck does the government need to know what your gender is?
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My mom always says she never liked those things because they'd make it extra easy for a conservative government to decide that all bank accounts associated with an ID that has an F gender marker should be closed
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Just get rid of gender.
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💯
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I'd really like you to think about how there's no difference between saying this and saying that transness should be erased.
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I never even thought to question that about my license. I think my brain just expanded.
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The gov’t can’t be trusted with sex or gender markers.
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I had a law class last year where the teacher literally just said "there are calls to be rid of the gender marker as it has become deprecated now that men and women are legally equal" and like. Yeah we should!
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OP literally had me asking why it existed in the first place and you've just answered it. Of course it's for legal discrimination. And of course it hasn't been abolished after the genders were made legally equal. Sigh. The (trans)misogyny never ends.
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The gender marker kind lf straight up exists because men needed a way to tell who didn't get to have full human rights amd who did.
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“Fun” fact, we used to have legal race designations down to like, degrees of mixed-race.

That system was abolished because it was argued, correctly, that legal race only served discriminatory purposes. Legal gender is the same and should also be abolished.
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i was always told that it was really important for the purposes of data gathering, something i was assured would only exist to help women and trans people
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Based. I agree.
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Agreed. Don't tell me who I am or what you think I am. And definitely don't tell me who I can love. Count me as an individual and give me my vote. Not really that hard, is it?
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Abolish the draft, that’s the only reason the feds bother to defend needing to know our gender. They don’t need to know our gender & never did. My gender is Fuck Off & get out of my face.
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There is no reason the government needs to keep track of your gender. Especially to drive a car.
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The social security administration could do it so can the rest of the government can too, lfg
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How can the gov fight against sexism if they don't know the gender of people?

(I say this as a big advocate against mass tracking)
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If we abolish gender there won't be any sexism to fight
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It somewhat of an anarchism take.

The government has failed/has lost all trust in

Instead of the government, we should take it into our own hands.

Now that's a good mindset, but really complicated to execute. I personally wouldn't want to put myself in the "anarchism shoebox"
I just want Freedom.
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I mean that's good in theory but when the government has proven that they're using it to enforce sexisim then maybe it's not a great idea for them to have it at all.
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Any database that tracks intimate personal information must be justified by clear public need, limited in scope, and safeguarded against misuse. History gives us many examples of governments misusing identity records to discriminate. Skepticism is not irrational.
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Agreed. What's the issue? They'll file taxes anyway. They'll just be happier.
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Is there one? I thought only sex was recorded.
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Data privacy issues aside, there's simply no compelling reason for the government to know your gender.
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This is a dumb take. Fortunately no one will care about it.

Let's focus on keeping our current legal protections, please.
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RIGHT THE FUCK ON❤️❤️❤️
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Why should my gender matter on an ID … unless it’s super important to be able to discriminate. Huh.
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agree
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Just abolish the govt. We do not need it as it exists
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a while back New Zealand did a review and their conclusion was that it would make border control slightly more difficult, so they shouldn’t. www2023.icao.int/Meetings/TAG-MRTD/Documents/Tag-Mrtd-21/Tag-Mrtd21_IP04.pdf

anyways, someone should write some letters to ICAO explaining why this reasoning is BS.
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