UK Supreme Court: No to gender-neutral passports

Shao Kahn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118355463#Comment_118355463

The same reason they play this silly game of "why do you care?" or "what impact does it have on your life?"

Basically, nothing to see here, move along... they're trying to bring through changes with minimal or zero opposition. They're trying to passive aggressively bully anyone who opposes their view of the world.

Government sponsored lying on official documents, is of concern to every citizen in society. Not just the owners of those documents.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118355581#Comment_118355581

But how many sexes are there?

Annasopra

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118355671#Comment_118355671

Google it

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118357154#Comment_118357154

Pro-gender-neutral passport advocates have consistently avoided all questions relating to this subject, and this is yet another example of the kind of evasion that I'm talking about.

As another poster has said, that side of the argument don't want to address the facts or arguments against their position. They want these kinds of passports smuggled-through-customs as fast as possible, without challenge and without addressing the key facts that impact the topic.

The triad is:

• argue that those who oppose it are, by default, 'transphobic'
• evade all questions that are against their position
• claim 'what harm will it do' as a response

Well if its totally acceptable to lie on your official passport then why can't we change our age too? What's that got to do with anyone else? Why can't I identify as 21? Why isn't that officially recognised on my government issued ID?

Not too long before I can identify as having my booster on my Covid passport if we keep going on with this nonsense.

Faugheen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118353409#Comment_118353409

Ha! All the chatter about forcing other people's choices on you (false) and not only have you admitted this isn't happening, but you also want to force your choices and beliefs on other people.

So f*cking see-through.

Timberrrrrrrr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118357347#Comment_118357347

This is the whole argument

"I don't like it so it shouldn't happen!"

Cancel culture from the same side who claim cancel culture is terrible 🤣

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118357361#Comment_118357361

'Cancel culture' is about the ostracism of people from polite society for the crime of holding a perfectly respectable opinion.

Having an opinion about gender-neutral passports does not 'cancel culture' make. But when you are trying to force this through and accusing anyone who disagrees with you as 'transphobic', that is more resonant with cancel culture than anything else.

The irony...

Timberrrrrrrr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118357371#Comment_118357371

"'Cancel culture' is about the ostracism of people from polite society for the crime of holding a perfectly respectable opinion."

Yup, which is exactly what you are doing, just because you don't agree with that opinion doesn't make it any less respectable.

Annasopra

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118357371#Comment_118357371

Noone accused you of being transphobic. You claimed you support trans rights. I have shown how this is demonstrably untrue.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118357501#Comment_118357501

You've shown no such thing.

You've merely asserted it.

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118354664#Comment_118354664

Those documents are perfectly legal, and can indeed be used as supporting documentation for a range of purposes, one of which includes either applying for a new passport, or changing the name on your passport.

It IS sex or gender, in UK law at least, and the point was made by Lord Reed, president of the Supreme Court, that they are terms which are used interchangeably, by way of supporting his opinion that gender was a biographical detail which can be used to confirm a person’s identity, and it is therefore… well -

It is therefore the gender recognised for legal purposes and recorded in those documents which is relevant," he said.

I’m perfectly aware that sex is based upon science insofar as science is relevant, but in the meantime where law and civil and human rights are concerned, the whole “sex based upon science” argument is as weak sauce as the Lord Reeds effort to justify maintaining the status quo because it would be an administrative headache to change it.

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118355531#Comment_118355531

Well that’s stating the obvious! It’s why existing laws and legislation is challenged and if found to be wanting, it’s changed, as has happened many, many times throughout history.

Enduro

It strikes me that there is a possibility of unintended consequences for people who declare themselves with a non-traditional gender on their passports. There are countries in the world that have a very black and white view (often driven by a dominant religious ideology) about gender-related matters. Extremely conservative societies with laws to match. It's pretty easy to envisage that X gender on a passport could trigger an immigration official to make your life miserable for some time as you try to enter their country. Or more significantly, it could be used against you under the bizarre morality laws that some countries have to convict you of a crime.

Obviously, this shouldn't be an issue in the more liberal parts of the world. At best that's a bit confining. But there are possible issues with transiting through airports in more conservative countries (Which include some of the biggest airline hubs in the world), and in extreme cases ending up in one unexpectedly (like the passengers in an intra-EU Ryanair flight which ended up unexpectedly landing in a very non-UE country earlier this year. Things don't always go to plan)

If you reversed the argument and said that all non-binary gendered people HAD to be identified as such on their passports there would be uproar (and rightly so).

Liberty_Bear

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118357774#Comment_118357774

Im unsure of that Jack. The evidence I posted shows that there is a large body of empirical evidence that shows we are aware of the workings of the brain and the neurology of those who identify as a gender other than the sex they are born with. An administrative headache it may yet they can easily do it when a woman wants to change her name on her new passport.

Why not omit gender from passports then settle all arguments?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118357794#Comment_118357794

Which is precisely what I'm advocating here.

You called defending biological objectivity as an inconvenience and "an administrative headache".

Perhaps we can do without that headache by sticking to reality, and not subjective interpretations of non-binary genders.

To coin a phrase, maybe we should just state the obvious.

Timberrrrrrrr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118357926#Comment_118357926

"It's pretty easy to envisage that X gender on a passport could trigger an immigration official to make your life miserable for some time as you try to enter their country. Or more significantly, it could be used against you under the bizarre morality laws that some countries have to convict you of a crime."

Plenty of countries already have the X option for gender on passports, has there been any incidents such as the ones you have mentioned above?

Enduro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118357977#Comment_118357977

I have no idea either way. One would be one too many.

I'm just pointing to the possibilities. I know in my own case I would like the absolute minimum amount of information on my passport. I thoroughly dislike filling out forms (such as the U.S. ESTA) that ask for way beyond the minimum.

Some people have multiple passports to obfuscate even the minimal amount of information that a bog-standard passport provides. Irish passports have been popular as second passports for people who wish to obfuscate their "original" nationality. Declaring more information than necessary on your passports goes against this kind of thought process.

Timberrrrrrrr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118358041#Comment_118358041

"I'm just pointing to the possibilities."

The possibilities endless though. Saying that I did say earlier in the thread that if someone chooses to put X on thier passport and then have issues at any border controls over it then it would be upon them and them alone.

Annasopra

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118357926#Comment_118357926

I think non binary people are probably aware of the negative reactions and violence already.

Enduro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118358049#Comment_118358049

Yeah. I guess I'm trying to say be careful what you wish for. There are potential downsides here. To kinda repeat the point, if you had to fill out a mandatory form to declare your gender identity (amongst other information) to gain entry to a country there would rightly be uproar since the negative possibilities of this would be immediately obvious (similarly to having to declare your religious affiliation etc, which again would have obvious downside possibilities).

Annasopra

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118358087#Comment_118358087

Of course. And then also not having the marker of their preferred gender identity could cause trans people all sorts of hassle and problems too.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118358139#Comment_118358139

Can we just put this into some sense of perspective.

You use the phrase "preferred gender identity" and that's fine, but let's see how this works in the real world.

Novigender - "a gender that is super complex and impossible to describe in a single term"

Greygender - "somebody with a weak gender identification of themselves"

Neutrois - "a non-binary gender identity which is often associated with a "neutral" or "null" gender"

What has this got to do with national identification i.e. passports?

These are nothing more than personal descriptors for someone's personality. And that's fine - but it is absolutely non-objective and should have nothing to do with national identification.

Timberrrrrrrr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118358477#Comment_118358477

"These are nothing more than personal descriptors for someone's personality. And that's fine - but it is absolutely non-objective and should have nothing to do with national identification."

This is your opinion, you are perfectly entitled to hold this opinion but you hold it because its an emotional response to something you don't like as you stated earlier in the thread.

Others hold a different opinion to you, an opinion which they are also fully entitled to hold, just because you say something is so does not automatically mean it is so.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118358498#Comment_118358498

No, it's not my opinion, any more than it's my opinion that the planets circumnavigate the sun.

Some things aren't "just an opinion"; they're objective facts - backed up with evidence and logic and reason.

If you want an acid test of what I mean, how could you objectively prove the existence of the non-binary gender, "novigender"?

In contrast, we can objectively show the existence of the biological sexes.

Something objectively true is independently true whether anyone believes it or not. For instance, that the planets circumnavigate the sun is objectively true irrespective of what anyone else believes. The same cannot be said for non-binary genders, because they are based on subjective personal experience.

Timberrrrrrrr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118358631#Comment_118358631

Go into the Christianity forum and tell them "god" is not real and thier beliefs are not real

"because they are based on subjective personal experience." And not "backed up with evidence and logic and reason."

Let me know how that goes for you.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118358767#Comment_118358767

If it were allowed, I would - because the point is precisely the same.

I'm not sure what your point is re: that and gender-neutral passports, though?

You're spot on though: both are the same, in the sense that you cannot prove the existence of a deity in the same way you cannot prove the existence of a non-binary gender; both are taken as "personal experience" i.e. code for subjective, and therefore we cannot ascribe those beliefs greater weight than the objective evidence that these ideas do not objectively exist.

Annasopra

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118358477#Comment_118358477

Meh

In the real world trans people can already get passports. All your whataboutery makes no difference.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118358835#Comment_118358835

I laid out a detailed, nuanced position - and all it's met with is casual and deliberate dismissiveness.

No engagement with the ideas or arguments, but total dismissiveness.

That alone should alert people as to the motives of such dismissal, as well as to shine a spotlight on the arguments that are being dismissed; such as those that I and others have put across.

Annasopra

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118358860#Comment_118358860

You're well able to dismiss yourself 😉

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118358871#Comment_118358871

All I'm doing is laying out the objective evidence. No subjective experience, but objective evidence.

It seems to be making its mark.

Annasopra

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118358910#Comment_118358910

Not really. Irish and UK laws allow trans people to use passports for a long time. The Irish government is moving towards legal recocgnition of non binary people.

Faugheen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118358910#Comment_118358910

What the f*ck are you talking about?

You are rambling without making any coherent point whatsoever. You spent pages trying to deflect from the fact that what one person does with their passport has no bearing on you whatsoever and now you're talking about your incoherent ramblings being dismissed.

Nobody is responding to you because your 'objective, detailed and nuanced' points make no sense.

What exactly do you want people to say with regards to your ideas? What 'engagement' are you looking for? Disagreeing with you and stating that trans people can already get passports in their reflective gender is engaging with you. And instead of actually engaging yourself, you just go off on another tangent where you make yourself out to be the victim of some sort.

You've spoken previously about living in the real world. Well guess what? People disagree with each other in the real world. People disagree with you here. Despite the fact you have been addressed numerous times, you keep ignoring it and rambling.

You're making no mark here whatsoever. You're clutching for any straw you can find to justify your nonsense.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118359019#Comment_118359019

Why should subjective personal experience, in gender non-binary self-identity, be considered as a hallmark for national identification i.e. passports?

You can't prove the existence of such non-binary genders, so why include them on national passports?

You are doing one of the three factors in my triad earlier: dismissal and evasion.

Faugheen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118359039#Comment_118359039

You, of all people, is accusing others of 'evading'? That's a laugh and a half there. Zero self-awareness whatsoever.

I'm saying you clog up threads with incoherent ramblings and you ignore every single point that is put to you until it gets to the stage that you can't anymore.

As I said before, people, real people, struggle every day with their gender identity. This isn't just a craze of people suddenly deciding this. For many it takes years of pain and suffering because they are trying to figure all of this out for themselves.

If allowing them to have an X on their passport means they can live life that little bit better then I am all for it because I am thinking about the people involved here and showing them some empathy.

Why? It has f*ck all to do with me. That's why. I'm going to keep the male on my passport, and that is nobody else's decision to make but mine and nobody is going to force me to change it?

You, though? You're trying to tell other people what to do because it's what YOU want. Maybe if you left your house every now and again you might wake up but for some reason I doubt it.

Instead of clogging up this thread by repeating the same point over and over again in bad faith, how about you mind your own business and you worry about your own affairs?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118355531#Comment_118355531

Yes it is.

Law is absolute

Timberrrrrrrr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118358776#Comment_118358776

"in the sense that you cannot prove the existence of a deity in the same way you cannot prove the existence of a non-binary gender"

But you cannot disprove it either, you can only voice your personal opinion on what you believe.

Shao Kahn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118359093#Comment_118359093

Official documents are not supposed to be about someone's opinion though.

There is no burden of proof on the state to prove or acknowledge the existence of someone's chosen deity. Freedom of religion, is the right to practice your chosen religion free of discrimination or prejudice.

I have no issue whatsoever, with anyone choosing to live their life as gender neutral. Good luck to them, I hope they're happy and enjoy a prejudice free existence. Certainly they won't receive any discrimination from me anyway.

However, lying on an official document is a step too far. If you're going to put something completely unsupported by science on that document, you might as well just fabricate everything else as well. In that scenario, the rest of the population could just put any date of birth they choose - basically whatever age they feel like. Because that's essentially the only criteria for being gender neutral - you FEEL like you're gender neutral.

So, what's to stop you FEELING just about anything else you please?

This is one of the problems you run into in modern western culture, when feelings have become more important than facts.

Timberrrrrrrr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118359482#Comment_118359482

"Official documents are not supposed to be about someone's opinion though."

"However, lying on an official document is a step too far. If you're going to put something completely unsupported by science on that document, you might as well just fabricate everything else as well. "

There is a census every ten years, census forms are Official government documents, people "put something completely unsupported by science on that document" when they tick a religious beliefs box so there is already a precedent set for putting information on Official government documents that is "completely unsupported by science".

If someone feels they are gender neutral then putting it on a document is no more "lying" than saying they are Catholic because they "feel" there is a god.

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118357946#Comment_118357946

I’m making the point though LB that the people who’s argument generally consists of “sex based upon science” and “biological reality” and all the rest of it, are unlikely to have ever opened a science textbook in their lives. They are perfectly willing to lean on scientific evidence when it suits their opinions, and reject scientific evidence when it doesn’t suit their opinions.

I do see where you’re coming from with the idea that omitting gender altogether from being recognised on passports would settle all arguments, but I don’t think it would, as it would still mean that people would wish to have their gender recognised by their respective political entities, and the UK in particular would like to have it no other way -

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-55721123.amp

It’s the current legal status of those people who’s gender does not conform to how gender is currently recognised in law (as binary), who are seeking legal recognition of their gender which currently does not have equal status in terms of legal recognition, representation or protection from unlawful discrimination. Their argument is that current lack of recognition is inadequate and they are forced to use inadequate and inappropriate terms which do not refer to their gender and do not reflect their identity.

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118357963#Comment_118357963

No it’s not what you’re arguing. Your argument, from what I can decipher of it, primarily consists of attempting to portray your own opinions as ‘objective biological reality’, ignoring the fact that science simply does not support your argument. You’re attempting to use pseudoscience to justify discrimination in law against people who do not conform to your standards.

The same sort of pseudoscientific nonsense was used in the past to justify discrimination in law against people who did not conform to other peoples standards throughout the history of human civilisation, particularly in the Victorian era when some people got a bit of a hard-on for attempting to classify people into different groups and determining their rights accordingly, based upon conflating biology with behaviour according to their own moral standards and justify their behaviour by calling it science, when they could no longer rely on everyone being in agreement as to the existence of an omnipotent invisible deity as providing an objective standard for their moral guidance.

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118358231#Comment_118358231

Identification mismatching on documents doesn’t render those documents legally invalid. It just means the people to whom you are presenting those documents does not consider them valid proof of identity for the purposes for which you are intending to use them. Happens regularly with banks, doesn’t mean the documents are illegal, it just means they are insufficient evidence of proof of identity according to the bank’s policies of what they will and won’t accept as evidence of proof of identity -

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/natwest-slammed-sexist-after-telling-13344939.amp

Changing your name by deed poll, while the deed poll is a legal document - on its own it’s still insufficient to provide evidence of proof of usage when applying for a change of name on your passport, and in some cases it’s not required at all. In fact they can be quite picky about the form of name they will and won’t accept on a passport, in much the same way as they are about gender -

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/548220/Annex_A_passports_August_2016.pdf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118359492#Comment_118359492

A census is not a form of national identification. Christ...

Timberrrrrrrr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118359749#Comment_118359749

I never said it was, I said it's an official government document

Lying on the census is a serious offence which can lead to serious repercussions.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118359790#Comment_118359790

Yes, but this thread is about gender neutral passports - a form of national identification - and not government documents in general. Your comparison is therefore deeply flawed.

Timberrrrrrrr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118360016#Comment_118360016

I was answering another poster who said

"Official documents are not supposed to be about someone's opinion though."

So no my comparison is not flawed at all, you just don't want people to discuss things that tear your argument apart.

@Timberrrrrrrr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118353673#Comment_118353673

I'm sorry @Timberrrrrrrr, but the evidence suggests - from this post above alone - that the ramifications of replacing objective facts with subjective beliefs are simply not taken seriously.

You advocate not only for gender-neutral passports, but also believe that "if a sixty-year old man wants to change their passport, so that it says they are a 14-year old girl, then have at it". Really what you're saying here is that it doesn't matter what anyone else does to national ID, as long as one can fly to Greece for a week next summer.

Presumably, then, this 60-year old man would not be able to purchase alcohol? Or have sex, legally? You can see where all this leads. There has to be a standard of proof on national ID documents. Gender self-identification is an absolute affront to that principle, as you cannot objectively prove the existence of a non-binary gender; it's a subjective, personal belief by its very nature. By all means people can hold these beliefs in their private life, but the State should not recognize these beliefs on national ID in the same way that religious beliefs or political beliefs are not recognized on passports. ID should be about proof, and the ability to compare what's on the ID with other evidence to produce the conclusion that this person is who they claim to be. Self-ID does nothing but frustrate this process because it's unverifiable (and unfalsifiable).

The law depends on science, objectivity, and actual truth - not "personal truths", "personal beliefs", and most certainly not pseudoscience smuggled-through-customs as scientific fact.

Timberrrrrrrr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118360115#Comment_118360115

"Presumably, then, this 60-year old man would not be able to purchase alcohol? Or have sex, legally? "

And that would be his problem, but what issues such as those would arise from a person having an X on thier passport?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118360144#Comment_118360144

I have explained ad nauseum at this stage, that national identification should include verifiable and/or objective information about that individual and that the same passport should not include personal, subjective beliefs which are unprovable (and which could potentially be changed at a whim).

At this stage, I'm repeating myself without an iota of engagement with this fundamental principle - and so, I'll stop there.

Timberrrrrrrr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118360165#Comment_118360165

And yet several countries have allowed people to have an X on thier passports and there have been no serious issues from this.

So if its allowed in several countries, and there have been no issues them why not expand this for the few people who would like to have it?

Oh thas right, because you don't want it to happen, in your opinion it is wrong and therefore you argue on here about it, something that is not being forced upon you and has no bearing on your life whatsoever, think about that for a minute.

And yes I am also arguing over it but I'm arguing for people's rights, your arguing for your personal opinion.