For my policy paper, I want to address the issue of having a recognized, intersex “third gender” option on official US documents.
Starting with birth certificates, as many as one in 2,000 babies are born with identifying characteristics of both sexes and genders. Currently in the US, parents are forced to make a quick decision to label their child as one gender or the other, often having the infant undergo surgery to push them in one direction. A lot of times parents are forced to make this decision at their child’s birth to satisfy federal regulations that require gender identification, with surgery following in attempt to “normalize” the baby and conform it to the gender the parents have chosen. Sometimes, this can cause great trauma in a person’s life, as seen in the “John/Joan” case:
David Reimer was born a boy biologically, but after a botched circumcision where his genitalia was severely damaged, his parents were prompted to get the infant surgery to construct a rudimentary vulva and raise him as a girl, “Brenda”. Once Brenda got to be about 13, her parents revealed to her past, after many tumultuous years of struggle and she decided to become male once again. However, the damage was immense and after many years of emotional turmoil, David Reimer committed suicide at the age of 37.
Germany recently implemented a law that allows parents to claim their baby as “intersex” on the birth certificate until the child is old enough to decide gender on their own.
Going past just birth certificates though, Australia just granted citizens the ability to identify as “intersex” on passports and other official documents in 2013. In 2009, Indian and Pakistani citizens gained the rights to identify their gender on documents beyond just male and female. The third gender option in the US would be useful on birth certificates to allow infants showing both sex characteristic to decide their gender on their own and for transgender adults to be identified as they wish to be.
The option would be very low cost, since the US could follow Germany’s example and, rather than reprinting all forms with a third gender option, instead have people indicate their choice by leaving the selection blank or by putting an “X” through the entire genera section.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/11/01/242366812/germany-offers-third-gender-option-on-birth-certificates
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Will-India-recognize-a-third-gender/articleshow/27050953.cms