The birth certificate is a legal document stating that a person was born at a specific date and a specific place. Regardless of how healthy he is, altering the document is equivalent to lying on...
The birth certificate is a legal document stating that a person was born at a specific date and a specific place. Regardless of how healthy he is, altering the document is equivalent to lying on said document, so I don't see why a court would allow this.
The argument of changing a sex is not analogous because the sex is not actually determined in the way the time or location is. The sex is determined by sight - visual presentation of genitals. This is not a genetic test (to determine genetic sex), nor does it reflect the gender identity of the individual.
Time is determined by science. It is a certain time and location, and both of which are approximated by the use of machines and tools - clocks, maps, gps, etc. While changes in time or location could be argued upon the inaccuracy of these tools or the reading of these tools, there's an upper limit to how inaccurate these can be.
Very much so. A distinction must be made between "sex" and "gender". The first is an objective fact that cannot be altered by current medical science. The second is entirely subjective and can be...
Very much so. A distinction must be made between "sex" and "gender". The first is an objective fact that cannot be altered by current medical science. The second is entirely subjective and can be easily changed even without medical intervention.
While I agree that it's important to recognize the difference between the two, hard disagree on that description of sex. You would need an unfairly reductive definition for either of those two...
Exemplary
While I agree that it's important to recognize the difference between the two, hard disagree on that description of sex. You would need an unfairly reductive definition for either of those two traits to hold up.
Objective fact
It makes sense to recognize patterns, but pretending that edge cases don't exist is silly. Nature is sloppy, and classifications of sex start fraying quickly with even small breaks from what is considered standard. Some people either have or were born with nonstandard genitals: partially formed, bits of both, non-reproductive, etc. Others have had significant surgery on their genitals, such as post-op trans people or unconsenting intersex infants forced to "fit in". Some unsavory folks insist the results of this type of surgery don't even qualify as genitals. Really, classifying from genitals (or, for similar reasons, internal sex organs) is far from objective.
Now you may think, "what about hormones?" Although hormone measures themselves are -- while variable -- objective, categorizing them requires cutoffs that simply don't exist on the bell curve of all human population. How do you label someone with either high levels or low levels of both estrogen and testosterone? Someone with typical testosterone levels but low DHT, which plays a strong role in the development of typically male characteristics? And what about conditions such as Androgen Insensitivity -- that is, someone whose cells respond weakly or not at all to testosterone?
Even using chromosomes gets dirty trying to account for all manner of intersex conditions. People with Klinefelter's can have a wide range of autosomal chromosome combinations including XXY, XXXY, XXXXY, and XYY. People with Turner syndrome are born XO, with the O representing a whole or partial loss of the other chromosome. It's even possible to have an XY karyotype lacking an SRY gene and develop typically female, or vice versa with XX.
Nature presents us with sex anatomy spectrums. Breasts, penises, clitorises, scrotums, labia, gonads -- all of these vary in size and shape and morphology. So-called sex chromosomes can vary quite a bit, too. But in human cultures, sex categories get simplified into male, female, and sometimes intersex, in order to simplify social interactions, express what we know and feel, and maintain order. So nature doesn’t decide where the category of “male” ends and the category of “intersex” begins, or where the category of “intersex” ends and the category of “female” begins. Humans decide. source
Cannot be altered by current medical science
I'm trans. I've been on hormones for years, more than enough time for some very major changes in both my biology and my attitude towards people trying to gatekeep me. I have virtually every female secondary sex characteristic, as well as a very respectable number of female primary sex characteristics. Calling me "biologically male" is very outdated if not an outright lie, but there are still people who insist on doing so. (A frightening number of them occupy government positions.)
It's widely accepted that some animal species are capable of changing their sex. Yet, those animals don't change their sex chromosomes when they do, so logically I shouldn't have to either. Lots of cis women are infertile, so I shouldn't have to be. But it's turtles all the way down. Honestly, if I touched a stone that turned every atom of my body female, whatever that means, I would still deal with transphobes protesting that they didn't need a stone.
I rarely have the pleasure of being educated in such a compelling manner. Your response deserves a meditated answer, which I cannot give right now. But I'll come back to it when I have some time...
I rarely have the pleasure of being educated in such a compelling manner. Your response deserves a meditated answer, which I cannot give right now. But I'll come back to it when I have some time later today. Thanks!
edit: I'm having trouble writing a proper response, mainly because I agree with the central premise at the same time that I see several flaws in the reasoning presented. So it may take a few days...
Well said. I also wanted to point out another intersex condition in the form of genetic chimera or mosaic where a mix of different chromosomes occurs in a single individual.
Well said. I also wanted to point out another intersex condition in the form of genetic chimera or mosaic where a mix of different chromosomes occurs in a single individual.
I do just want to point out here (though it was addressed rather thoroughly in neon's comment below), "genetic sex" can be quite ambiguous as well. Most people learn that XY == male, and XX ==...
to determine genetic sex
I do just want to point out here (though it was addressed rather thoroughly in neon's comment below), "genetic sex" can be quite ambiguous as well. Most people learn that XY == male, and XX == female, but it turns out that's a pretty big simplification. Aside from all of the possible combinations of chromosomes greater than length two, even XY does not always result in male development. Without a specific gene (SRY) on the Y chromosome, a person will go through standard female development, with breasts, ovaries, a vagina, etc.
In fact, there's some evidence that this isn't even set in stone at birth; taking a gonad cell from a male and deactivating SRY will cause the live cell to "switch" sexes. Of course there's no telling what would happen if all of the cells in a human body suddenly switched sex, and it would likely be chaotic and disastrous. And yet, there are living, complex animals (like a whole lot of fish) that have the ability to spontaneously change sex as full grown adults.
The reality is, we don't even come close to having a full enough understanding of the human genome to make accurate predictions of human sex and gender identity based on genetic testing alone, even if we were to perform it at birth (which, to be clear, I don't think we should). This doesn't even address the number of people born some form of intersex (which is usually difficult to define in a way everyone agrees with). But even if we only consider non-XX/XY births, or only consider individuals with Klinefelter syndrome, we're looking at around 1 birth per 1,000, which is 300,000 Americans. It's a significant number.
The reality is that sex isn't binary, either. Just like gender, a substantial number of people are either misclassified by society or simply unclassifiable. Our system is a massive oversimplification and it causes people to have misunderstandings of what sex and gender really are.
I just wanted to preface this by saying I'm in complete agreement with what you are saying, but I did want to point out a few times where the wording could use some improvement What you're stating...
I just wanted to preface this by saying I'm in complete agreement with what you are saying, but I did want to point out a few times where the wording could use some improvement
"genetic sex" can be quite ambiguous as well
What you're stating here seems to me to be more of "people's interpretation of genetic sex", in particular, people who are uneducated in just what "genetic sex" actually is. Even an introductory course to human biology will cover kleinfelter's syndrome and other abnormal genetic sexes.
there's no telling what would happen if all of the cells in a human body suddenly switched sex...
yet, there are living, complex animals (like a whole lot of fish) that have the ability to spontaneously change sex as full grown adults.
Absolutely. Nearly all humans are born with slightly different genetic makeup between cells within their own body. It's rare, but possible for someone to have a significant portion of these cells have different sex chromosomes.
In the case of animals which are able to change sex, in some cases they can do it in response to the environment itself, which is a very interesting adaptation that we don't currently see in humans, but is theoretically possible.
Our system is a massive oversimplification
I think it's unfair to say the "system" is a massive oversimplification. Really the problem is that people are uneducated. Within the medical community, at the very least there is an understanding of non XX/XY genetic sexes. Some are more educated and know about even more fringe cases like chimeric genetic karyotyping and other interesting (and in my humble opinion, beautiful) abnormal presentations of sex. The system should be adapting to match new knowledge, unfortunately people's education doesn't always catch up in tandem.
This raises an interesting question though: Should Scott Kelly be able to change its age? I think the difference with his twin is around 5ms ( on top of the 6mins at birth between the 2 ). If...
This raises an interesting question though: Should Scott Kelly be able to change its age? I think the difference with his twin is around 5ms ( on top of the 6mins at birth between the 2 ). If space travel becomes a commodity, should we be able to somehow register those trips?
Whatever happens with someone's life after they are born does not change the distinct moment in time and space that they were born. Even if someone somehow managed to travel back or forwards in...
Whatever happens with someone's life after they are born does not change the distinct moment in time and space that they were born.
Even if someone somehow managed to travel back or forwards in time, they would still have been born at the same time and location (barring any weird changes to time itself).
The complicated part would be people who move between planets. It's not enough to know what planet they were born on and on what day in that planet's calendar, you also have to know how long...
The complicated part would be people who move between planets. It's not enough to know what planet they were born on and on what day in that planet's calendar, you also have to know how long they've spent on each planet.
We'll need some way of scientifically measuring how much our bodies have aged.
I think calculating someone's exact biological age will be more or less a moot point due to life extension before we really have to worry about relativity mucking things up by more than a few...
I think calculating someone's exact biological age will be more or less a moot point due to life extension before we really have to worry about relativity mucking things up by more than a few seconds or minutes.
Hmm, I don't buy that it's all that different. A staunch anti-trans person would probably say that sex on the birth certificate is established by science, and time is similarly measured, by visual...
Hmm, I don't buy that it's all that different. A staunch anti-trans person would probably say that sex on the birth certificate is established by science, and time is similarly measured, by visual inspection of a clock. Changing sex on the birth certificate doesn't mean, "the doctor didn't actually see a penis", it means "as a society we've decided to let people change their sex and so we should update this legal document to be consistent".
In other words, I don't think there's a strong principle you can derive here, and if millions of people really did have age dysphoria and suffered immense distress from it, it's plausible to me that we would allow amending their birth certificates as well.
That said, I don't think there are (many?) such people, so it seems fine to me to say, "yes, they're analogous situations but we'll allow people to change their sex but not their age."
It's not. Sex is genetic. Sex on a birth certificate is done by visual inspection, not genetic testing. It's an approximation based on crude tools easily available at the time of birth. Sex is...
say that sex on the birth certificate is established by science
It's not. Sex is genetic. Sex on a birth certificate is done by visual inspection, not genetic testing. It's an approximation based on crude tools easily available at the time of birth.
Sex is also not gender, and the distinction between the two was not established back when we started creating birth certificates.
time is similarly measured, by visual inspection of a clock
The accuracy of time by visual inspection of a clock is magnitudes greater than sex by visual inspection of genitals.
it means "as a society we've decided to let people change their sex and so we should update this legal document to be consistent".
Again, we get back to the conflation of sex and gender and how laws work.
Here's an article where Mr Ratelband makes it explicit that his request to change the date on his birth certificate is related to transgender people changing the gender on their birth certificates.
Here's an article where Mr Ratelband makes it explicit that his request to change the date on his birth certificate is related to transgender people changing the gender on their birth certificates.
Emile Ratelband, 69, wants to shift his birthday from 11 March 1949 to 11 March 1969, comparing the change to identifying as being transgender.
"We live in a time when you can change your name and change your gender. Why can't I decide my own age?" he said.
That's... hm. Creative. Can I be 45 for long enough to get cheap car insurance, and 25 long enough to get cheap health insurance and 65 the rest of the time to get social security checks?
That's... hm. Creative. Can I be 45 for long enough to get cheap car insurance, and 25 long enough to get cheap health insurance and 65 the rest of the time to get social security checks?
It's actually a form of trolling. A few anti-transgender people have tried to make the point that, if someone can choose to change their gender based on their "feelings", then we should be able to...
That's... hm. Creative.
It's actually a form of trolling.
A few anti-transgender people have tried to make the point that, if someone can choose to change their gender based on their "feelings", then we should be able to change anything based on our "feelings" - our race, our age, even our species. A classic counter-argument against transgender people is: "What if a 60-year-old man feels like a 10-year-old girl? Can he just change his age and his gender?"
This man is obviously trying to show up what he sees as the ridiculousness of transgender people changing something that he believes is biologically fixed, by asking the courts to change something else that's biologically fixed. Then, when they refuse to change his age, he'll ask why he can't change that biologically fixed trait if other people can change their biologically fixed traits.
It's anti-transgender trolling taken to an extreme.
The answer, of course, is that “gender”, “race” and “age” are distinct concepts, subject to distinct concerns and it’d be unreasonable to approach them with the same criteria.
The answer, of course, is that “gender”, “race” and “age” are distinct concepts, subject to distinct concerns and it’d be unreasonable to approach them with the same criteria.
They may be distinct to some people, but to other people they're connected by the idea that they're all biologically determined and not able to be influenced by personal choice.
The answer, of course, is that “gender”, “race” and “age” are distinct concepts,
They may be distinct to some people, but to other people they're connected by the idea that they're all biologically determined and not able to be influenced by personal choice.
Explaining someone else's point of view is not the same as validating it. And I don't think anyone reading this thread would be under any misconception that I support or agree with this point of...
Explaining someone else's point of view is not the same as validating it.
And I don't think anyone reading this thread would be under any misconception that I support or agree with this point of view: I did start out by describing the behaviour in this article as "anti-transgender trolling".
If I agree with something or if I'm expressing my own opinion, rest assured that I'll own it personally, rather than distancing myself from it by saying "some people believe" or "other people...
I assumed you agreed with the statement on extremely technical grounds, because in that respect it's true.
If I agree with something or if I'm expressing my own opinion, rest assured that I'll own it personally, rather than distancing myself from it by saying "some people believe" or "other people believe".
And to be clear it's utterly ridiculous at best. There's decades of research verifying the realities of trans people. Birth certificates aren't a medical document. They're used to prove identity...
And to be clear it's utterly ridiculous at best. There's decades of research verifying the realities of trans people.
Birth certificates aren't a medical document. They're used to prove identity and citizenship. A mismatch between the birth certificate and the person's ID and appearance can cause bureaucratic problems, and force trans people to be outed unnecessarily, which is literally a danger.
Not in a society where there are laws about what people can and can not do at certain ages (drink alcohol, buy guns, work for money, have sex, retire).
Age is just so utterly irrelevant.
Not in a society where there are laws about what people can and can not do at certain ages (drink alcohol, buy guns, work for money, have sex, retire).
On the one hand, he is a self help speaker and writer who advertises his youthful vigor, so there is definitely an element of self promotion here. On the other hand, and at the risk of...
On the one hand, he is a self help speaker and writer who advertises his youthful vigor, so there is definitely an element of self promotion here.
On the other hand, and at the risk of stereotyping, I am surprised to see a dutch man take a tone deaf attitude towards the difficulties trans gender people face.
How can you be sure with that? A lot of people are extremely fixated on their ages, and there a lot of older people who don't feel the way most people their age do. The guy seems pretty sincere to...
It's actually a form of trolling.
How can you be sure with that? A lot of people are extremely fixated on their ages, and there a lot of older people who don't feel the way most people their age do. The guy seems pretty sincere to me from reading the article, and he definitely doesn't seem like the type of hardcore conservative that would purposely go through that much trouble just to stir up controversy. I don't think he should just be absolutely dismissed outright.
He isn't. Here in the Netherlands, this guy is a well known "life coach", a third rate celebrity desperate for attention. Everyone here knows he's only doing this for the spotlight and...
The guy seems pretty sincere to me from reading the article
He isn't. Here in the Netherlands, this guy is a well known "life coach", a third rate celebrity desperate for attention. Everyone here knows he's only doing this for the spotlight and unfortunately, the media is more than happy to oblige...
The birth certificate is a legal document stating that a person was born at a specific date and a specific place. Regardless of how healthy he is, altering the document is equivalent to lying on said document, so I don't see why a court would allow this.
The argument of changing a sex is not analogous because the sex is not actually determined in the way the time or location is. The sex is determined by sight - visual presentation of genitals. This is not a genetic test (to determine genetic sex), nor does it reflect the gender identity of the individual.
Time is determined by science. It is a certain time and location, and both of which are approximated by the use of machines and tools - clocks, maps, gps, etc. While changes in time or location could be argued upon the inaccuracy of these tools or the reading of these tools, there's an upper limit to how inaccurate these can be.
Very much so. A distinction must be made between "sex" and "gender". The first is an objective fact that cannot be altered by current medical science. The second is entirely subjective and can be easily changed even without medical intervention.
While I agree that it's important to recognize the difference between the two, hard disagree on that description of sex. You would need an unfairly reductive definition for either of those two traits to hold up.
Objective fact
It makes sense to recognize patterns, but pretending that edge cases don't exist is silly. Nature is sloppy, and classifications of sex start fraying quickly with even small breaks from what is considered standard. Some people either have or were born with nonstandard genitals: partially formed, bits of both, non-reproductive, etc. Others have had significant surgery on their genitals, such as post-op trans people or unconsenting intersex infants forced to "fit in". Some unsavory folks insist the results of this type of surgery don't even qualify as genitals. Really, classifying from genitals (or, for similar reasons, internal sex organs) is far from objective.
Now you may think, "what about hormones?" Although hormone measures themselves are -- while variable -- objective, categorizing them requires cutoffs that simply don't exist on the bell curve of all human population. How do you label someone with either high levels or low levels of both estrogen and testosterone? Someone with typical testosterone levels but low DHT, which plays a strong role in the development of typically male characteristics? And what about conditions such as Androgen Insensitivity -- that is, someone whose cells respond weakly or not at all to testosterone?
Even using chromosomes gets dirty trying to account for all manner of intersex conditions. People with Klinefelter's can have a wide range of autosomal chromosome combinations including XXY, XXXY, XXXXY, and XYY. People with Turner syndrome are born XO, with the O representing a whole or partial loss of the other chromosome. It's even possible to have an XY karyotype lacking an SRY gene and develop typically female, or vice versa with XX.
Cannot be altered by current medical science
I'm trans. I've been on hormones for years, more than enough time for some very major changes in both my biology and my attitude towards people trying to gatekeep me. I have virtually every female secondary sex characteristic, as well as a very respectable number of female primary sex characteristics. Calling me "biologically male" is very outdated if not an outright lie, but there are still people who insist on doing so. (A frightening number of them occupy government positions.)
It's widely accepted that some animal species are capable of changing their sex. Yet, those animals don't change their sex chromosomes when they do, so logically I shouldn't have to either. Lots of cis women are infertile, so I shouldn't have to be. But it's turtles all the way down. Honestly, if I touched a stone that turned every atom of my body female, whatever that means, I would still deal with transphobes protesting that they didn't need a stone.
I rarely have the pleasure of being educated in such a compelling manner. Your response deserves a meditated answer, which I cannot give right now. But I'll come back to it when I have some time later today. Thanks!
edit: I'm having trouble writing a proper response, mainly because I agree with the central premise at the same time that I see several flaws in the reasoning presented. So it may take a few days...
Well said. I also wanted to point out another intersex condition in the form of genetic chimera or mosaic where a mix of different chromosomes occurs in a single individual.
I do just want to point out here (though it was addressed rather thoroughly in neon's comment below), "genetic sex" can be quite ambiguous as well. Most people learn that XY == male, and XX == female, but it turns out that's a pretty big simplification. Aside from all of the possible combinations of chromosomes greater than length two, even XY does not always result in male development. Without a specific gene (SRY) on the Y chromosome, a person will go through standard female development, with breasts, ovaries, a vagina, etc.
In fact, there's some evidence that this isn't even set in stone at birth; taking a gonad cell from a male and deactivating SRY will cause the live cell to "switch" sexes. Of course there's no telling what would happen if all of the cells in a human body suddenly switched sex, and it would likely be chaotic and disastrous. And yet, there are living, complex animals (like a whole lot of fish) that have the ability to spontaneously change sex as full grown adults.
The reality is, we don't even come close to having a full enough understanding of the human genome to make accurate predictions of human sex and gender identity based on genetic testing alone, even if we were to perform it at birth (which, to be clear, I don't think we should). This doesn't even address the number of people born some form of intersex (which is usually difficult to define in a way everyone agrees with). But even if we only consider non-XX/XY births, or only consider individuals with Klinefelter syndrome, we're looking at around 1 birth per 1,000, which is 300,000 Americans. It's a significant number.
The reality is that sex isn't binary, either. Just like gender, a substantial number of people are either misclassified by society or simply unclassifiable. Our system is a massive oversimplification and it causes people to have misunderstandings of what sex and gender really are.
I just wanted to preface this by saying I'm in complete agreement with what you are saying, but I did want to point out a few times where the wording could use some improvement
What you're stating here seems to me to be more of "people's interpretation of genetic sex", in particular, people who are uneducated in just what "genetic sex" actually is. Even an introductory course to human biology will cover kleinfelter's syndrome and other abnormal genetic sexes.
Absolutely. Nearly all humans are born with slightly different genetic makeup between cells within their own body. It's rare, but possible for someone to have a significant portion of these cells have different sex chromosomes.
In the case of animals which are able to change sex, in some cases they can do it in response to the environment itself, which is a very interesting adaptation that we don't currently see in humans, but is theoretically possible.
I think it's unfair to say the "system" is a massive oversimplification. Really the problem is that people are uneducated. Within the medical community, at the very least there is an understanding of non XX/XY genetic sexes. Some are more educated and know about even more fringe cases like chimeric genetic karyotyping and other interesting (and in my humble opinion, beautiful) abnormal presentations of sex. The system should be adapting to match new knowledge, unfortunately people's education doesn't always catch up in tandem.
This raises an interesting question though: Should Scott Kelly be able to change its age? I think the difference with his twin is around 5ms ( on top of the 6mins at birth between the 2 ). If space travel becomes a commodity, should we be able to somehow register those trips?
Whatever happens with someone's life after they are born does not change the distinct moment in time and space that they were born.
Even if someone somehow managed to travel back or forwards in time, they would still have been born at the same time and location (barring any weird changes to time itself).
And I'm sure laws will update to reflect this. Absolute time and location of birth do not need to be changed.
They don't if everyone updates how age is computed adding some kind of "life time offset".
The complicated part would be people who move between planets. It's not enough to know what planet they were born on and on what day in that planet's calendar, you also have to know how long they've spent on each planet.
We'll need some way of scientifically measuring how much our bodies have aged.
I think calculating someone's exact biological age will be more or less a moot point due to life extension before we really have to worry about relativity mucking things up by more than a few seconds or minutes.
Hmm, I don't buy that it's all that different. A staunch anti-trans person would probably say that sex on the birth certificate is established by science, and time is similarly measured, by visual inspection of a clock. Changing sex on the birth certificate doesn't mean, "the doctor didn't actually see a penis", it means "as a society we've decided to let people change their sex and so we should update this legal document to be consistent".
In other words, I don't think there's a strong principle you can derive here, and if millions of people really did have age dysphoria and suffered immense distress from it, it's plausible to me that we would allow amending their birth certificates as well.
That said, I don't think there are (many?) such people, so it seems fine to me to say, "yes, they're analogous situations but we'll allow people to change their sex but not their age."
It's not. Sex is genetic. Sex on a birth certificate is done by visual inspection, not genetic testing. It's an approximation based on crude tools easily available at the time of birth.
Sex is also not gender, and the distinction between the two was not established back when we started creating birth certificates.
The accuracy of time by visual inspection of a clock is magnitudes greater than sex by visual inspection of genitals.
Again, we get back to the conflation of sex and gender and how laws work.
Here's an article where Mr Ratelband makes it explicit that his request to change the date on his birth certificate is related to transgender people changing the gender on their birth certificates.
That's... hm. Creative. Can I be 45 for long enough to get cheap car insurance, and 25 long enough to get cheap health insurance and 65 the rest of the time to get social security checks?
It's actually a form of trolling.
A few anti-transgender people have tried to make the point that, if someone can choose to change their gender based on their "feelings", then we should be able to change anything based on our "feelings" - our race, our age, even our species. A classic counter-argument against transgender people is: "What if a 60-year-old man feels like a 10-year-old girl? Can he just change his age and his gender?"
This man is obviously trying to show up what he sees as the ridiculousness of transgender people changing something that he believes is biologically fixed, by asking the courts to change something else that's biologically fixed. Then, when they refuse to change his age, he'll ask why he can't change that biologically fixed trait if other people can change their biologically fixed traits.
It's anti-transgender trolling taken to an extreme.
The answer, of course, is that “gender”, “race” and “age” are distinct concepts, subject to distinct concerns and it’d be unreasonable to approach them with the same criteria.
They may be distinct to some people, but to other people they're connected by the idea that they're all biologically determined and not able to be influenced by personal choice.
They are certainly related, but distinct enough to require a more nuanced approach.
Explaining someone else's point of view is not the same as validating it.
And I don't think anyone reading this thread would be under any misconception that I support or agree with this point of view: I did start out by describing the behaviour in this article as "anti-transgender trolling".
If I agree with something or if I'm expressing my own opinion, rest assured that I'll own it personally, rather than distancing myself from it by saying "some people believe" or "other people believe".
Age is not on a birth certificate
That is a true statement.
And is really the crux of why this request is bogus. You can't change your age on a birth certificate because it's not on it.
And to be clear it's utterly ridiculous at best. There's decades of research verifying the realities of trans people.
Birth certificates aren't a medical document. They're used to prove identity and citizenship. A mismatch between the birth certificate and the person's ID and appearance can cause bureaucratic problems, and force trans people to be outed unnecessarily, which is literally a danger.
Age is just so utterly irrelevant.
Not in a society where there are laws about what people can and can not do at certain ages (drink alcohol, buy guns, work for money, have sex, retire).
I mean there's no relevance between transgender people and this concept of changing your age.
On the one hand, he is a self help speaker and writer who advertises his youthful vigor, so there is definitely an element of self promotion here.
On the other hand, and at the risk of stereotyping, I am surprised to see a dutch man take a tone deaf attitude towards the difficulties trans gender people face.
He's not being tone deaf. This is deliberately related to transgender people.
How can you be sure with that? A lot of people are extremely fixated on their ages, and there a lot of older people who don't feel the way most people their age do. The guy seems pretty sincere to me from reading the article, and he definitely doesn't seem like the type of hardcore conservative that would purposely go through that much trouble just to stir up controversy. I don't think he should just be absolutely dismissed outright.
He isn't. Here in the Netherlands, this guy is a well known "life coach", a third rate celebrity desperate for attention. Everyone here knows he's only doing this for the spotlight and unfortunately, the media is more than happy to oblige...
I'm going to petition to change my economic status to "rich"