NYC’s New Nonbinary Birth Certificates Are A Self-Contradictory, Harmful Mistake

Federalist: As of January 1, residents of New York City can change their birth certificates to legally indicate they believe they are not the male or female they were born. They can also legally declare they are neither male nor female, with a simple X.

For this change, one doesn’t need a note from a physician, psychiatrist, or any official, nor to have undergone any type of clothing, body, or hormonal change. To require any of these means the individual would have to submit to someone else’s expectation of what a male or female is, a serious gender theory no-no.

The entirely subjective declaration of the claimant is all a city clerk needs to amend this most fundamental of all legal documents. You simply say it’s so, and it is. The Associated Press, HuffPo, and other outlets reported that parents can indicate their newborn is neither male nor female, but this is not so. Michael Lanza, a spokesman for the NYC Department of Health, told the The Federalist the law only applies to adults. Youth of any age can claim male, female, or the “nonbinary” X with a parent or guardian’s attestation.

Mayor Bill de Blasio praised the new law, saying New Yorkers should tell their government who they are and “not the other way around.” It’s a cuddly sentiment, to be sure, but untrue. Suppose I told de Blasio and his department of health that I’m a teenage Laotian able-bodied paraplegic and member of his City Council. He would happily tell me what’s what and “not the other way around.” Even if I have a note from my parents.

But this is not the reason this law, and similar ones in other states, is madness. I don’t use that word rhetorically, combatively, morally or judgmentally. It’s wholly descriptive. So that there’s no misunderstanding, let me clarify what I mean in using the word madness: being in state of illusion, dementia, and instability, not only disconnected from, but being contrary to reality, all while pretending to be completely healthy.

Even though I’m a shameless religious conservative, let me step out on a limb and appeal to cold, calculated, orderly reason. Laws allowing citizens to change their birth certificates to either or no sex are completely contrary to reality, and here are some reasons why.

It Contradicts LGBT Self-Conception

First, it radically violates the LGBT conception of justice and equality. Guaranteed, it is just a matter of time until this fatal flaw reveals itself and is changed. But under their premises these new birth certificate laws (and their driver’s license cousins) are as bigoted as my childhood friend’s dad.

To him, there were only three races: Whites, blacks, and “Egyptians.” If you’re not one of the first two, the third was his convenient, and ignorant, catch-all category. New York City is doing the very same thing. Their X is Mr. Sofield’s “Egyptian.”

Imagine how this works. You arrive at the New York City Department of Health, totally stoked that you can now have your birth certificate declare “who you are really are.” You inform the clerk you are not the male or female you were haphazardly “assigned” at birth, but that you’re genderqueer, genderfluid, agender, bigender, pangender, polygender, androgyne, neutrois, or any of the other 50+ genders that supposedly exist.

The clerk responds, “Wonderful, honey. We’re just gonna put you down as X.” Yes, X! Never mind that New York City will legally and permanently refer to you by the sign teachers use to mark something wrong. Even those who play along with the game have to admit this is a major d’oh.

No One Is Nonbinary

Nonbinary is a belief that develops over time in one’s own self-perception. It is not an objective, medical fact. It cannot be confirmed or denied by any medical professional. It is not an intrinsic factor of one’s body, but a product of the mind (not the brain).

This is the bare fact of the matter. Every human body is either male or female. This, and this alone, is what a birth certificate records. (Intersex, an actual physiological and medical condition of ambiguous genitalia or reproductive organs, or confused chromosomes, is not a third gender or nonbinary.)

This Isn’t the Purpose of a Birth Certificate.

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