An unfortunate classical allusion

One of the things Gavin Newsom has done to drive California into the ground was extending Medical coverage to illegal immigrants. Though he’s been backtracking, the damage has been done. And it continues. Christopher Rufo recently reported, in City Journal, that “not only [were San Francisco homeless shelters] housing illegal immigrants but also that they were apparently housing a population of male-to-female ‘transgender’ illegal aliens, who had hoped to obtain ‘gender-affirming care.’ And, to our shock, state and local governments apparently are providing it.” [Scare quotes in original]

And how much of our taxpayer money have they been spending on that? I don’t know, but I read a social post recently in which a mother whose teen got a double mastectomy at Kaiser said she paid a $200 copay for an operation that put $25,000 in a surgeon’s pocket.

These days, I can’t even hazard a guess as to the ratio of essential to elective surgeries this represents. By essential, I would mean early-onset severe gender dysphoria cases for whom sex change surgery is the treatment of last resort. If there’s anyone like that among those who snuck across the border to take advantage of this false charity, there’s still the question of whether their surgery is the responsibility of California taxpayers. I think that equation is harsh but fair.

Meanwhile, the move by states to stop issuing birth certificates and driver’s licenses with amended sex markers, to revert them upon renewal, and even to revoke them has prompted me to take a look at the current document regimes at the state and federal level. My introduction to the topic was way back in the day, when it took a surgeon’s confirmation of sex reassignment surgery to get an amended birth certificate. You could say that was back when that was the equivalent of “safe, legal, and rare.” Very simple and equitable, you could say. That practice expanded to all states but one, and it was easy to assume that people who deserved that new start were getting it without the weirdos getting inappropriately empowered.

California’s change from complete surgery to a physician’s certification of “appropriate medical care” came to my attention through someone’s social media brag that they were able to get their testes removed without having to lose the penis, and their California birth certificate amended on that basis. I actually contacted the California Department of State to inquire about that, and got a response explaining the new legal regime. Little did I realize that the entire landscape was changing, with a range of state practices akin to the post-Dobbs abortion regime.

Kansas’ rescission of birth certificates and driver’s licenses had struck me as extreme, but a one-off. I was wrong. Mississippi has a new law requiring new, renewal, or duplicate driver’s licenses, learner’s permits, or commercial licenses to reflect sex at birth. A report I read said it was uncertain whether licenses existing licenses would be reverted, despite the text I just paraphrased. (RTFM, people.) Other articles reporting that noticed that Tennessee had enacted something similar three years ago.

Obviously, I was out of touch—let’s call it blissfully ignorant. So, I did some poking around, as is my wont. One of the things I looked up was the current statistics on how many trans-identified people have had genital surgery or intend to. Apparently, the number has gone down from 1 in 8 (12.5%) to 5-10%. So, basically, the population insisting we allow people with penises into women’s restrooms and changing areas, and people who’ve gone through partial to complete male puberty into women’s sports and athletics, is basically a population of crossdressers, not actual transsexuals. It’s almost as though paranoids can have real enemies.

The document amendment regime enables this. Here’s a breakdown: four states disallow amendment of sex markers on birth certificates. This actually includes a fifth, Montana, in which this has been an ongoing legal controversy. There are glowing reports that Montana has now “completely” recognized trans rights thanks to a Bostock-like state Supreme Court ruling. However, the ruling simply upheld a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the non-amendment policies for birth certificates and driver’s licenses, and sent the matter back to a lower court. I cut my deep dive into the decision (mercifully) short, but not before I located the passage that prompted media summaries that the purported discrimination stemmed from “cisgender” people being able to get birth certificates amended while transgender people could not. The example was of a scrivener’s error on a “cisgender” person’s birth certificate, and the statute provides for amendment of scrivener’s errors. Yeesh.

Facepalm. Declaring transgender people a “suspect class,” which means the law must be evaluated under strict scrutiny, may not have the ultimate effect being touted.

So, that’s basically five states that disallow amendment of sex markers. 11 states require proof of sex-reassignment surgery. Five more “require a notarized affidavit from a physician indicating that a person has undergone a sex change operation, or has a chromosomal count that establishes the sex of the person as different than what is listed on the original birth certificate.” And good luck parsing the second phrase. Seven states require a court order for an updated sex marker amendment, but good luck with accomplishing that in Texas.

11 states require a simple application to the relevant Department of Vital Statistics, which basically means self-identification. 15 provide for amendment on self-identification, including amendment to an “X” marker. And that’s kinda wack, because “non-binary” is not a sex.

I’m not against people living as the opposite sex being able to get driver’s licenses to help them navigate society—if they’ve been psychologically evaluated and are under a physician’s supervision. Perhaps they should need a reevaluation at license renewal; this self-ID thing is crap. Birth certificates are a different matter, because they should reflect some physiological truth. Moreover, there are trans-identified males who transgress female boundaries and tried to justify it by stating they are “legally female.” So, there’s a problem there.

Passports, as allowed by the Supreme Court, are reverting to sex at birth, as Caitlyn Jenner recently found out by applying for a renewal and having the new one come back marked M. It appears that passports issued on birth certificates already amended may fly under the radar, depending on any facial notations required by state laws. Jenner, though, with that media-celebrated midlife transition, has nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

I doubt a wave of at-birth sex documents will sweep all the states; this seems very much a red state-blue state thing. It does seem, though, that a wave has crested and will continue to subside. There will be some people undeservedly hurt by this. And this is where the unfortunate classical allusion comes in. And that allusion is to the very messy tale of Sodom and Gomorrah. (Lot pimping out his daughters? The daughters manipulating Lot in to incest?) It has all the earmarks of a myth made up for positioning above and against neighboring tribes, as well explored at https://www.thenotsoinnocentsabroad.com/blog/controversial-theories-of-sodom-and-gomorrah-lots-wife-and-his-daughters-incest. Given the common interpretation of divine repulsion at homosexuality, I’m really not allowed to allude to it here.

The feature that came to mind was of Lot’s bargaining with Yahweh over finding a sufficient number of righteous men in Sodom to justify leaving it undevastated. Lot got Yahweh down to ten, but was unable to come up with them. I see a parallel here. There likely are trans-identifying people who are unobtrusively and harmlessly “living their authentic lives.” It’s likely going to suck to be them. That said, it’s tempting to think that what’s needed now is for the entire trans rights edifice to get burned down, clearing a path for honest transsexuals to make a renewed case for document amendment in the original narrow circumstances.

Let’s see what happens this summer when the Supreme Court issues its ruling on trans participation in women’s and girls’ sports and athletics. I’m expecting, and hoping for, a hard no. This is the sound of one brick wall being hit.