Gender should not be indicated on birth certificates – at least not publicly. This was stated by the American Medical Association, which adopted the resolution at its meeting last week promoting the change. With more than 200,000 members, this influential association is one of the largest lobbying bodies in the United States and has long been dominated by progressive ideology.
“Designating sex on birth certificates as male or female, and making that information available on the public record, perpetuates a view that sex designation is permanent and fails to recognize the medical spectrum of gender identity. This type of categorization system also risks stifling an individual’s self-expression and self-identification and contributes to marginalization and minoritization,” said AMA Board Chair-Elect Sandra Adamson Fryhofer.
However, the change would only concern the public part of the birth certificate, with the sex being mentioned for medical reasons and only available for medical and statistical purposes. With this step, the association continues its previous efforts to legally enshrine the rights of transgender people.
In 2019, it passed a resolution according to which transgender persons should be entitled to gender reassignment in their documents without prior examination and with the option to identify as non-binary.
In 2014, in a similar resolution, the association objected to the need to undergo surgery before gender reassignment. This was the condition for legal gender reassignment in most federal states. In recent years, some states, such as Nevada or Colorado, have lifted this condition. However, conditions still vary from state to state, with 48 states allowing some form of change and 10 states allowing citizens to include a non-binary identity in documents.
This is not the case at the federal level, where only two sexes can be entered on a US passport. In 2020, the US Constitutional Court even addressed the issue of discrimination against transgender workers and stood up for their rights, stating that the anti-discrimination law also applies to transgender people.
The American Medical Association is one of the oldest lobbying organizations in the United States, dating back to the mid-19th century. In the past, it became notorious for its opposition to public health insurance. It did not allow some of its members to take out insurance with some insurance companies and therefore appeared in court because of this.
On the other hand, successful campaigns include efforts to raise the legal limit for alcohol consumption to the age of 21 and the fights against obesity and smoking – in the case of smoking, by fighting to ban tobacco advertising. This year, the association claimed allegiance to critical racial theory, an ideology many consider to be ultra-left, and published a plan to combat so-called structural racism in the United States.
Title image: A group of LGBTQ advocates gathered outside the South Dakota Capitol in Pierre on Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2021, to protest a bill that would have banned people from updating the sex on their birth certificates. (AP Photo/Stephen Groves)
