In defence of calling my son, ‘son’

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/08/2017 (2991 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I agree with Corrine L. Mason’s conclusion that there does not appear to be a compelling reason, if ever there was one, to maintain the sex field on birth certificates (Time for gender-neutral birth certificates, July 27).

Her core argument is that changing one’s prior sex designation in official documents is, or can be, an emotionally stressful and financially burdensome exercise for transgender individuals later in life. Her argument is further strengthened by the fact (made in the comments section of the online edition) that the registration of the birth of a child — not the birth certificate itself — is used in aggregate form by health and other officials to develop public policy. On balance, the proposed change would likely result in greater social good, while having little if any negative consequences.

What I found unsettling in Mason’s piece was her apparent hostility toward the facticity of human biology. When her child was born, she states that “It never occurred to us to ask, to check or to care (about the sex of their baby newborn).” She and her partner were steadfast that hospital staff not reveal to anyone, not least themselves, the sex of their child at birth.

“It was not until much later in our hospital stay that my partner and I found out the sex designation of our child by medical personnel.”

My wife and I have a two-year-old son. I say that he is my son because he was born with male genitalia. My wife and I often talk to him about the differences between boys and girls. These facts, we believe, are essential antipodes that help him make sense of his natural and, yes, social universe (in the same way that tigers have stripes and that eggs are ovals, although not quite). My wife and I fully appreciate that he may, in the course of his development — and in fact at a very young age — develop affinities favouring a female gender identification. We accept that his gender choice could involve gender reassignment surgery at some point in life. In the meantime, I have enjoyed watching him push around a bright-pink, baby-doll stroller for hours and will certainly do nothing to prevent or discourage him from similar gender “transgressions.”

While I agree that children are genderless throughout their infancy, they are certainly not sexless. When my son was born, I inspected him fully and completely in his perfect nakedness — exactly as he arrived in the world. His body and mind, including his genitalia, constituted all of his being as he took his first breaths. I accepted everything that he was then, as I accept him today with all of his flaws and further commit, as a parent, to love him unconditionally for the rest of his life. He is my son, because that is the sex qualifier that most accurately defines him, at least at this genderless stage of his life.

We may collectively overplay the differences between infant boys and girls and we certainly impose gender biases at an early age (boys wear blue, girls wear pink, etc.). That said, there is an inevitable interplay between sex and gender. Mason states: “I would rather give our child an open window for gender exploration than find out that a ‘M’ or ‘F’ marker on their birth certificate made them feel like that door was closed.”

An open window or untethered nothingness? Sex is that substrate out of which gender is socially constructed and which we use, as subjects, at least in part, to shape our subjective identity. Deliberately disavowing or obfuscating a child’s sex, I would argue, will ultimately hinder a child’s ability to grasp his natural and social environment, including the differences between himself and others. These important markers and other points of reference are fundamental.

Finally, as we saw so patently last week, the LGBTTQ* community has far more serious battles to be fought than the birth certificate issue — battles around which far more allies are likely to rally.

Stephane Allard holds a master’s degree in political studies from the University of Ottawa and writes on literature and politics. A former Manitoban, he lives in Gatineau, Que.