No justifiable reason? I'll give you one... those identified as male have a penis and testicles, those identified as female have a vagina, and those two are quite different feature wise. Grant it there are some individuals out there who are born with both, but such a circumstance is rather rare though. Even if we didn't document gender, discrimination would still rear its ugly head unfortunately. That is not my opinion by the way but what constitutes reality by observation, nature created two sexes/genders which when they come together (aka sexual intercourse) create new life.

@SpikeTalon You still have not managed to convince me of a compelling state interest to legally differentiate between and label genders. Of what business/interest is it of the government or state to do so? We are all supposed to be equal under the law, so why differentiate legally?

@snytiger6 I get the feeling that no point I may bring up will convince you, but I could be wrong though. Interesting stance to take Mr Tiger, as your comment above suggested the government should have no business in gender identity at birth. I say interesting as that rather sounds like a conservative view there, as a good portion of modern day conservatives want to see less government overreach.

We have equal rights under the law, I think that's what you meant. A good purpose for identifying gender at birth is, well, for overall identification of said individual in turn for legal purposes. If you question why government should get involved in that or not, then I must question why do we have to supply other details to the government such as date of birth/weight/and any other conceivable personal details? Does the government have any more right to that information?

Those on the left would want me to believe simultaneously that personal identity is a good thing to acknowledge then turn around and claim labels are bad, and I find that logic to be quite baffling. So to answer your question it is for identifying purposes, and there should be nothing wrong with doing so.

If some people feel that strongly about that topic (like you do for instance), then maybe we should apply that same concern to all aspects of life like sharing what age we are or where we were born or even what weapons we may own. Afterall, we wouldn't want any possible discrimination now would we? To that lesser extent, I may actually agree with you on that point, I just hope you feel the same way on other personal-based issues as well. It appears even you see the danger in government participating in personal affairs as such, all good there.

@SpikeTalon You may have noticed I used the words "compelling state interest" above. That is a phrase I lifted form court rulings about determining restrictions on human rights or th elifttign of such restrictions. It is a standard which has been used to ease discrimination amon gvarious minorities.

I happen to have several acquaintances that fall in the "ambiatory" area of gender. I've heard many stories aobut persons born with ambiguous genitals, where doctors made determination of which was more prominent, or the parenst made a choice on which gender child they wanted and the child was surgically altered soon after birth. However, the child would "feel wrong" and "different" their entire childhood, and when tnhey hit puberty, things really "went wrong". Someone else decided to try to make them something they were not.

Because of my knowing quite a few such persons, my views of gender are that each person should be ble to identify as whatever gender they feel they are. And, I extend that not to just to those with ambiguous genitalia, but also to transgendered persons as well. A transgender person is born witht eh gender of one person, but the menatlity or psychology of the other4 gender hard wired into their brains.

Gettign back to "compeling stae interest". There is no compellign state interest to force gender assignment at birth. It woudl make much more sense to wait for the brain to mature and see if it is hard wired for one gender or another and leave th eultimate decision up to the person whose gender is involved.

As humans wnho are supposedly equal under the law, I am reluctant to let teh state categorize people and put them into various pigeon holes. For purposes of identity some identifying feature probably will be needed for identification purposes, but I am greatly resistant to the idea of categorization, because it holds too much potential for discrimination.

As far as categorization goes, we are al lhumah, and all shoudl have equal opportunities and if we must be judged, we shoudl be judged on oru actual abilities and merits, not by our gender, skin color or sexual orientation or identity.

The bottom line is that there are enough groups out there who are anxious and very willing to discriminate. I don't think the situation is helped by the government stepping in to categorize and label people, providing easy tools to be used for discrimination. Especially looking at how history has shown how extremist governments used such information.

Your extending government over reach to "what weapons we own" is faulty uinder the "compelling state interest" principles of which I was arguing. Teh government doe shave a compellign interest to insure societal safety and stability. I think Australia has enacted some very common sense gun laws, which have effectively stopped all mass shooting in that country. However ion the U.S. we seem to do what is most profitable rather than what actually makes the most sense, so i doubt we will see similar legislation in the U.S.

@snytiger6 Regarding Australia gun laws, I know a guy on here who is from Australia who would very much disagree with you on gun related violence in his country, and "common sense" gun control legislation is not about common sense but rather just control. Anyway, getting back to the original point...

Based on what you proposed/believe, maybe we should just do away with birth certificates then? If we can't include personal identifying details then why even bother with a birth certificate? That's interesting you would mention about pyschology/mentality being hard wired into the brain, I've long suspected this whole ordeal of gender identity is not a physical issue but rather a mental one rooted in the brain, so what you mentioned supports my theory, but more on that much another time perhaps.

In a past comment you were good enough to share something from your past (in this case you were once a Republican) that may or may not have made you a little uncomfortable sharing, so now I'll share with you a bit from my past that honestly I'd like to keep in the past. Growing up I pretty much took on the political beliefs of my parents, and they were both die hard Democrats. Keeping this story short, once I got in my late teens I learned about the conservative views (secular conservative that is) and realized that not everything I grew up believing in was as it appeared and eventually that brings me to the present and another issue you brought up...

Now as for the government labeling etc. This is a point where I strongly disagree with the political left, and where I also see a big weakness in the modern day Democratic Party. As there are some seven plus billion people in this world, inevitably there will be those who are quick to arrive to rather harsh judgment and labeling of those who may appear to be different from them. With that said though, there are also decent people left as well, and knowing that is part of the reason why I am not against labels such as race gender etc. For those labels (as we call them anyway) are what give us human beings individuality, and that much we should never fear or run away from. Now, should the government have as much say as they do in our daily lives? As someone who supports having a smaller government, I'd say the answer to that would be no. There will always be hateful people around, but if we don't give them permission to make us feel bad then their words have no meaning to us in our lives. To sum it up, labels are only as negative as we allow them to be, but we have the power to turn them into something positive. If you observe closely you would find most people attach labels to themselves that while maybe not personal descriptions, are labels all the same. For instance, I mostly identify as a conservative leaning registered Independent atheist who aligns closely with that of Libertarian values. I consider that a positive label for me personally, but others and particularly quite a few on this site do not share in that opinion, and I am at peace with that. Labels ultimately are what we allow them to be, they could be used for negative or for positive purposes, I just don't see a need to avoid labeling altogether though. Each human being is unique, and the labels one chooses to identify with are equally unique.

Valid response

Perfectly stated, I agree.