Monday, January 30, 2006

ID Cards: Arthur or Martha?

Now we've heard all the arguments against ID Cards so I was almost rendered dumbstruck by something a friend just pointed me towards on the BBC's website.

"Transsexuals who have yet to have a sex-change operation will be entitled to two ID cards, Home Office Minister Lady Scotland of Asthal has said. One would be in their gender at birth and the other in their legally-acquired "gender of designation".

Read more HERE. What I don't get is this. If you're a woman and about to become a man, how can you have a concurrent ID card as a man. Won't the photo still be of a woman? Call me old-fashioned...

3 comments:

Aidan said...

I spotted this story earlier myself - I can only presume that you are entitled to a free card to replace your old one once it becomes invalidated by the sex change but it's hard to tell without reading the document itself. But it does somewhat sound like what you suggested.

Anonymous said...

I suppose it's for all people who're planning to have the full operation, but they haven't done it yet.
If they're already "dressing" and living as a female, it could be annoying to have a ID card with a male gender in it.

Anonymous said...

No, let's go there. Surely this is a perfect demonstration of what is so wrong with ID cards?

Your identity is a balance between your own feelings and the perceptions of those you meet. In some areas, such as gender, it is more to do with how you feel, in others more to do with how you relate to others, but it must never be decided by grey shapeless beaurocrats.