Choose Your Sex: Male, Female or Neither … or Both

In Australia, Norrie is understood to be the world’s first person to have ‘Sex Not Specified’ on their birth certificate. The NSW government has legally recognised that Norrie is neither male nor female.

“Norrie, 48, was born in Scotland and registered as male at birth. At age 23 Norrie commenced sex and gender conversion to female through hormone and construction of a vagina and was then issued with a gender recognition certificate as female in Australia.

“But this did not work out for Norrie as zie (gender-neutral pronoun) did not feel comfortable living solely as a female so zie ceased lifelong hormone treatment and took up a neuter identity which is neither male nor female, resisting any further female or male normalisation.

“In January 2010 doctors declared that they were unable to determine Norrie as either male or female as zie has no gonads, the hormonal system was atypically male or female, and Norrie’s psychological identity was neuter.”

Such legislation is a step forwards for the respect for personal autonomy and for human enhancement. It acknowledges the right of individuals not merely to choose whether to be male or female, but to choose something in between or different. It allows fine tuning of sexual choice. And given people’s different psychology, anatomy and physiology, it is likely to enhance their lives.

I have written elsewhere about the principles which should govern such controversial choices (Savulescu, J. (2007). ‘Autonomy, the Good Life, and Controversial Choices’. In Rhodes, R. Francis, L. P. and Silvers, A. (eds). The Blackwell Guide to Medical Ethics.(Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Part 1, Chapter 1, pp. 17 – 37). Be the person you want to be. Or rather, be the kind of person you want to be – is one principle behind such legislation. The old binary categories are falling – tall and short, talented and untalented, smart and stupid, male and female. Human life is incredibly diverse. All states and talents affecting humans occur in shades of grey. We should make our choices in recognition of the shades of grey. And it makes sense to make decisions not based on crude categories but fine-grained realities.

Norrie has opted, reportedly, for neither sex. In the future, there may be some who opt for both sexes. And such choices may be right. If enhancement technologies radically progress, people will be able to choose any shade of grey. Your sex would be your choice. You might have the best or worst of both worlds.

Comments

[Aileen Kennedy]

It is wonderful to see these binary constructions being eroded in a practical and powerful way. One interesting phenomenon is in virtual online environments, where in constructing an avatar one could readily defy gender, race, species and so on. Despite the apparent freedom, I have heard that individuals who try to select a gender-neutral avatar, or who select a gender for their avatar which differs from their 'real-world' gender are regarded with suspicion and hostility by other online players. It will likely take a long time to punch holes in these walls between binary opposites such as male/female, natural/artificial, human/non-human and so on.