"third gender" to be officialy recognised in Germany

[Psykhronic]

Mehmet -

People can be born hermaphrodites - that is a fact, and it is NOT so simple as being male/female. Some people also XXY or XXXY or whatever regarding sex chromosomes and do not appear to be intersex at all.

Gender may be the same as sex in German, but the article was written in English. I'm going to comment on how its English comes across.

Sex is the body, it's physical features.

Gender is how one views themselves, mentally, in relation to societal standards, etc of men and women. Their physical body may match, not match, or in some cases there is no body to match.

Germany is working with a matter of sex, something that is NOT ALWAYS straightforward at birth, so that later the child may decide what is comfortable for them instead of being decided for them.

[Faith No More]

Mehemet, since gender is simply what is between your legs, what would that make you if I cut off your genitals? Would you insist that people referred you as an 'it'?

[kılıç_mehmet]

Mehemet, since gender is simply what is between your legs, what would that make you if I cut off your genitals? Would you insist that people referred you as an 'it'?

Obviously there are also other anatomical differences, though I've told you that this is just simply the most basic way of determining whether a child that is born is male or female.

Gender is based on how you're born, and that is in nearly all cases either male or female, I'm sorry but thats the way it is.

People can be born hermaphrodites - that is a fact, and it is NOT so simple as being male/female. Some people also XXY or XXXY or whatever regarding sex chromosomes and do not appear to be intersex at all.

Yes, but obviously that is quite a rare case, and it's not really the case that both sides are so dominant that a person is able to reproduce as both a male and a female. One part is mostly more dominant than the other.
I believe such cases should be determined prior to birth and aborted beforehand, as not to produce such flawed individuals.

Gender may be the same as sex in German, but the article was written in English. I'm going to comment on how its English comes across.

Whatever man, if its the case of what a word actually means, I think its best not to argue, and simply use a dictionary to determine the meaning.

Gender is how one views themselves, mentally, in relation to societal standards, etc of men and women. Their physical body may match, not match, or in some cases there is no body to match.

Well, I don't think that a dictionary agrees with you though. You don't make up definitions as you see fit.
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictiona...1?q=gender
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition...r?q=gender

Well, both dictionaries do not make a reference to self-designation.
Whatever.
Femini

Germany is working with a matter of sex, something that is NOT ALWAYS straightforward at birth, so that later the child may decide what is comfortable for them instead of being decided for them.

Well, if you mean as in being a defect as a person having anatomical characteristics of both sexes, like, having ovaries while having a penis, or similar things, I've already stated that these are abnormalities that should be assessed before birth and terminated if necessary.
But in cases they see the light of the day, they should not be given a special legal status.

[Psykhronic]

Both your definitions have mine in them, the most obvious being the second one:

the state of being male or female (typically used with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones)

Gender's meaning is interchanged with sex sometimes but it's becoming more uncommon. Also, the dictionary is not prescriptive. And you clearly lack knowledge of linguistics.

And really you think intersex people should be aborted? BOY does Turkey produce some gems, I'm not even sure how much more I want to deal with your absolutist mentality.

[Chas]

Mehemet, since gender is simply what is between your legs, what would that make you if I cut off your genitals? Would you insist that people referred you as an 'it'?

Obviously there are also other anatomical differences, though I've told you that this is just simply the most basic way of determining whether a child that is born is male or female.

Gender is based on how you're born, and that is in nearly all cases either male or female, I'm sorry but thats the way it is.

No, it's not. Gender and sex are not the same thing and that is being partly addressed by this law. Sex can be indeterminate, and it is not as rare as you seem to suppose.

People can be born hermaphrodites - that is a fact, and it is NOT so simple as being male/female. Some people also XXY or XXXY or whatever regarding sex chromosomes and do not appear to be intersex at all.

Yes, but obviously that is quite a rare case, and it's not really the case that both sides are so dominant that a person is able to reproduce as both a male and a female. One part is mostly more dominant than the other.
I believe such cases should be determined prior to birth and aborted beforehand, as not to produce such flawed individuals.

Gender may be the same as sex in German, but the article was written in English. I'm going to comment on how its English comes across.

Whatever man, if its the case of what a word actually means, I think its best not to argue, and simply use a dictionary to determine the meaning.

Gender is how one views themselves, mentally, in relation to societal standards, etc of men and women. Their physical body may match, not match, or in some cases there is no body to match.

Well, I don't think that a dictionary agrees with you though. You don't make up definitions as you see fit.
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictiona...1?q=gender
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition...r?q=gender

Well, both dictionaries do not make a reference to self-designation.
Whatever.
Femini

Did you actually read the definition?
Gender - the state of being male or female (typically used with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones):

It is not the dangly bits or lack thereof.

Germany is working with a matter of sex, something that is NOT ALWAYS straightforward at birth, so that later the child may decide what is comfortable for them instead of being decided for them.

Well, if you mean as in being a defect as a person having anatomical characteristics of both sexes, like, having ovaries while having a penis, or similar things, I've already stated that these are abnormalities that should be assessed before birth and terminated if necessary.
But in cases they see the light of the day, they should not be given a special legal status.

Yes, let's just abort them. You sound more and more like a Nazi with every post.

[pineapplebunnybounce]

Very unwilling to engage in a discussion with mehmet regarding this issue.

But for everyone else who may be interested, biological sex is not as clear cut as most people would think.

What determines sex comes down to genetics (your X and Y chromosomes), and hormones during development. So many things can go wrong. There are XO, XX, XY XXY, XXX, XYY etc. Then there are receptors and glands that may malfunction and the hormones don't achieve their effect, leading to different developmental routes. And sometimes only at puberty do parents/the person themselves find out that their biological sex is less clear cut than they thought. At this point they sometimes go through hormone therapy to keep their bodies looking like a certain sex to fit in with their gender identities (what they believe themselves to be). Quoting completely from memory I think the rate of occurrence is around 1 in 500-600 (keeping in mind that this number only calculates those detected at birth). You can find info about this in any embryology textbook. These problems are not apparent until puberty, so their gender is determined by the way they were raised. There are also cases where it is obvious at childbirth, and parents, like Psykhronic mentioned, often opt to surgically "correct" then into either male or female genitals. I think a lot of parents do this because they worry their child won't be able to grow up happy without a gender identity.

It's not easy for people with ambiguous biological sex to be in this society that likes to force people into black or white. It's even harder when they grew up with a strong gender identity only to find that they belong to the opposite sex when they're fourteen. All this is unnecessary, "they"'re not all that different from "us". Some can go their entire life without even knowing their chromosomes aren't XX or XY but something else.

[CleanShavenJesus]

gender =/= sex.

Fuck off.

Female off.

See, it doesn't work.

[Kayenneh]

And I don't need a book to tell me that a person is either male or female.

No, but you need a book in order to educate yourself on a topic that you are quite ignorant about.

It's not my opinion, its just the way it is. A person is either born male or female.

If it isn't your opinion, where is your proof? Or are you exempt from having to cite decent scientific studies, just because you think you have it all figured out?

Turkish, unlike your language is not sexist. We do not refer to words as "he" or "she". Neither do we have artikles for words that confer upon them a specific gender.

A sexist language? Hah, now I've read it all! And you're wrong, again. In Finnish he/she is hän, there's no distinction between the genders.

I was hoping you'd say that. I hope you can say the same about furries, and otherkin, who often confuse their own species.

A) What Furries feel and do is their own business, and though a comparison can indeed be made, it's not as widely studied as transgenders, so I'll withhold my opinion until there's data about the matter.
B) You're just grasping at straws here, the topic is that Germany has made two sexes and genderlessness an option for official documents, whether you like it or not.

Obviously when you look at the mirror, what you see is either a male or a female.

Obviously not, or this wouldn't even be discussed.

Aren't you the people who tell us to accept people the way they are? Well, if they can't accept what they are, why should we accept what they are?

Bitch please!

I believe that this "third gender" bullshit is just liberal asshattery in the extreme, nothing more.

Too bad for you it's only your belief, and has nothing to do with reality.