Why Self-Declaration of Gender is wrong.

There are moves by the Trans community to take the declaration of gender out of the hands of the medical professionand allow self-declaration of gender.

That means that once you declare yourself as a different gender, then you can just send off to get your documents like birth certificate and passport changed to your new gender.

While I have every sympathy with the trans community on this issue, there have to be definitions on what constitutes gender. Society has to have boundaries and those boundaries are agreed by society in general as to what is acceptable and what the majority of people feel is comforatble and workable.

Self-declaration of gender is (at least at this point in history) a step too far for society at large. It's not like declaring sexuality. Sexuality is an easier subject to cope with, mainly because whether you are gay or straight, it doesn't affect your interface with the rest of society and (stereotypes aside) it doesn't affect your attitude to the rest of society or their attitude to you either (other than the few bigots still left).

However, gender is a different thing entirely. Despite what the Social Justice Warriors would have you beleive, gender is not a social construct and it cannot be changed overnight at a whim. The debate on gender is quite new and it has not gone through the decades of turmoil that the debate of sexuality has. Society at large has yet to come to a firm conclusion or a majority agreement at which point gender changes from one to the other.

Currently society specifically separates based on gender. Society has not yet got to the point where gender is immaterial. There are some pretty good resons for that, especially as the genders quite clearly act differently. So we segregate based on gender, for instance when it comes to toilets. We have not yet as a society accepted toilets and changing rooms for all genders. Clothing and appearance is immaterial, because there is always going to be some gender neutral androgenous clothes that can be worn comfortably by both sexes.

Society demands that whatever happens in that society, it is neutral to society at large; Society quite rightly demands that it comes to no harm. So as an example in this instance society demands that women won't get raped by men dressed as women in female toilets, or that young girls won't be exposed to male genitalia in female changing rooms. Trans people might think that these claims to harm are specious and that they wouldn't harm anyone in that way. But they can only talk from a personal viewpoint and can't guarantee that someone won't act improperly.

So currently a male cannot wake up one day, wear female clothing and then demand the rights of a female or demand society treat them as a female. Society's current view seems to be that what quite clearly is a bloke in a dress is not a woman. That doesn't belittle whatever internal struggle the trans person is going through. BUT, in order to prevent specious claims to gender, there has to be a procedure to go through that reflects societal expectations of the transition from one gender to the other. After that transition process the person becomes societally acceptable as the gender which is opposite to their birth gender. But not until that (I accept difficult) process is complete.

For instance those that don't fully transition cannot claim to be the opposite gender. Quite clearly they are anatomically still male or female. Those that chose to stay in this state for whatever reason will suffer, because society demands a person be one gender or the other. But then is gender dysphoria a proper diagnosis of someone who doesn't wish to be fully female? If a person changes their appearance (say) from male to female but still keeps the male genitalia then they are still male as far as society is concerned. The same goes for a female that changes their appearance to male.

That's not to say society shouldn't be accepting of people in those states, but society does not grant them the status of the gender they dress as and those "in between" genders should understand the issues that society has with them.

Only once they have fully transitioned is the point they should have legal status of their chosen gender.

There is an argument that the transition process should be shorter. I think it's something like 2 years before you can be seen by a specialist to even start the process. That's in my mind unacceptable. Once you have decided to "come out" and have made the decision to transition, then the process to fulfil society's requirement to be oficially, surgically  and legally changed from one gender to the other should be a relatively short one.

On a personal note, I have seen this before in fetish society. It's a very male trait to demand acceptance of a particular viewpoint, that appears to be what is happening in the Trans debate. For instance a male submissive demanding that a female dominant er, dominate them... yeah, go figure. But that's a very common scenario.

Especially when Trans society (in a quite male manner) attempts to brush aside the issues raised by CIS women, who have experience of inequality and male attitudes, shows a very male viewpoint of Trans attitudes to Women's issues. Hardly helping the acceptance of male to female Trans women.