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[Music] [Applause] [Music] beep-beep-beep this is the most defining experience of my life beep-beep-beep this is an experience of which I have no conscious recollection no memory beep beep I have no ability to voice my opposition to what is happening to me right now beep white lights and screaming this is seconds after my mom gave birth to me in that moment when my entire life was ahead of me and the entire slate was almost completely empty one person a doctor a caregiver made a decision that would affect the entire trajectory of my life that person decided that based on my genitals I must obviously have an M on my birth certificate that M which stands for male is still on my birth certificate today it is the result of a decision made without any insight into my brain chemistry my internal organs my chromosomal makeup my hormonal makeup my prenatal personality or my genetics all of which by the way are scientifically observed determinants of sex in gender at birth no this was this a decision made solely based on the fact that I was born an infant with a penis so that probably sounds totally accurate to most of you boys are born with visible penises girls are born with visible vaginas science but it's a lot more complex than that especially for me I'm a transgender woman which mostly means that my experience of my gender identity and expression are primarily cognitive emotional and intellectual what I mean is that I have to say something for the world to know and really that's the only way the only scientifically evidence-based way for us to know whether a person is transgender or not is for us to say something to tell the world that the doctor got it wrong but this isn't just about me did you know that 2% of the global population is born with sexual and gender characteristics that are not easily identified or verified as male or female that's a hundred and forty million people did you know that there are 12 possible sex chromosome pairings besides 46 xx and 46 XY what do you think doctors do in those situations I'll tell you that go ahead and they pick anyway male or female there are only two options that's all you get granted I am talking about very small numbers here 2% when you take that 2% of the population with intersex characteristics and you combine it with the 1/3 of 1% who identify as transgender that still leaves doctors with a batting average of 97 point 67% I'm not a statistician but those are pretty good odds so in the light of very little alternative evidence maybe doctors are right to base their decision on the one external indicator that most often presents itself it's a valid question but I have another question which i think is just as valid and in the long run far more important why do doctors even need to assign sex in the first place doctors make this decision because they are both compelled and often legally obligated to assign sex at birth because we live in a culture where we not only are obsessed with knowing the sex and gender of every single person around us but also with knowing what sex and gender mean so as an illustration when do we tend to think of baby names right after we learn the ultrasound right after we know the sex because for some reason our names which define us as unique individual persons must also tell the world for 99% of us yeah there's an actual legitimate statistic for that for 99 percent of us say this was my sex assigned at birth and it isn't just our names if I were to ask you to imagine how many facets of your life have been affected by your sex assigned at birth how long do you imagine that list would be I came up with one of my own and as you'll see it's pretty short I ran out of room and so I quit writing and I'm sure that I could have kept going we are taught both consciously and subliminally that every single thing on this list must coincide with one single letter arbitrarily assigned to us by a medical professional someone whose job it is to ensure the lifelong care and well-being of their patients this one moment takes an otherwise limitless life and puts walls around it sets it down one of only two predetermined paths and then our culture does everything in its power to ensure that these pads never meet never intersect never branch out into other paths before we ever have a voice it has already been taken from us and this is not just a problem for transgender people this is not just a problem for people with intersex characteristics this is a problem for each and every one of us because we live in a culture that places such intense expectations for binary expressions of gender and sex throughout our lives we are inevitably policed into one of two directions and as a result we live in a culture where men are less likely to seek out medical care or advice less likely to express their emotions in groups or therapy more likely to experience difficulty with lifelong friendships to experience toxic loneliness anger and physical violence we live in a culture where young girls are taught to believe that they are fair game where women are socialized to be passive less likely to be in leadership positions more likely to develop substance use disorders to feel and be treated as socially inferior and to be victims of violent and sexual harassment we live in a culture where 40% of transgender people attempt suicide we're black transgender women are more likely than any other social group to experience fatal violence where 30% of trans kids experience homelessness and we're trans people are five times more likely than any other group to experience HIV we live in a culture that thinks tomboys are okay but feminine boys are sissies that dads who change diapers are heroes but moms who lead boardrooms are [ __ ] all of these things it is clear we live in a culture that tells us we can be ourselves but only if ourselves match up with two letters arbitrarily given to us at Birth let me briefly returned to my defining experience a defining experience for all of us we like to believe that for our children life is limitless especially when they are born we want the world for them we want them to be happy to be successful to be fully alive which is why I'm proposing something radical right here I want us to imagine what a world without sex markers would look like I want us to imagine what we could achieve if we no longer relied on an ob/gyn and an ultrasound to tell us who we are before we can even speak I want everyone to get to experience their gender and sex identity however they see fit and however is most healthy I want to give all of us a voice thank you you