Editing Sex assignment (section)

==Challenges to requirements for sex assignment==

Australian government guidelines published in 2013 stated that "individuals should be given the option to select M (male), F (female) or X (Indeterminate/Intersex/Unspecified)" and that government "[d]epartments and agencies will continue to collect sex and/or gender information to inform service delivery, perform their specific function or to contribute to broader government statistical or administrative purposes."<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Australia |url=http://www.ag.gov.au/Publications/Pages/AustralianGovernmentGuidelinesontheRecognitionofSexandGender.aspx |title=Australian Government Guidelines on the Recognition of Sex and Gender |last2=Attorney General's Department |date=2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150701084543/http://www.ag.gov.au/Publications/Pages/AustralianGovernmentGuidelinesontheRecognitionofSexandGender.aspx |archive-date=1 July 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref>

A 2014 report for the Dutch [[Ministry of Justice and Security]] allowed that while many gender-specific provisions in legislation no longer existed, sex registration, which had been introduced in 1811, was still required for a number of important state functions: family law, pregnancy protections, gender-segregated facilities, affirmative-action policies, and "a limited number of laws and regulations that are specifically aimed at men or women, such as military service." It also found that a majority of civil servants foresaw problems if official gender identifications were removed expanded beyond male and female. It noted that gender "seems to be increasingly experienced as 'sensitive' personal data, but is not yet protected as such by privacy regulations," and advocated for more flexibility and less official requests for gender identification.<ref name="brink">{{cite web |last1=van den Brink |first1=Marjolein |title=M/F and beyond, Gender registration by the state and the legal position of transgender persons. English summary |date=2014 |url=https://www.wodc.nl/onderzoeksdatabase/2393-de-mogelijheid-en-consequenties-van-het-onbepaald-laten-van-het-geslacht.aspx?cp=44&cs=6796#publicatiegegevens |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304045500/https://www.wodc.nl/onderzoeksdatabase/2393-de-mogelijheid-en-consequenties-van-het-onbepaald-laten-van-het-geslacht.aspx?cp=44&cs=6796#publicatiegegevens |publisher=Ministerie van Veiligheid & Justitie |archive-date=4 March 2016 |last2=Tigchelaar |first2=Jet |url-status=live}}</ref>

In 2015, Canadian activists petitioned the [[British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal]] to force the government to stop recording the sex of newborns on birth certificates in order to avoid what complainants called "misgendered birth certificates" which they asserted were harmful to transgender people.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Chan |first=Emily |date=26 May 2015 |title=Get gender off birth certificates, B.C. activists argue |url=http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/get-gender-off-birth-certificates-b-c-activists-argue-1.2391604 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151118053446/http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/get-gender-off-birth-certificates-b-c-activists-argue-1.2391604 |archive-date=18 November 2015 |access-date=1 January 2016 |work=[[CTV News]]}}</ref> In 2021, Canada changed the "sex" designation on birth certificates to "sex at birth" in order to reflect that a small number of Canadians subsequently change their gender.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Government of Canada |first=Statistics Canada |date=2023-12-12 |title=Sex at Birth of Person Reference Guide |url=https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/concepts/dds/sbp |access-date=2025-04-17 |website=www.statcan.gc.ca}}</ref>