Our society is evolving and the Civil Code of Quebec, which governs our life in society, must take this into account.
The great advance of Bill 2 on the reform of family law in matters of parentage and amending the Civil Code in matters of personality rights and civil status (PL2) is that it will allow a person to add, to their birth certificate, a mention of gender identity, change or withdraw it and modify their first names accordingly.
Now that the mention of gender is allowed on the civil status, while respecting the personality of the citizen, it is time to correct an anomaly of the Civil Code allowing the change of the mention of the sex appearing on the birth certificate by keeping gender identity account. Remember that sex refers to the biological characteristics of people while gender is a concept relating to feelings and social stereotypes linked to femininity and masculinity. It is essential not to confuse the two concepts.
So, unlike gender identity, sex is binary and immutable. Any claim that says otherwise is a denial of biological reality. The duality of the sexes is not unique to humans since it is found in a very large number of species of multicellular organisms that we find on Earth (animals, plants, etc.).
Human beings are sexual persons (with a few exceptions, as recognized in PL2), possessing distinctive gametes and chromosomes linked to their biological sex. Taking hormones of the opposite sex, reassignment surgeries or a deep and sincere feeling do not change this biological reality. Sex is a genetic reality that determines the physical nature of people (e.g. ability to produce sperm or eggs, to give birth, notable difference in muscle mass, endurance, tone of voice, etc.).
However, since 1994, the Civil Code allows a change in the designation of sex. A “person who has successfully undergone medical treatments and surgical operations involving a structural modification of the sexual organs, and intended to change his apparent sexual characteristics, can obtain the modification of the designation of the sex appearing on his birth certificate”. Since 2015, sex reassignment can be done without medical treatment or surgery.
In both cases, this is scientific denial.
This confusion between sex and gender invites a negation of the biological reality of women and the achievement of equality between the sexes, however protected by our Charters.
It is indeed worrying to note that the PL2 proposes, for example, to eliminate the expressions pregnant women, who bear children or who give birth to become pregnant “persons”, who bear children or who give birth. It is better to recognize that those who bear children are women, in all their biological complexity, and that they can also, if they wish, identify with the masculine gender. Here is the reality.
PL2 is an opportunity to correct the situation by recognizing everyone’s personality, while respecting the person’s gender.
To act otherwise perpetuates the problem of systemic discrimination against sex, yet protected by the Quebec Charter. Indeed, how to meet the specific needs of women, still discriminated against in our societies, and protect the measures put in place for their safety or to promote their participation in sport, if the Civil Code perverts the meaning of the word “sex”? How to ensure that their biological reality is taken into account in clinical and biomedical research, if this reality is no longer recognized?
PL2 recognizes gender identity, but should not give way, for reasons of feeling, on the integrity of the sex category.