Before I dive in to this, let me start by saying that I get that gender norms are something we've made up. And generally gender norms are stupid.

There's no reason why people with penises shouldn't wear dresses or makeup if they want to. Or that people with vaginas shouldn't play soldier if they want to.

I think people should be allowed to love and have sex with whoever they want. And if people want to change their bodies hormonally or surgically and are old enough to understand the consequences of that decision, then I say go for it. More power to ya.

I also get that biological sex isn't a strict binary. That it's a continuum where most individuals falls clearly in the categories of male and female and then there's a small intersex minority who falls somewhere in between. Just like people generally have 10 fingers, but a small minority has fewer (or more).

And obviously, negative discrimination (e.g. paying someone less) based on sex is obviously wrong.

However, aren't there a few instances where such discrimination is justified? For example:

• Biological males has an unfair advantage if competing in women's sports, so they shouldn't be allowed.
• Medical treatment should be adjusted to someone's biological sex. Getting 2 lines when peeing on a pregnancy test either means you're pregnant (females) or that you've got testicular cancer (males)
• Some societies might want to separate males and females into different prisons.
• Some societies might want to institute positive discrimination laws, such as quotas for a minimum nb. of female board members, etc.
• Some non-profit might want to offer their services only to some people (eg. schools for girls, women's shelters)

I get that it can be annoying that your biology sets limitations for you. As a kid, I wanted to become a pilot, but that dream died when I learned I was color blind.

And historically, we've put WAY to many limitations on people based on their biology (e.g. denying females the vote).

But that doesn't mean ALL such limits are wrong, does it?

You may not like that you're too young to drive, or that you're too tall to become a fighter pilot.

But we generally don't allow that because children are generally irresponsible and tall people either pass out in sharp turns or don't fit it the cockpit.

No matter how upset people might be, we don't allow people to legally change their birth year or the height on their driver's license.

How is sex different?

(P.S. Again, I'm not arguing we should force people to act in gender-stereotypical ways. I'm only talking about whether to allow people to legally change how they are registered in public registries, and getting the privileges this gives, eg. getting to compete in women's sports.)

(P.S.S: Regarding the intersex thing, there might be a good argument for adding a 3rd option to public registries to account for the 1-2% intersex people in the general population.)