Change Your Sex with Doctor's Note

It used to be that you had to have a sex change to change your sex.

In New York City, at least, that may be about to, um, change.

Here's a report from the NYT:

Under the rule being considered by the city’s Board of Health, which is likely to be adopted soon, people born in the city would be able to change the documented sex on their birth certificates by providing affidavits from a doctor and a mental health professional laying out why their patients should be considered members of the opposite sex, and asserting that their proposed change would be permanent.

And more:

“Surgery versus nonsurgery can be arbitrary,” said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the city’s health commissioner. “Somebody with a beard may have had breast-implant surgery. It’s the permanence of the transition that matters most.”

The story hints at a few of the questions this all raises: Could a man marry a man if one can convince a doctor and shrink to declare him to be a woman? Yeah, it's a stretch, but it seems like a loophole you could drive a Fire Island wedding through.

Another issue: if this kind of law became popular -- which seems unlikely -- would it make some transgendered people choose to go without surgery because they finally can get official societal acceptance?