Family Historian User Group

What are the recommendadtons for recording the sex of an individual who was registerd as male at birth, subsequently married and had children, but now identifies as female and may have undergone gender re-assignemt surgery?

Very simple: ask them how they want their name and gender recorded.

If you're not close enough to ask, Mark them as private and don't publish anything. DO NOT deadname them or reveal their history without permission.

https://genealogy.stackexchange.com/questions/15847 has more context.

The NHS use non-continuous records for anyone who has undergone gender reassignment, ie they have a new medical record, new NHS number too go with their new identity. The new record cannot refer to the past identity or the fact that someone has gone gender reassignment.

And the GRO issue a new birth certificate I believe and make the original unavailable.

Thanks for the replies. I knew this would be a difficult topic. I need to give it some thought.

As we are talking about a living person, I assume that we are just referring to private distribution within the family, so each case will be different, but following the wishes of the individual is obviously the paramount concern.

The general question is an interesting one though. Unlike Aunt Mary’s secret child that was given up for adoption, if John becomes Jane, there will be no end of public records that refer to John, even if he does get a new identity as Jane. We can’t (and must not) attempt to change history, so there is a large can of worms there for the future...

Thank you Mark, you have decsribed my dilemma pefectly.

mezentia wrote: ↑

28 Oct 2021 17:51

What are the recommendadtons for recording the sex of an individual who was registerd as male at birth, subsequently married and had children, but now identifies as female and may have undergone gender re-assignemt surgery?

From the question, I take it you are referring to a living person, so normal caution should apply to any note or record that you make.

There are all sorts of events that living people may not want known that relate to them or their parents or other close relatives; adoption, illegitimacy, broken engagements, parental suicides etc.

With living people I tend not to put their details in any record or system that might be published either officially as a "genealogy" or family history story or as an upload to some database or that might be used as a source when writing emails to other researchers. Which for me means their details don't go in FH or its project structure.

There is a danger that we take a squirrelling attitude when compiling genealogies - because we find the information we feel a compulsion to record and publish it. We need to ask "why?" and accept some restrictions on our research out of respect to others.

The original question does pose an issue once we are dealing with a deceased person - or more cautiously one step back (i.e that person's children are all deceased). If a person married and had children (creating public - or near public - records not just about them but about their children - birth, baptism, school enrolment, newspaper reports (father's races at School sports days?), probate and executorship records etc.) complications might occur as their original identity cannot be expunged - that is history that provides context to other people's lives. But we can ask "do we need to include them in our published work - and if we do how much do we need to record/publish?"

So for example:
1) My late mother was adopted and was open about it and was reunited with her birth mother and some of her maternal family (but initially they were not introduced to her as a relative). The fact that she was the adopted daughter of the people I think of as my maternal grandparents is recorded, but her birth family is not.

I know some of the birth maternal side and they have no issues with the fact that their mother/grandmother had this secret about which they knew nothing until the very late years of my mother's life - but I do not know that that "ease" applies throughout the family. Caution has to apply; I know of a "one-name" researcher who has my mother's original birth certificate (adopted children's birth certificates remain publicly available) and was struggling to know what happened to that individual.

On the paternal side I have no idea if they knew of my mother - online I have come across a cousin in that family who has not volunteered anything and I don't ask them pointed or leading questions ("did you know that your great uncle was a philanderer?" - I would not want that to get back to my mother's half-brother who might be devastated to learn that his father was unfaithful to his mother) - I don't think the cousin even knows who I am. So two of my "six grandparents" are not publicly researched - that's the way it is!

2) My great grandfather on my mother's adoptive maternal line was a disqualified MP (bribing the electorate). This cannot be denied - there was a Royal Commission and not column inches but column yards in the Times! When I mention the family at Family History fairs, I find people know of the scandal as part of the history of their location.

My mother's adoptive mother would no doubt be horrified that I know and have blogged about it - she used to say "my father was nearly an MP". But she and others of her generation are long gone and we have discussed it within the "descendant family" and I don't feel constrained.

Further back in my mother's adoptive family, I have to be aware that there may be some who do not consider me a "real relative", so I try and research and write as if I was an independent researcher (whilst acknowledging the link).

I am not sure that gender re-assignment needs to be treated any differently to other sensitive matters. There is a lot of cultural pressure and legislation around this area - perhaps that sets guidelines for how we deal with all sensitive matters relating to living people or the immediately preceding generation?

I was adopted, a fact I discovered in my teens, and which is no secret to anyone, either in my family or circle of friends. My mother didn't actually tell me until several years after I found out, and I didn't let her know that I knew until she told me. My adotive mother was married three times, and my adoptive father was her second husband. My adoptive mother was also adopted before adoption regulations were tightened up in, I think, the 40s or 50s. I have been re-united with my biologocal family although all I know of my biological father is that he was probably Polish.

I have researched my biological maternal side - 5 children by 5 different fathers, my adoptive mother's biological tree (Polish Jewish) and those of all three of her husbands. I have been unable to trace her adoptive side. I have researched my wife's tree, and my son-in-law's, and also that of my godparent's, and have had considerable help from various members of each and every family along the way, and from those who actually contacted me to ask that I conduct the research on their behalf.

It is clear that there are differences in opinion in how family history research should be carried out and what information recorded. When my adoptive mother told me of my adoption it was suggested that I try to discover more about our families. At the time I had neither the knowledge nor wherewithall to keep to that obligation. Following the discovery of my biological family by my sister contacting me, and the availability of the internet, I have now been able to do what I was asked to do, although working on Polish Jewish genealogy is fraught with difficulty.

It became quite apparent to me from a very early stage that when conducting family history research you must be absolutely non-judgmental. Family members may, for example, hold views you disgree with at a personal level, or prefer that you gloss over or ignore various aspects of the past. I will always conform to individual wishes for information to be kept private and confidential, and not published. However, whilst researching anyone's past I consciously ensure that the biography I create for them is as complete, truthful and accurate as I can make it, therefore I will always record information from whatever source I discover, but with caveats if necessary in the interpretation of the material discovered.

We are the sum total of our experiences. Those experiences – be they positive or negative – make us the person we are, at any given point in our lives. And, like a flowing river, those same experiences, and those yet to come, continue to influence and reshape the person we are, and the person we become. None of us are the same as we were yesterday, nor will be tomorrow.

B.J. Neblett

I feel that I fail in my research if I do not record those experiences, so that whoever comes after me and reads my research is able to place a life in its wider context, and comprehend the influences that governed someone's life and informed their choices and decisions.

My research is not published (execpt on Ancestry where my tree is private). The person contacting me for help involving the part of the family that sparked this thread has been contacted to ask for advice on how I should record the information I have been given, and it is quite possible that I may be put into contact with that individual where I may be able to make myself better aware of their wishes in this regard.