In April 2014 the Indian Supreme Court ruled that transgender people have to be recognized as a “third gender”, declaring inter alia that

Transgender persons’ right to decide their self-identified gender is also upheld and the Centre and State Governments are directed to grant legal recognition of their gender identity such as male, female or as third gender.

Only in December 2013 the same court had re-criminalized sexual activities between persons of the same sex.

“The three lions are a symbol of our own confused gender identity.”

So, apparently it’s absolutely OK to have a “gender identity”, but not to live according to it. Or if you want to live out your personal life according to your and your partner’s wishes, then one of you has to register as a “third gender” person first. But what if you don’t want to cut off your ****? Either there will be some kind of test before you can register for “third gender”, making it invasive, or you can change every day, turning it into a farce.

Lesson 1: Courts, states, governments, parliaments shouldn’t get involved in people’s private lives if it can be avoided.

Lesson 2: Maybe it would be best if there was no official gender designation at all. Why is it important for the state to have a record of my gender? At least in most of the countries where I have lived, the state doesn’t have a record of my religious affiliation or of my ethnicity. And it doesn’t need to. If gender became less of a factor in public policy (and I think it shouldn’t be a factor at all, in the interest of equality), then the state wouldn’t need to know what I have in my pants.