"Brave new world" watch. (Notes & Comments: January 2003).(new British laws make it legal for transsexuals to marry and obtain updated birth certificate)

The art world is not the only contemporary circus of the absurd. Everyday life competes with and often outstrips the most bizarre forces of the cultural avant garde. Or perhaps we should say that everyday life, too, has its avant garde. If mistaking a suicide for an art performance betokens one sort of breakdown, what about the proposals, announced in London last month, to allow transsexuals to marry under an assumed gender? Not only will Jane (ne John) be able to marry James (nee, possibly, Joan), but also either or both parties will be allowed to obtain new birth certificates emblazoned with only their new name and sex.

The last time we looked, birth certificates were legal documents that guaranteed a few basic facts about an individual: his or her birth date, birth place, birth name, and sex--perhaps we will now have to say "birth sex" or "sex at birth." Henceforth, in Europe, anyway, the birth certificate will be a more negotiable document. The London Daily Telegraph, reporting on this story, noted that the original birth records would remain "unamended" and that a link from the new certificate could be traced by agencies such as the Criminal Records Bureau. Nevertheless, as an editorial in that paper commented, what the new proposals mean is that "the law ...