Transgender Issues regarding change of sex in the eyes of the law

I would like to debate the popular topic of transgender sex change in the eyes of the law. Mainly regarding the ability to change one's sex in a birth certificate or license. I believe this should not be allowed because: 1) It is elitist, as only a few people can afford the incredibly expensive surgery that is sex reassignment. - As a requirement, people who wish to have their gender changed in the eyes of the law have to undergo sex reassignment surgery. Even if the procedure of changing the sex on your birth certificate would be proper ( which it isn't), having this prerequisite is extremely elitist as it only entitles this privilege to transgender people who A) have enough money to change their genitals or B) want to change their genitals. This would be like if people only had the right to vote if they owned land. Transgender people can keep the genitals they were assigned at birth and still feel like they were born in the wrong body. Which brings me to my next point. 2)If this change is allowed, it would perpetuate sexual roles of men and women which in my opinion only furthers the agenda of an already sexist society we live in. Of course in ancient times men and women had defined roles in society. Men would work, women would stay home and bear children. However, in this new age of equality men and women should be treated equally. Women can be doctors, CEO's, pilots, politicians, and even presidents. Similarly men can be housekeepers, flight attendants, models, and even stay at home dads. Would we call men who like to wear dresses women? Or Women who like to wear pant suits men? Would we call a little girl who wants to play football a boy? Or would we call a boy who wants to dance ballet a girl? No, I hope our society is more advanced than that. If a man wants to have a vagina or dress up in feminine clothing, can't he just be a man with a vagina? If a woman wants to get a penis or cut her hair short, can't she just be a woman with a penis? I don't see any problem with changing your genitals, however if we can allow someone to say that they were born as a man and want to be a woman or vice versa, we are perpetuating the difference and inequality between men and women and saying that in fact they should be treated differently. The male or female prerogative should have died when sexism did. If we are all just humans why can we not act with the same civility towards one another regardless of our sex? If we allow this to happen we are saying that this is how a woman should look, with long hair and a feminine demeanor or this is how a man should look with big muscles and masculine facial hair. I believe the only difference between men and women should be what sex they were born with and not what genitals they have or what their sexual orientation is. Which brings me to my last point. 3)If this continues, it may harm scientific research. Society should have no differentiation between men and women (albeit obvious things like the right to an abortion); I believe sex chromosomes should be the only difference between men and women, and only for scientific purposes. I understand that there are cases when humans who are born with penises are not XY and humans who are born with vaginas are not XX, but talking about these specific cases (which in my opinion should be classified in a third gender since there should be no societal discrimination and only a scientific segregation, but I digress) is not the discussion, the transgender population is. This sizable population is in average about two to five percent of the population of the world, which is why this argument matters. Even if our birth certificates change, our cells won't. If this was done fifty years ago, we might have never found out that women in average live longer than men, that some diseases are more prominent in women than in men, or that baldness is a genetic trait passed down by women. These facts may seem trivial, but they have advanced the field of genetics tremendously. I understand that the transgender community suffers from much stigma from society and that there is a great deal of oppression, however I do not believe allowing someone to change their sex in the eyes of the law is the way to change that. I believe we have to try to fix society by making it more understanding of how we should treat people and also create more laws against hate crimes or discrimination, but trying to fix a problem by creating more problems is not right. http://www.webmd.com... http://www.transgenderlaw.org... https://en.wikipedia.org... http://www.tsroadmap.com...