I'd rather have a mess than allow the federal government to have more power over me. I'm trans and I would have to out myself every time I needed to show ID if I had to give up my state driver's license. I like not having to worry about getting harassed whenever I want to go to a bar.
I like the idea of a way of verifying who you are (in that you’re a real person) and age (so you could prove ability to do 18/21+ things).
I see no reason why random companies/etc would need to know gender identity, name, etc.
None of that is relevant to buying alcohol. If they need something, e.g. name on a mortgage, then maybe it’s optionally provided, under my control. I don’t know.
I’m not seriously suggesting we do this. They were clear downsides before the last 10 years made all of them ridiculously clear.
It’s more I hate the current mess and wish something nicer existed. I think it’s fixable in the abstract. But even if we had a good idea for a better system I don’t know how we’d get there. Between sovereign citizen nuts one side who don’t think there should ever be any way to prove they ever existed, to people like you with very clear and good reasons for fearing changes it just seems impossible.
I mean, honestly, there's a good question to be had: why do we even need gender on a modern ID? Assuming a reasonably up-to-date photo, there isn't even a whole lot of purpose in listing descriptive information about the person. And that's before we talk about other stuff that you could list instead or encode as data into a smart ID if you really want some descriptive data.
Unfortunately, I agree with you that while fixable in the abstract, we're not getting anywhere in the modern USA. Can you imagine what would happen if a politician suggested removing gender from IDs?
