The Paper Chase

No one else have this problem, it is unique to us. You get married and you don’t need to get a letter from your doctor to change your documentation, but trans-people have to jump through hoops in order to change our documents. Time online has an article this week about the paperwork jungle that we have to go through…

Identity Crisis: Changing Legal Documents No Easy Task for Transgender Individuals
By Nolan Feeney
July 10, 2013

Cecilia Gentili couldn’t stand the looks on their faces. The looks waiting room patients would give her when a nurse called a man’s name and she stood up instead. The looks nurses would give her when they said they were looking for someone else. The looks she’d get at the bank when she tried to open an account.
[…]
Gentili is a transgender woman, and in person, with shoulder-length blond hair, she is the woman she always knew she was. On paper, however, it was another story. For years, Gentili’s legal name and documents didn’t match her identity, and navigating that discrepancy became a daily struggle. For transgender people — those who don’t identify with the sex are born with — any time they have to show ID can turn into moment of awkwardness, humiliation or, in some cases, discrimination: making credit card purchases, applying for jobs, checking into hotels, securing housing, getting into school, voting. Gentili even avoided medical care and traveling through airports because of how uncomfortable the interactions made her feel.

For me the problem is my health insurance provider, they will not change my gender unless I surgery. I don’t have a problem with that but I do have a problem with them calling me sir and the robo calls where the computer calls me sir.

The article goes on to say,

“There’s always been a misunderstanding that being trans has something to do with surgery,” says Mara Keisling, the executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, one of several groups that works on policy in this area. “You shouldn’t have to have to be able to afford tens of thousands of dollars in surgery in order for your ID to match who you are. There’s no government interest in people having the wrong gender marker on their ID. It’s always just done because it’s always been done.” 

Also for a number of trans-people surgery could be life-threatening, diseases like diabetes and heart arrhythmia could prohibit gender confirming surgery. Two states and Washington DC allow birth certificates to be changed without surgery, as the article says, why do you need to have gender on your birth certificate? When was the last time you had to show your birth certificate? It probably was to prove that you are a U.S. citizen and having you gender does prevent someone from using it for fraud, after all 50% of the population has the same gender that is on the certificate.

Health insurance doesn't need to list your gender; they should pay for any medically necessary surgery. Think about an intersex person who may have organs of both sexes, so whatever gender they are listed on the record will be wrong. If their birth certificate says that they are female and they have undescended testacies that have to be removed the insurance company probably will, say sorry we don’t cover that in a female?

Of course there are some Republicans like the ones in Arizona and the ones in the Connecticut legislature who want to police the bathrooms and require you to produce birth certificate before you can pee. Shouldn’t it be based on your behavior in the bathroom and not something that a doctor glanced at when you were born?