Something We Don’t Think About…

…Our death certificate.

An interesting question, I changed my legal name but I haven’t changed my birth certificate so what name would my death certificate show? I have no idea, but in California they have proposed a bill to insure the name and gender shown matches your gender identity.

Bill to Ensure Accurate Gender Reflected on Transgender People’s Death Certificates Moves Forward on Bipartisan Committee Vote
Transgender Law Center
March 24, 2014

Sacramento, CA – The Respect After Death Act (AB 1577), authored by Assembly Speaker-elect Toni Atkins and sponsored by Transgender Law Center and Equality California, passed the Assembly Health Committee today by a bipartisan provisional vote of 17-1. The bill is designed to help ensure transgender people have their authentic gender identity reflected on their death certificates.

The Respect After Death Act will mean that death certificates reflect the authentic lived gender of the deceased, with various forms of proof accepted under the law, including written confirmation of the deceased’s wishes, updated birth certificates and driver’s licenses, or medical records of gender transition.
[…]
Current law requires death certificates to list personal data such as name, sex, and race, and there is no legal guidance about how the official filling out the death certificate should determine a transgender person’s sex. The lack of guidance sometimes results in cases where the information on the death certificate is not consistent with the deceased’s lived gender. This can put funeral directors and coroners at risk of liability if the friends and family of the deceased believe that they listed the incorrect sex.

This is a good idea, people know you for how you lived your life, not by what was stamped on a piece of paper at your birth.