In Case You Haven’t Heard…

The AMA (American Medical Association) has issued a resolution for us to be able to change our birth certificates without surgery. Psychiatric News reported last month that…

The AMA House of Delegates approved a report by its Board of Trustees that supports the right of transgender individuals to change the designation of their sex on their birth certificate without requiring sex-reassignment surgery.

The vote by the delegates at the AMA’s annual policymaking meeting in Chicago last month attracted publicity in lay publications. Many states require sex-reassignment surgery in order to change the designation on a birth certificate.

Some delegates opposed to the report argued that birth certificates were a matter for state regulation and that sex designations should be reserved for epidemiologic purposes. But the report was approved easily, with many physicians testifying that current best medical practice does not require sex-reassignment surgery for transgender patients and that appropriate gender identification can be achieved via psychological and hormonal treatment alone—a decision that is made between the patient and physician. It was further noted that a birth certificate is rarely, if ever, used for the determination of medical treatment for patients.

They realized that for many reasons many trans-people cannot have surgery and that some do not need it to live successful lives.

The only real use of birth certificates is to establish citizenship and no one checks between your legs to verify your identity. Surgery is no longer required to change your gender on passports or for Social Security and in many states your driver license, so why should it be required on your birth certificate?

There are already five states that you can change your birth certificate without surgery, California, Indiana (by court order), New York, Oregon, and Washington and the District of Columbia.