When Our Papers Don’t Match

Did you ever get stopped by a police officer and asked for your papers, or have you ever been carded in a bar?

How ID laws can put trans people in danger
And for the dozens of unsolved trans murder cases, ID laws can delay justice.
Vox
By Ranjani Chakraborty
August 16, 2018,

Voting. Boarding a plane. Driving. Buying a drink. Filling out paperwork for a new job. In all these situations, showing a driver’s license or state-issued ID can be a nerve-wracking experience for transgender people.

It can also be dangerous. Having an ID with a gender marker that doesn’t match the way a trans person presents themself can increase the risk of discrimination and violence. They may be denied services, harassed, and even attacked.

And a new investigation by ProPublica found that when transgender people are killed, local law enforcement officials often only use the name and sex listed on that person’s ID while investigating the murder. They found that some 65 different law enforcement agencies across the nation have investigated murders of transgender people since January 1, 2015. And in 74 of 85 cases, victims were identified by names or genders they had abandoned in their daily lives.

In the trans community, it’s called deadnaming. And during criminal investigations, it may be delaying justice. Many people who may have known the victim will only know the name they used in their daily life.

I was in a car accident before I transitioned and I was driving as Diana but all my ID still had my male name on them…how would the state police officer treat me? That was in the back of my mind when I called 911.

After I transitioned my car got hit by a drunk hit-and-run driver and again I had to again call 911 and there was that old nagging worry again.

Deadnamed
The way cops in Jacksonville and other jurisdictions investigate the murders of transgender women adds insult to injury and may be delaying justice.
ProPublica
By Lucas Waldron and Ken Schwencke
August 10, 2018

Aea Celestice, a black transgender woman living in Jacksonville, Florida, has the most basic of plans for the next chapter of her life: She hopes to get out of town before someone kills her.

Celestice, 32, has good reason to worry. Over the past six months, four black trans women in the city have been shot, three of them fatally.
[…]
Studies show that transgender women are disproportionately likely to be victims of violent crime, not just in Jacksonville, but nationwide. Yet most local law enforcement agencies persist in handling these cases much like the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, or JSO.

The transgender community has a word for calling a trans person by the name they no longer use, one that conveys a double meaning when it involves murder. It’s known as “deadnaming.”

Across the nation, ProPublica found, some 65 different law enforcement agencies have investigated murders of transgender people since Jan. 1, 2015. And in 74 of 85 cases, victims were identified by names or genders they had abandoned in their daily lives. Our survey found that arrests have been made in 55 percent of the killings of transgender people nationwide in the last three and a half years. The overall clearance rate for murders in the U.S. is only slightly higher, at 59 percent.

It is kind of ironic that if the police used the person name and gender instead of their birth gender and name we would never know that they were trans.

Advocates say that not using the name and pronoun a person was known by can slow down an investigation during its most critical hours. People who knew the victim or who saw them in the hours before they were murdered might only have known them by their preferred name and gender.

Let’s face it there are some police officers who would go out of their was to dis a trans person while others have no problems with us. When I was in that car accident before I transitioned the officer was very respectful.

Transgender women told ProPublica that common interactions like showing IDs at a bar, or to vote, can identify them as transgender to others — a process known as “getting clocked.” According to a 2015 survey of transgender people, nearly one-third of people who presented an ID that did not match their appearance reported being harassed, denied services or attacked.

About ten years ago I was carded when I was going in to a bar, I was in my mid-sixties. When I laughed at getting carded the bouncer said they have to check everyone’s ID. Sitting at the bar with my friends I noticed that the bouncer didn’t card anyone else, he just wanted to see mine.

The NCTE rates 11 states — Alabama, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming — as the hardest places for changing a gender marker on state IDs. In those states, doing so requires body-altering surgery or a court order from a judge. The process for getting a court order can often require proof of surgery, too.

Notice something about them?

They all have Republican governors.