Your Papers Please.

I am lucky that I live in Connecticut!

I can change my driver license and birth certificate with just a letter from a doctor and there is a nonbinary option while changing my name is also simple, just fill out a form and pay the court fee. When I changed my birth certificate they issued a new certificate and the old one is locked away in the commissioner’s office, some states draw a line through your old name and gender and write your new name and gender above it. In some states you are required to have Gender Confirming Surgery to change your markers on your birth certificate and driver license.

Matching IDs for Transgender People Is Life-Saving for the Community, Local Activist Says
Julisa Abad, Director of Transgender Outreach and Advocacy for the Fair Michigan Project, spearheaded a name change clinic that has helped over 100 trans individuals legally change their name.
WDET
By Russ McNamara
January 7, 2022


Members of the trans community are disproportionately impacted by violence — and some of the hostility has been state-sanctioned. Governmental entities have outed trans individuals by refusing to acknowledge their gender or chosen name. That trickles down into other areas of their life — like getting health insurance.

Late last year, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson announced that residents have a nonbinary option for their driver’s license.

Julisa Abad is the Director of Transgender Outreach and Advocacy for the Fair Michigan Justice Project. She says just removing some government bureaucracy improves inclusivity and makes the trans community safer.

[…]

“Look at the disparities that trans people go through, particularly trans women of color. When we look at where they are on the totem pole of LGBTQ rights, they are the most marginalized … [they] experience violence, experience homelessness, experience fatalities. The life expectancy for a trans woman of color is 35 years old. So having documentation that doesn’t out you in certain public places, things that people take for granted, going to a doctor’s office, if they now call the wrong name, where people weren’t aware that you are transgender. Now, you’ve just been outed, and you’ve been put in an unsafe position.”

In some states such as Kentucky the Republicans tried to force us to use the bathroom of our gender assigned at birth, while in Tennessee the Republicans passed a bill requiring signs to be place on bathroom that we use warning people that trans people use the bathroom.

In Japan a trans woman got arrested for using the bathroom.

Transgender woman referred to prosecutors for using Osaka ladies room
Kyodo News
Jan 6, 2022


A transgender woman was referred to prosecutors Thursday for suspected trespassing after using the ladies room in a commercial facility in Osaka, in a case an expert on LGBT issues fears might lead to more prejudice and discrimination against sexual minorities.

According to the Osaka prefectural police, the commercial facility in the western Japanese city contacted the police after a customer complained that she could not use the women's restroom because "a man wearing women's clothes was using it," causing her "fear."

The transgender woman in her 40s, who police later confirmed entered the ladies' room in May last year, has told investigators she knew she was not supposed to use the facility because her gender is listed as male on the family registry.

Investigative sources said that while she identifies as a woman, she presents as male for work and dresses in women's clothing on her days off.

In other words she crossdresses.

In Connecticut the law does not say anything about transitioning or going full time, what it says and this was on purpose, Public Act No. 11-55 defines the law…

(21) "Gender identity or expression" means a person's gender-related identity, appearance or behavior, whether or not that gender-related identity, appearance or behavior is different from that traditionally associated with the person's physiology or assigned sex at birth, which gender-related identity can be shown by providing evidence including, but not limited to, medical history, care or treatment of the gender-related identity, consistent and uniform assertion of the gender-related identity or any other evidence that the gender-related identity is sincerely held, part of a person's core identity or not being asserted for an improper purpose.

We want to make sure that the law covered not only people who transitioned but also crossdressers and drag queens and drag kings. We want the law to be inclusive, not exclusive.