Life Through a Queer Lens
Welcome to the Life Through a Queer Lens Podcast, where anyone with an open mind and heart can learn about the LGBTQIA+ Community from the people within it! We're your hosts, Jenene (she/her, they/them) and Kit (they/them).
Life Through a Queer Lens
EP65: Navigating Gender Marker Changes: Safety, Legal Challenges, & Everchanging Regulations
This episode empowers listeners with knowledge about name changes and gender markers, emphasizing the personal and societal significance behind documentation. We discuss the steps to change names legally, the emotional weight of this process, and the urgent need for community support while navigating these challenges.
• Importance of changing gender markers for safety
• Emotional toll of navigating name changes
• Community responsibility for queer youth
• Legal complexities regarding state-specific gender markers
• Insights on name changing during marriage
• Overview of birth certificate change processes
• Importance of being informed on legal changes
• Historical context of gender affirmation care in Sweden
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When you're getting married, you don't have to change your last name. That's something that you choose to go and do, usually with your spouse. Like you choose to change your last name, you don't just have to change the last one. You can change your first name at the exact same time for way cheaper than going through and just changing your first name. Okay, okay y'all. Or you can just change your first name. You can get married, use the marriage name change to just change your first name. So today y'all we're going to be discussing documentation. That's things like your gender marker on your driver's license, your birth certificates, passports, things of that nature.
Speaker 1:Now, some things have changed as of recently when it comes to documentation very recently and if you have an ex-gender marker, please change it as quickly as physically and humanly possible. Get that, get that changed. Don't hold on to it until the end of the 30 days as a sign of protest. I understand the want to, but we don't know if he's adding people who do that to a list. We, we don't know what you're trying to do about the people who hold off till the last minute, because they know everyone who will. That's available information by the federal government. So please, guys, get that changed now, just just. I know it's hard, I know it sucks. Get it changed now. And listen, this is probably going to send send a lot of people my way. It might. I don't know, I'm scared, but listen, I don't say this so that you'll like me. I don't give a fuck if you like me. I give a fuck if you're alive. I give a fuck if you're safe. I give a fuck if you're alive I give a fuck.
Speaker 1:If you're safe, Change your gender marker to the gender that you are most likely to socially pass as so. For example, if I presently had an X gender marker, I would be changing it back to F, Because that is the gender that I socially pass as at this point in time, which means that is the safest bet for me when it comes to interacting with, say, the police. Just to you know, throw something off the top of my head Like that's important, guys, I get it.
Speaker 2:It sucks.
Speaker 1:You're allowed to be angry. You're allowed to mourn and cry and curse and bitch. If you want to come into our link tree and send me an email and just yell at me about it, do it, please. If you need to vent into the void that is our link tree, do it. I get it. It sucks, it's shit. I wish it wasn't the case, but this is what it takes to stay alive, and that is what matters right now is the queer community making it through the next four years.
Speaker 2:We have to there has to be queer elders this time around.
Speaker 1:I'm sick and tired of queer youth looking for queer elders and finding no one there needs. They can't. We cannot let them spin. The great lie of this is all a new thing in 20, 30, 40 plus years. No, we need to be there so that we can say what do you mean? New thing, bitch. I've been around since the 90s.
Speaker 2:Yeah, trump wants to erase history and that can't happen. But you're right, it is deeply disturbing and devastating for the queer community, more specifically the trans and non-binary communities. And two or three days ago, whenever Trump you know Trump was signed those documents, I was reaching out to all my my trans, non-binary friends say, hey, are you okay, are you okay Just checking in with people, because we need each other.
Speaker 1:But like Kit said the most important thing is to stay safe.
Speaker 2:It's temporary. It's temporary, because once we're gonna fight and we're gonna get our rights back no, absolutely this, this, this will pass.
Speaker 1:Think again back to, like the early days of discussions of gay marriage, legalization and stuff like that. Think about how hard that pushback was against it. You know, like the pushback was hard. They tried to kill us. They tried to let a disease kill us all, just just like that. Because we decided to be public about existing, they were gonna let a disease end us. We gotta make it through and listen. This isn't me saying go stealth, fuck. No, if you want to go stealth, if you feel you need to go stealth for your own safety, you do what you need to do for you. Boo-boo, I'm not going to judge you Ever, period. But I'm not saying go stealth. If you don't want to go stealth, you think I'm going stealth? Look at me. Which stealth In what actual fucking universe? Fuck. Now You're going to have to pry my queerness from my cold dead hands.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:It's not happening. But what I'm saying is is do what you got to do to keep yourself safe If you are stopped by a cop. You're going to be much safer in that interaction if your ID and that gender marker on your ID matches what the cop sees in front of him or her. That's just the way of the game. It sucks, but that's the way of the game. And if you want to survive the game, you got to play by the game's rules until you get to the point where you can burn the book.
Speaker 2:Exactly Like I said where you can burn the book. Exactly Like I said, we gotta change the rules.
Speaker 1:But it takes a while to get there and until we get there you gotta stick around, you gotta do what you gotta do to stay safe and stay here and again. That does not mean going stealth, that means you know.
Speaker 2:Staying under the wire for a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that means like looking at your government documentation and reminding yourself that that does not define you. That is paper and plastic. We are made of stars. That doesn't mean shit, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that it doesn't define you. I love that it's a good reminder.
Speaker 1:Keep that in mind, y'all. We are going to make it through, but just please, for the love of God, stay safe. So we're going to go through some. This is going to be a lot of lists, a lot of smattering bullshit. Listen, a lot of this information is changing every day, like it's really important to keep that in mind.
Speaker 1:Y'all this information is changing rapidly, so I don't know. This is what we have right now. This is where it's at right now. Give me one second and I will tell you all the exact name of the website that I used to get most of this information to be right in our link tree. It's transequalityorg slash documents. If you go to that website, you can find the up-to-date version of all of the information we're going to give you today. All right, so if you know, if you realize that things are changing, if it's a couple months out and you're listening to this episode, give that website a look through, maybe while you're listening. Still, because you know we're going to have fun along the way and there's an interesting fact at the end that y'all should stick around for I think hold on.
Speaker 1:I'm 92% sure. Yep, there is. There's an interesting fact. We're good.
Speaker 2:Awesome. So how does somebody go about changing their gender marker on their driver's license and you're recommending just changing it on the driver's license at this point.
Speaker 1:Right, it all depends on what you did already. If you are someone who changed your gender marker to X on everything, change it to whatever you socially pass, as on everything, you know what I mean. On your passport, on whatever it is you changed to X, change it to M or F. So for me personally, all of my information still says F. I haven't done any documentation changes when it comes to my driver's license, my birth certificate, anything like that. So if you're like me and you haven't done anything yet and you have started medically transitioning, this is something you really want to do. It depends on your state. With all of these, it's going to depend on the state you live in. So for changing a gender marker on your driver's license, it can be as simple as going to your local DMV. Truly Like in Pennsylvania. You literally just have to go to the DMV and change your gender marker. It's that easy. You can get it done when you're renewing your license. It's literally that easy. I don't even think it costs anything, or at least it didn't when I was offered the option of doing it thing, or at least it didn't when I was offered the option of doing it, but the only reason I didn't is because I was living in an area that I didn't quite feel safe doing that in with the police. And you know, yeah, in Kansas, tennessee, texas and Florida it is illegal to change your gender marker on your driver's license at all Period. It doesn't matter what you do, it does not matter what you, and you cannot change it on your driver's license.
Speaker 1:States or territories that require proof of surgery, court order or an amended birth certificate to change the gender marker on a state driver's license are Guam, montana, the Commonwealth of the Northern Marina Islands, oklahoma, arkansas, iowa, montana, louisiana, kentucky, alabama, missouri, georgia and South Carolina. And that does not mean you need all of those things, but you may need one or more of those things. So, either proof of surgery, a court order or an amended birth certificate. States or territories with an unknown, unwritten or unclear policies surrounding gender marker changes. So these are just the areas where it's like no one really knows what the fuck is going on there.
Speaker 1:Mississippi, south Dakota, american Samoa which, by the way, I apologize if some of these territory names are not the preferred names of the indigenous populations of those areas. I did not have the. I just I'm so sorry I did not look into the proper names. That's on me 100%. I promise we will do better in the future. I do believe that most of these that are listed here, other than, I believe, guam, are not the names that the indigenous populations of the area prefer for the areas to be known by.
Speaker 1:And then the last one is the US Virgin Islands. These are states where, with no form, no court order or proof of surgeries you don't need any of those, but there are other burdensome process requirements and or provider certification from a limited range of professionals, which means, like you might need a psychiatrist to sign off on this and it might need to be a very specific type of psychiatrist. And that's Wisconsin, idaho, utah and Arizona, states with easy to understand forms that require provider certification from a limited range of professionals. That's West Virginia, indiana and Nebraska. So, like the forms are easy to understand, but you still have that same issue of you probably need, like, a psychiatrist or some shit to okay it and their wait list is two years out.
Speaker 2:Right, that's crazy.
Speaker 1:States or territories with easy to understand forms that require provider certification. However, it is from a wide range and number of professionals, and that is Puerto Rico, Ohio, North Carolina, North Dakota, Wyoming, Alaska and Delaware. And then we have states with easy-to-understand forums that don't require provider certification and can often be done from the DMV in one easy day, one day.
Speaker 1:That is Washington, right, minnesota, michigan, illinois, virginia, hawaii, dc, maryland, pennsylvania, new Jersey, new York, connecticut, rhode Island, Massachusetts, vermont, new Hampshire and Maine. So, as of the time I did this research, 22 states and DC allowed for the ex-gender marker on driver's licenses or state IDs. However, that is no longer the case. But courts have 30 days to challenge the executive order and from my understanding they already are because the way it is worded is insane. It's saying that the executive order states that you are whatever or whatever gender you were at conception, and when people are conceived and they're a little one cell things in there they're all women. Everyone's a fab at first or everyone has a vagina ever. It becomes a penis later. It starts at, it starts out as ovaries and eggs and then it becomes balls and sperm. So, because of the way he worded this executive order, there are no men, which that's not it either. So it's already getting challenged just on very logical basis of.
Speaker 2:This is just so beyond wrong and how women became the inferior gender is beyond me it's it's capitalism and religion yeah, exactly, spoiler alert once again it all goes back to capital. Scam.
Speaker 1:Yeah for changing gender markers on your birth certificate. The process is usually more complex and involved, but for some states it's downright impossible. It just cannot be done. There are three states that will show up in different areas on this list. Oh well, yeah, again, this is now every state. It's just banning the use of X gender markers on birth certificates. Right now, that's every state. So, again, this information is changing day by day, but as of the time of doing this research, the states that did not allow for X gender markers on birth certificates were North Dakota, oklahoma and West Virginia, but again, that's just every state. States that have banned the ability to change someone's birth certificate at all are Florida, texas, oklahoma, tennessee and Montana, which might sound familiar from the list above. States or territories that allow for changes to birth certificates but require both proof of surgery and a court order. And proof of surgery is a dehumanizing process full stop.
Speaker 1:It's a dehumanizing act. It's a dehumanizing act and it's a dehumanizing process full stop. But these are the states where both are required North Dakota, wyoming, guam, wisconsin, missouri, iowa, louisiana, alabama and Georgia States update birth certificates using an administrative process but require proof of surgery. So, like in these, it's a little bit easier, but you still have to have proof of surgery. And that's Arizona, nebraska and Kentucky. Doesn't that violate?
Speaker 2:HIPAA. Can we make a case for that, that it violates HIPAA?
Speaker 1:I'm thinking the exact same thing as I was sitting there doing this research. I was sitting there like as I was sitting there doing this research, I was sitting there like are these not HIPAA violations, or am I the dumb one? Am I the one that needs what's happening?
Speaker 2:My surgery is none of your business. It's none of your business.
Speaker 1:I thought that that was like I don't know. I know that there are some executive order that's being challenged on the basis of HIPAA. There's something that's being challenged on the basis of HIPAA. There's something that's being challenged on the basis of HIPAA, I think it's the. Actually, I think it's the allowance of immigration agents into doctor's offices and hospitals.
Speaker 2:That's considered a violation of HIPAA.
Speaker 1:That's the one. That's the one. And also, if your doctor asks about your immigration status, you do not legally have to answer them. You do not have to tell them that. Keep that in mind, folks.
Speaker 2:It's just all these insidious things that keep happening, that strip right after right, after right, mainly right to privacy. You know, just a little bit at a time, just kind of pulling this over the eyes a little bit at a time, and then people don't understand the rights, they don't understand that they can not answer, and then over time it just becomes commonplace. It's just, it's crazy.
Speaker 1:You always have the right to remain silent. Remember that, use it. You have the right. Even when you're being arrested, you have the right to remain silent, full stop.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you don't have to say a fucking word.
Speaker 1:All you have to do is say I need an attorney, get me an attorney. That's all you gotta say. You don't gotta say fuck all else, okay, okay, please, even through interrogation processes, you have Throw away that fucking key. I don't know shit. Okay, just wanted to make sure we were all on the same page there. States or territories with unclear processes and or unclear medical requirements left to the discretion of individual judges Now that's scary. That's American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Marina Islands, the US Virgin Islands, utah, south Dakota, mississippi, south Carolina, indiana, ohio and New Hampshire. New Hampshire surprised me.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm Same.
Speaker 1:New Hampshire took me off guard. New Hampshire has surprised me a couple of times in these lists. I think New Hampshire surprised me. Like New Hampshire has been surprising a couple of times in these lists, I think New Hampshire surprised me. New Hampshire has been surprising a couple of times.
Speaker 2:So if somebody has prejudices or any kind of racial roots, this could be left up to the discretion of that person and they get a different result than somebody else.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly Two people showing the exact same need for name change, gender marker change, whatever could show up in front of two separate judges. The same person, the same everything could show up in front of two separate judges and get two completely different results because of those state laws.
Speaker 2:Wow, wow.
Speaker 1:Alaska, hawaii, puerto Rico, minnesota, iowa, connecticut, DC, delaware, maryland, pennsylvania, west Virginia, virginia and North Carolina. And this is states that update birth certificates with an administrative process and does not require provider documentation. So these are like the easiest states to get this done in. But it's still. You know you're changing your birth certificate. It's not going to be easy. It involves a lot, lot of you're changing a lot of stuff with that washington, oregon, idaho, nevada, california, new mexico, illinois, michigan, new york, vermont, maine, massachusetts, rhode island and new jersey, my born and bred state. I love that state so much. Yeah. And again it says 16 states allow for ex-gender markers as of now, but that we all just have to wait and see on that.
Speaker 1:This episode was recorded on January 24th and as of now, ex-gender markers are no longer a thing and genuinely, if you have an ex-gender marker, change it. Just, it does not. Don't wait for the end of the 30 days, even if you know they end up being like, okay, yeah, you can have them again. Don't, don't have one. Maybe, just, maybe, just don't. I don't know, I just have a bad feeling. I feel like if all of a sudden they say like, yeah, no, you can have those again Like it's giving. Please do so. We can make sure we know who you are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not, not. While the Trump administration is ruling the roost right now and everybody is Republican, I would enchant like exactly. Like you said for your own safety. Yeah, tracking and all that stuff.
Speaker 1:They have already gone back on stuff that they've said not even a week ago. They literally said not even a week ago, we are not going to deport people just because we don't like them, right? And then that bishop spoke at trump's inauguration prayer and she dropped the fucking mic on his ass and immediately oh, she should be deported, we need to deport her it's, it's laughable, but it's not because it's he will, you know which makes it fucking crazy.
Speaker 2:It's crazy and scary and terrifying.
Speaker 1:He will do anything he can to make that a reality. And it is important to keep in mind that it took less than five months of Hitler being in charge for massive book burnings to start occurring all over Germany, and then camps started opening. Actually, camps started opening before that, I think. I think a ghetto opened before the book burning started. But like, yeah, it's five months, less than a year, less than a year, and shit hit the fan over there like, please, guys, trust your eyes, trust your ears. George orwell said it best the first thing they will try to do is tell your eyes that they are not seeing what they are seeing and tell your ears that they are not hearing what they are hearing, and tell your mind that it is not thinking what it is thinking. 1984, that's a whole concept from that book of 1984. The first thing that they are going to do is tell you no, you didn't see what you thought you saw. That's a roman salute right.
Speaker 1:Right, he's just autistic. Bullshit, bullshit. I'm autistic. My autism has never made me do that. My autism has made me do some really stupid shit, like, say, transorbital ice pick 82 times in a row because it became a vocal stim because of a song I listened to. It's never made me do that, though. Right, yeah, it's never made me do that though right, yeah so you know, just saying guys, I'm just, I'm just saying trust your eyes, trust your ears, trust your brain yeah, and your sounds like a duck yeah, trust your intuition.
Speaker 1:If it sounds like a duck and it looks like a duck, it's a duck and it's doing a Hitler salute.
Speaker 2:Kill it, shoot the duck. Get away from it.
Speaker 1:Okay, on that note, we're going to go into name change stuff more in the Love and Stone episode because that has more to do with that. But before we get into that, listen, if you're out there and you're queer and you're considering getting married and you're talking through like the options of when you get married, changing your last name and stuff like that, you don't for one, you don't have to change your last name. That's something that you choose to go and do with, usually with your spouse. Like you choose to change your last name, you don't just have to change the last one. You can change your first name at the exact same time, for way cheaper than going through and just changing your first name when you're getting married. Okay, y'all. Or you can just change your first name. You can get married, use the marriage name change to just change your first name.
Speaker 1:You just blew my mind. Wait, what? Yeah, that fact is thanks to my mom. My mom told me that and then I confirmed it and I was like, oh my god, mom, what? Yeah, you can just change your first name and it's a lot cheaper and a lot easier because you're doing it as a marriage thing. No one needs to know what you're actually doing. You're doing it because you just got married. You get so many less questions. You don't have to prove to anyone that you've thought about this. You just get to change your fucking name nice, nice.
Speaker 2:I love that. Right under the radar be gay, cause havoc.
Speaker 1:That's my middle name. And then, oh my god, we actually do have an interesting fact. I'm so happy and it's not that one that one's just an extra for y'all, y'all get an extra one.
Speaker 2:We got a two for today I'm gonna roll score. I got a two for today. I'm going to roll.
Speaker 1:Score oh my God Can't breathe, all right. So, last but not least, our interesting fact the first country to legal, to legalize gender affirming care through sexual reassignment surgeries and HRT was Sweden, in 1972. Many reports have been claiming Sweden has now banned gender-affirming care for minors, which is not true. They have, however, tightened their eligibility criteria for gender-affirming care for minors, so they were the first country to legalize it and, unlike what Republicans have been sharing all over the internet, they have not banned it for minors, they've just tightened the restrictions. Outro Music.