Andrew Sullivan linked to a blog post on Feministe last night by a transgender woman and it made me think about my own issues with gender and forms, and how that has affected me over the last ten years. I have been far luckier than her; my family, my workplace, my doctor, even the civil servants I've had to deal with through my journey have been remarkably understanding and helpful. However, I still wait for the other shoe to drop -- every time I've had to talk to someone about it I worry that this will be the time that it all goes wrong. That is the threat that constantly hangs over my head and causes me stress, even if it never happens.
At the root of this are the fact that there are two "genders" at issue here -- legal gender and "biological" gender. 99% of the time, what actually matters is your legal gender, and this is where things get complicated. Is it what is on your birth certificate, or your passport, or your driver's license? Some states will never let you change your birth certificate. Some won't let you change it until you have surgery (in the case of Illinois, it must be in the United States -- one of the reasons I went to Dr. Meltzer, aside from the fact that he's an excellent surgeon). Some will let you change your driver's license before you have surgery. The State Department will let you change your passport if you have a surgery date scheduled within a year.
But the bigger question is, why does legal gender matter? Men and women should be seen as equal under the eyes of the law, so why does the state care what's on my driver's license? Do I look like my picture? Are they really going to be looking between my legs during a traffic stop? It's kind of ridiculous. There's no reason this has to be such a mess. If someone is transgendered, they should be able to change that little M or F on their license or simply decline to have anything there. And on 99% of forms, they are asking about legal gender -- and in most cases, it's completely irrelevant to what they are asking about. Why does my gender matter when I'm opening a bank account?
And then we come to biological gender. Here's where it gets complicated. A doctor should probably know what your chromosomal gender is, simply because it does matter to some medical problems. But most of the time, even before I had vaginoplasty, it doesn't help at all -- what is more important for the doctor to know? That I was born male, or that I'm on female hormones? That I was born male, or that I had vaginoplasty? If I put an F on that form, and he doesn't pay attention to the rest of my medical history, now that I've had vaginoplasty, he may overlook the fact that I still have a prostate, or that I don't have a uterus, or something else that could cause problems. That M or F doesn't tell the doctor anything that would be important for a problem where gender was actually an issue. So the question becomes, when I'm filling out a medical form, is it asking for my legal gender (which is female) or my biological gender? And which is more important?
Then there's the whole problem with emergency medical care. There are cases where pre-operative transsexuals have been in accidents, and as soon as the EMTs discovered that their genitals "didn't match" they stopped treating them. I'm sure that for most medical professionals that would never happen -- but the problem is, you don't know if it will, and in all likelihood you won't be able to do anything about it. So you worry -- and that's one of the reasons I decided to have vaginoplasty, despite the fact that I didn't have strong feelings about my genitalia either way. That's a problem that won't ever be solved by a form though, sadly.
I don't reject gender outright, like some people do -- like it or not, those social constructs exist and the whole fact that I feel female while I was born male to me means that that construct has some grounding in biology -- granted, gender may be a continuum with two peaks, like I suspect sexual orientation is -- but the schizophrenic way society treats transgendered people certainly highlights the fact that arbitrary boxes do not fit everyone.
Consider the case of a transgendered woman who marries a man. In many states, this is illegal because it is considered same-sex marriage. A transgendered woman I know who lives in Massachusetts married her wife prior to the state legalizing same-sex marriage, however, because she still had an M on her birth certificate. And then you have cases where a transgendered woman marries a man -- either because her gender has been legally changed or because of a bureaucratic oversight, and then after he dies, she is unable to file a wrongful death suit or carryout other legal action that a spouse would normally be able to do. This can vary state by state -- adding more confusion, especially if you were married in one state and move to another. It's a complete mess -- and means basically that a couple with a transgendered person in it requires a ton of extra legal work to convey the same rights a married couple would have, just like a gay couple.
Like Queen Emily, I think gender is going to be around for a long time. But I hope to god that the law becomes less retarded in its regard sooner rather than later. I'm not an activist, and honestly, the fact that I'm transgendered is not really important to my identity (though the fact that I'm a woman is), so most of the time I don't make a big deal about the fact that I'm transgendered. But this is an issue where I can't avoid dealing with that fact, and it drives me crazy every time.
At the root of this are the fact that there are two "genders" at issue here -- legal gender and "biological" gender. 99% of the time, what actually matters is your legal gender, and this is where things get complicated. Is it what is on your birth certificate, or your passport, or your driver's license? Some states will never let you change your birth certificate. Some won't let you change it until you have surgery (in the case of Illinois, it must be in the United States -- one of the reasons I went to Dr. Meltzer, aside from the fact that he's an excellent surgeon). Some will let you change your driver's license before you have surgery. The State Department will let you change your passport if you have a surgery date scheduled within a year.
But the bigger question is, why does legal gender matter? Men and women should be seen as equal under the eyes of the law, so why does the state care what's on my driver's license? Do I look like my picture? Are they really going to be looking between my legs during a traffic stop? It's kind of ridiculous. There's no reason this has to be such a mess. If someone is transgendered, they should be able to change that little M or F on their license or simply decline to have anything there. And on 99% of forms, they are asking about legal gender -- and in most cases, it's completely irrelevant to what they are asking about. Why does my gender matter when I'm opening a bank account?
And then we come to biological gender. Here's where it gets complicated. A doctor should probably know what your chromosomal gender is, simply because it does matter to some medical problems. But most of the time, even before I had vaginoplasty, it doesn't help at all -- what is more important for the doctor to know? That I was born male, or that I'm on female hormones? That I was born male, or that I had vaginoplasty? If I put an F on that form, and he doesn't pay attention to the rest of my medical history, now that I've had vaginoplasty, he may overlook the fact that I still have a prostate, or that I don't have a uterus, or something else that could cause problems. That M or F doesn't tell the doctor anything that would be important for a problem where gender was actually an issue. So the question becomes, when I'm filling out a medical form, is it asking for my legal gender (which is female) or my biological gender? And which is more important?
Then there's the whole problem with emergency medical care. There are cases where pre-operative transsexuals have been in accidents, and as soon as the EMTs discovered that their genitals "didn't match" they stopped treating them. I'm sure that for most medical professionals that would never happen -- but the problem is, you don't know if it will, and in all likelihood you won't be able to do anything about it. So you worry -- and that's one of the reasons I decided to have vaginoplasty, despite the fact that I didn't have strong feelings about my genitalia either way. That's a problem that won't ever be solved by a form though, sadly.
I don't reject gender outright, like some people do -- like it or not, those social constructs exist and the whole fact that I feel female while I was born male to me means that that construct has some grounding in biology -- granted, gender may be a continuum with two peaks, like I suspect sexual orientation is -- but the schizophrenic way society treats transgendered people certainly highlights the fact that arbitrary boxes do not fit everyone.
Consider the case of a transgendered woman who marries a man. In many states, this is illegal because it is considered same-sex marriage. A transgendered woman I know who lives in Massachusetts married her wife prior to the state legalizing same-sex marriage, however, because she still had an M on her birth certificate. And then you have cases where a transgendered woman marries a man -- either because her gender has been legally changed or because of a bureaucratic oversight, and then after he dies, she is unable to file a wrongful death suit or carryout other legal action that a spouse would normally be able to do. This can vary state by state -- adding more confusion, especially if you were married in one state and move to another. It's a complete mess -- and means basically that a couple with a transgendered person in it requires a ton of extra legal work to convey the same rights a married couple would have, just like a gay couple.
Like Queen Emily, I think gender is going to be around for a long time. But I hope to god that the law becomes less retarded in its regard sooner rather than later. I'm not an activist, and honestly, the fact that I'm transgendered is not really important to my identity (though the fact that I'm a woman is), so most of the time I don't make a big deal about the fact that I'm transgendered. But this is an issue where I can't avoid dealing with that fact, and it drives me crazy every time.
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