• Transgender Media

  Dotting the I’s, Crossing the T’s

  Posted by Adrian on 10/09/2006 at 12:26 am

  Source: BayWindows – New England’s largest GLBT newspaper
  http://baywindows.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=008EC9FBCFF24AD18614290016BE1303&nm=Current+Issue&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=82E5CF7420AD43D58B93DE4679692E8B

  Ethan Jacobs
  ejacobs@baywindows.com

  Trans people face heightened scrutiny in a post-9/11 world

  You’re driving in your car and get stopped by the police for speeding. The officer asks for your license and registration and takes them back to the police car. He swipes a strip on the back of the license into a computer, and instantly has access to an assortment of personal documents about you, from your birth certificate to letters from your doctor detailing your most private and intimate medical history. While it sounds like a plotline pulled from the Sci-Fi Channel’s new fall lineup, it could be a very real scenario for members of the transgender community if the Real ID Act goes into effect as scheduled in May 2008.

  The Real ID Act, passed in May 2005 as a post-9/11 security measure, will force states to alter their driver’s licenses to conform to uniform federal standards, and it will also force people applying for licenses to produce documents verifying their date of birth, Social Security number, and residency status or citizenship, among other personal characteristics. Registries of motor vehicles will be responsible for scanning those documents into a computer and putting them in a database that would be accessible to RMVs and law enforcement authorities in all 50 states. The act has already generated a firestorm of criticism, from civil libertarians and immigration advocates to state RMV officials who worry about the cost of implementing the change. But Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE), said transgender people have another reason to worry about the act that likely has not crossed the minds of those working to shore up homeland security post-9/11.

  “One of the things we’re afraid of is, because in a lot of states to change the gender marker on your driver’s license you have to provide a letter from a surgeon, that letter will go in the database,” said Keisling. She said having such letters scanned into a nationwide database would amount to a major violation of privacy for transgender people, placing their personal medical information in the hands of state authorities at the click of a mouse. And depending on whether or not a trans person has been able to change the name and gender on other documents like their birth certificate, the discrepancy in name and gender on their documents could open them to increased scrutiny from state and federal officials looking for identity fraud.
  While gender will be one of the required fields on the post-Real ID Act driver’s licenses, Keisling said NCTE believes gender should be treated as private medical information.

  “Because they are requiting a surgery letter, the states doing that are saying that gender is medical information, so therefore gender shouldn’t be on the license,” said Keisling. She said over the years many states have removed information on licenses such as race, weight and hair color, but gender still remains.
  Cole Thaler, Lambda Legal’s lead transgender rights attorney, said the formal regulations around the Real ID Act have not yet been drawn up by the Departments of Homeland Security or Transportation, so many of the concerns about the act’s impact on transgender people are necessarily speculative. But he said the information encoded on the new licenses is a major concern for Lambda. One requirement for the new licenses is that they have an electronic strip that can be swiped to access information, but it is unclear what information would be encoded on the strip.

  “It is possible that it will include things like gender and any previous genders, or name and any previous names,” said Thaler. This information would become available to anyone who might swipe the license through a machine to verify a person’s identification, from airport security to the clerk at the liquor store.

  And already some states have worked to tighten their regulations around licenses in anticipation of the Real ID Act, giving activists a preview of what to expect. Thaler said Missouri recently sent letters to transgender people who had successfully changed the gender marker on their licenses “telling them to come back in to the DMV to present additional evidence of surgery, and if they didn’t do that within 30 days of receiving the letter their driver’s license would be canceled.”

  Ann Lambert, a lawyer with the ACLU of Massachusetts, said NCTE and Lambda’s concerns about privacy for transgender people under the Real ID Act are justified, and the ACLU is part of a coalition of groups and individuals working to prevent implementation of the act. Lambert said she was unfamiliar with the specific documents needed in Massachusetts to get the gender marker changed on drivers’ license (according to Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, individuals need to present the RMV with a surgeon’s letter and an amended birth certificate, as well as proof of name change if applicable), but she worries about the state archiving those documents in a database accessible to officials in every state.

  “Whatever it is, I can’t think of any good reason that that particular information should be banked anyway, certainly not shared with law enforcement,” said Lambert.

  The Real ID Act is not the only security crackdown since 9/11 to ensnare transgender people. Keisling said since 9/11 there have been increased efforts by the Social Security Administration (SSA) to make sure that that people working in the United States are the real holders of the Social Security number they place on their I-9 forms. Keisling said NCTE has been contacted by people who have been outed by the SSA. Employers must verify their employees’ Social Security information with the SSA, and while providing their employees’ gender is optional when employers contact the SSA electronically and via mail, SSA operators ask for gender when employers call to verify their employees’ information by phone. If the gender provided by the employer does not match the gender listed in SSA records, Keisling said SSA sends employers “no match” letters explaining that gender information the employer sent to SSA does not match SSA’s own records. Thaler explained that SSA sends out no-match letters for other discrepancies around name and other characteristics, but the gender no-match letters have generated the most calls to Lambda from transgender people who have been outed by SSA to their employers.

  Beyond the increased regulations around documentation Keisling said transgender people, particularly those who do not disclose their transgender status in some or all areas of their lives (“living stealth” in transgender parlance) have also been negatively impacted by other post-9/11 trends. One is the crackdowns on immigration; Keisling said while immigrants as a whole have placed under increased scrutiny since 9/11, trans people have the added burden of worrying that inconsistencies in their documents around their gender and name might lead to increased suspicion.

  Thaler said Lambda has noticed other trends since 9/11 that have had a major negative impact on transgender people. One is an increase in judges denying requests for name changes for transgender people unless they present evidence that they have had surgery. The only legal reason a judge can deny a name change is if he or she believes the person is changing their name for the purposes of deception, but Thaler said Lambda has received increasing reports of name change denials throughout the country, from the South to Westchester County, New York.

  “I think that judges’ increased unwillingness to grant name changes to transgender people is based in this fear that people who aren’t able to present medical evidence are seeking name changes for reasons of deception or fraud, and that’s being bolstered by this increased air of suspicion pertaining to identity documents,” said Thaler, who believes the new air of suspicion stems from the same post-9/11 security concerns that prompted the Real ID Act.

  Thaler said another trend on the rise since 9/11 is calls from transgender people to Lambda saying they have been fired or turned down by landlords who discovered discrepancies in their gender during background checks and credit reports. In the last Thaler said these discrepancies may have been ignored, but post-9/11 he said they have generated increased suspicion.

  Over the long term Thaler said he expects there may be legal challenges to some of the new security regulations, possibly on constitutional grounds or on medical privacy grounds, but none are in the works yet. He advised transgender people worried about their status being disclosed to take steps to protect themselves.
  “I’m encouraging people to ask courts to seal their personal information [such as birth certificates] that is on file, which is one way to protect yourself, and I’m also advising people not to assume that it is as possible to be stealth today as it was 10 or 20 years ago. There’s an increasing number sites of potential disclosure of transgender people’s medical history,” said Thaler.

  Keisling said the increased post-9/11 security regulations may have made the days when transgender people could live stealth, not disclosing their status in some or all areas of their lives, a thing of the past.

  “It’s our contention that you just can’t rely on that anymore because almost anything is find-outable about anybody,” said Keisling.

  Adrian replied 18 years, 4 months ago 1 Member · 0 Replies
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