Sex, Document Style

Since 1977, state law has prohibited sex-change recipients from retroactively revising the sex designation on their birth certificates to correspond with their new gender identity. It is the only state with such a law, according to both the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition (TTPC) and the Lambda Legal Defense Fund.

The law makes it difficult for those who have undergone such surgical changes to get driver’s licenses, passports and new Social Security cards, because obtaining such critical documents invariably requires a birth certificate.

Sex-change recipients “who are born in Tennessee, regardless of where they live today…have to go through extra hoops to get those other documents changed,” says TTPC president Marisa Richmond. Tennesseans “are the only ones with this headache,” she adds.

But a bill making its way through the Tennessee legislature would change that. The legislation, sponsored by Memphis Democrats Sen. Beverly Marrero and Rep. Jeanne Richardson, would allow Tennesseans who have undergone a surgical sex change to revise the sex designation on their birth certificates. If it passes—and Richmond says she isn’t aware of any opposition, at least not yet—people who have new sex identities would have to produce only a sworn statement from a licensed medical professional to amend their birth certificates. “It just makes everybody’s lives a lot easier,” Richmond says.

Meanwhile, Tennessee birth certificates can be altered for reasons other than a gender switch. Name changes and paternity errors can be corrected on birth certificates in Tennessee, and they can also be amended in cases when people discover they’re adopted.

“It’s kind of ironic,” says Richmond. “Someone can change their name but not their gender to match.”