Friday, April 18, 2008
Crazy Crap / Legislature Transgender Blues
Posted by PJ Tobia on Fri, Apr 18, 2008 at 10:29 AM
Being a transgender Tennessean in need of a driver’s license isn’t going to get easier anytime soon.
Since 1977, Tennessee has been the only state in the U.S. that prohibits sex-change recipients from retroactively revising the sex designation on their birth certificates to correspond with their new gender identity. 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.
A bill in the legislature, which we wrote about here, would have dispensed with this piece of unnecessary moralizing, er, law. But last week, the sponsors of the bill—Reps. Jeanne Richardson and Mike Kernell, among them—withdrew the change after the health committee tacked on an amendment proposed by Rep. Jason Mumpower (at right in the image above). The amendment required that any change of sex on a birth certificate be reflected on the document, essentially creating a new category of sex. “A birth certificate can be amended with the designation MTF,” Mumpower tells Pith, “designating male to female, or FTM designating female to male.”
Mumpower says that it’s a security issue, though he doesn't say exactly how. “During one of these operations, someone’s appearance is changed…so if someone were to present a birth certificate with a changed name and an altered appearance, the fact of gender needs to be represented.”
When asked why Tennessee would need such specificity, when no other state or the federal government require it, Mumpower says, “I’m not a representative in any other state.”
Comments (2)
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Evidently this information is out of date (although the page is dated 12/2007) because it reports Idaho and Ohio have the same rules as Tennessee...no change.
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Posted by
News 2 Me
on April 18, 2008 at 12:40 PM
Ohio and Idaho don’t have laws prohibiting changes of sex in a birth certificate. They do have administrative procedures in place that prohibit such changes. In other words, the agencies that administer birth certificates will not allow a change of sex on such documents. It is not state law. Tennessee is the only state with such a law on the books. This is all according to a Lambda Legal Defense Fund attorney that I interviewed when I wrote the original story.
Posted by
P.J.
on April 18, 2008 at 2:25 PM
