Transgender Law Center Co-Sponsors Name & Gender Change Legislation

transqueery:

Assembly Bill 1121, authored by Assemblymember Toni Atkins and co-sponsored by Equality California and Transgender Law Center, simplifies the process required for name changes and ensures that a transgender person’s gender identity is reflected accurately on all their identity documents.

The Issues

The current California procedures to change a person’s name and/or gender are extremely costly and burdensome, particularly for low-income transgender individuals who may not meet the extremely low income limits to be eligible for court fee waivers and who generally do not have access to attorneys to help them navigate the court system.

In addition, California law does not provide sufficient direction to the person preparing a death certificate about how to identify the person’s sex. In some cases, this has meant that the death certificate for a transgender person fails to accurately reflect that person’s gender identity. (see also: Remembering Christopher Lee, Achieving Justice for Our Loved Ones)

The Solution

AB 1121 would create a new administrative option for transgender people seeking to amend the gender and/or name on a California birth certificate, eliminating the unnecessary interim step of getting a court order before the State Registrar can change a birth certificate. The current court process for obtaining an order that recognizes a person’s legal gender transition would remain available as an option for people born outside of California or those who want extra assurance that the change would be granted full faith and credit by other states.

AB 1121 would also remove the expensive and burdensome newspaper publication requirement for legal name changes and would provide that a name change that is uncontested must be granted without a hearing. Finally, the bill would provide more detailed guidance to ensure that the gender identity of a transgender individual is appropriately reflected on their death certificate.

Background

Birth Certificates: While many other states have simple administrative procedures that permit transgender people to amend the gender marker and/or name on their birth certificates, California still requires a lengthy, expensive, and burdensome process that includes a mandatory court petition as a prerequisite before the state’s Office of Vital Records will change the gender marker on a birth certificate. Adopting such an alternative administrative-only route would both streamline individuals’ access to corrected birth certificates and reduce the caseloads on overwhelmed courts.

Name Changes: Existing law requires the person seeking a name change to publish a notice in a newspaper for four weeks, which can be expensive and can put the safety and privacy of transgender people at risk. Existing law requires a hearing for name changes, but authorizes a court to grant a name change without a hearing if no one files a written objection within a specified amount of time.

This bill would require a court to grant a petition for a name change without a hearing if no one files an objection, rather than simply making the hearing optional for the court. The bill would also repeal the newspaper publication requirement and would make it possible to keep the person’s former name confidential when the name change is sought to conform the petitioner’s name to their gender identity.

Death Certificates: Under existing law, a state death certificate must include certain personal data about the deceased, including the person’s sex. This bill would clarify that the sex indicated on the death certificate should be the sex that corresponds to the person’s gender identity.

Life Drawing Project for Trans & Intersex People - All travel expenses refunded!

genderedintelligence:

image

Are you a trans or intersex person of any age (over 16) who would like to be involved in an exciting new life drawing project?

Gendered Intelligence has been awarded a £30,000 grant from the Wellcome Trust for “GI’s Anatomy” - a series of practical life drawing workshops with transgender and intersex participants exploring the science of non-normative sexed and gendered bodies through art.

The project will include:

  • A series of life drawing workshops drawing trans and intersex life models (no prior artistic experience necessary)
  • Presentations from professionals on medical practice around sex and gender, including Mr Nim Christopher (phalloplasty surgeon) and Dr Polly Carmichael (specialist in gender identity development and disorders of sex development (DSD))
  • Group discussions around the science of non-normative sexed and gendered bodies
  • Visits to galleries / art exhibitions to inspire our work

The work produced on the project will then be showcased at a number of exhibitions and online via social media.

We’re looking for two groups of people to participate:

  • 15 young trans and/or intersex people aged between 16-25
  • 15 trans and/or intersex people aged 26 and over

Sessions will run on 9th February, 16th February, 2nd March and 16th March in London. Participants should be available to attend most/all sessions.

We can refund your full travel costs to London to attend the sessions. (UK only).

If you would like to participate, please fill in this application form. Places may fill up quickly - get in touch with us ASAP if you want to take part!

[tw:transmisogyny] Teacher plays scene from Disney Movie to Humiliate Student in Class « Dented Blue Mercedes

dizzzynoodles:

warminvention:

polerin:

seraseatscissers:

wat

… fuck.

Navigating power imbalances as a trans woman in school is so fucked up.

WTF????

please tag things that involve transmisogyny. they are hella triggering for me, especially in this context of abusive teachers, which i experienced

(via quentinandrew-deactivated201303)

Source: girlslikeusnews

Controversial LGBT Couple Scout And Liz Margolies Marry To Create Example For LGBT Youth

[Trigger Warning: Cissexism, transphobia, some hate speech, talk of attempted suicide]

transqueery:

NEW YORK — The bride wore a sheer, white cotton sheath over a long-sleeved white dress that was once a Victorian nurse’s outfit; the groom, a vintage morning suit with a beaver top hat and grey spats.

At 11 a.m. Thursday, Scout, who legally goes by only one name, and Liz Margolies made it official in an old fur vault in Chelsea that will soon be renovated to become a new sanctuary for a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Jewish congregation. If their wedding attire seemed especially costumey, it was intended. Although only three guests were in attendance, the couple knew that many others were following their story.

Scout, a transgender man, proposed to Margolies, 59, who identifies as a lesbian, at a White House reception in honor of LGBT Pride Month in June. Living long-distance for now, both are lifelong lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender activists; Scout, 46, currently serves as the director of the Network for LGBT Health Equity at the Fenway Institute, while Margolies is the executive director of the National LGBT Cancer Network. A video of the proposal shows the crowd cheering as the couple embraces.

But after the video went viral, responses from conservative circles were considerably less warm. Conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham tweeted ”oh no.” The American Family Association’s Bryan Fisher mockingly chimed in with, “Woman who thinks she’s a man proposes to a woman who thinks she’s a woman at a White House reception.” Anonymous comments across the Internet were much worse; one particularly chilling comment (since removed) read: “They should be rounded up and killed.”

Those comments served as a reminder to the couple that although America has changed a lot in the last 40 years — the White House event was just one example — there are still pockets of the United States where it is not only illegal for gays and lesbians to marry, it is also impossible for them to enjoy the sense of security Scout and Margolies have found as adults.

In response, they both made videos that brought them even more attention. “For the people who titled the post, ‘She-Man Proposes To Girlfriend,’ we just want to note that I am actually not a superhero,” Scout says in his video segment.

In truth, both Scout and Margolies had mixed feelings about the institution of marriage. “As a second-wave feminist, I cannot shake my own view of it as a repressive institution,” Margolies said the night before the ceremony.

She called the fact that marriage equality has become the central symbol of the fight for gay rights, “a drain on our resources.” “It feels like aiming for the movable middle rather than trying to make profound changes. You can still be fired for being LGBT, and that seems more important. Scout and I share a belief that we need civil rights first.”

They didn’t invite their friends, their family, or the four children they have between them to their wedding; Margolies said her friends responded to their wedding plans with scorn and disbelief. But in the days after the public proposal, the couple realized the symbolic power their marriage could offer to young people.

Scout thought their marriage could inspire the LGBT youth who’d followed the story of their proposal, then were disheartened by the frightening backlash. So he and Margolies chose their witnesses carefully.

Melissa Harris-Perry, the MSNBC host, whom they met at the White House reception, signed the marriage contract, as did James Clementi, the gay older brother of Tyler Clementi, the gay college student who committed suicide after learning his roommate videotaped him kissing a man. In lieu of gifts, the couple requested donations to the Tyler Clementi Foundation, and the TPOCC, the Transgender People of Color Coalition.

And then there was the morning suit. “It’s just awful that people are wearing tuxedos during the daytime to get married these days,” Scout said, taking a jab at proponents of traditional marriage. “That’s the real problem that’s tearing the institution of marriage apart.”

At the wedding, Scout and Margolies stood underneath a rainbow-colored chuppah, and exchanged rings and vows before a lesbian rabbi.

“I promise that I know who you are and despite all protestations to the contrary, I am here by choice,” Margolies said during the ceremony.

Scout, who attempted suicide many times as a teenager and was committed to a mental institution at 18, began by recalling his youth. “By the time I came out as a teenager, I had long been taught that those like myself were broken,” he said. “I could not have been led more astray.”

Then came the actual vows: “I, Scout, for the life that courses through my veins and the love that resides in my heart, do vow to take you, Lisbeth Ann Margolies, as my chosen one.”

Then the rabbi produced a cloth filled with vintage forties Christmas lights, and Scout crushed them under his vintage heel.

“That was the most beautiful thing that I’ve ever seen in my life,” Clementi proclaimed, lifting a paper cup of scotch.

Harris-Perry, who talked about her own deep ambivalence toward the institution of marriage, said, “What we draw from you is that sense of, we’re going to keep wandering out into the unknown of the world and doing it alone and believing that love is stronger than hate.”

After the ceremony, over cinnamon-dusted yucca chips and wasabi-infused guacamole at an Asian-Mexican fusion restaurant in Chelsea, the conversation turned to their plans for later.

“Are you guys getting a hotel room tonight?” asked Clemente.

“We kicked Liz’s son out of the house,” said Scout. “The hotel won’t help with our favorite ritual: hot buttered popcorn.”

theaetherealmeadow:

(Trigger warning for discussion of non-consensual genital mutilation of intersex people, gender dysphoria, suicide)

This short documentary about intersex people beautifully demonstrates how the concept of assigning a biological sex at birth as either male or female is subjectively constructed and how it hurts people who are intersex and/or trans. For example, Kristi’s mom says how when Kristi was born, the doctor said, “Oh congrats, it’s a boy!”, and then the doctor changed their mind, and Kristi was assigned as a female at birth, purely on the doctor’s whim. Had it been a different doctor, Kristi could have ended up as a male assigned at birth person, and probably would have ended up with more masculine features as a result of being put on T instead of E as a teen, just like they did with Howard.

Radfems believe that birth assignment is to never be questioned, and that it is an immutable characteristic on which serves the basis to the person’s sex, and the basis on who is allowed in female only spaces and who isn’t. For both Kristi and Howard, their sex was constructed for them to fit the male/female sex binary. Howard had an obscene number of surgeries, and was put through all sorts of suffering, in order to fit the male part of the sex binary. Whereas Kristi was also pout through surgery, and was put on estrogen which has caused them to become suicidal because of the gender dysphoria that the hormones and surgery have caused. 

The difference between the surgery and hormones inflicted on intersex people like Kristi and Howard, and that which trans people undertake, is that for trans people, they do it because it is their choice. Whereas for intersex people, it’s done without their consent. When radfems would allow somebody like Kristi into a female only space on the basis of what was done to them without their consent, that ruined their life, but would not allow a trans woman into a female only space, basically the message that sends is that what the doctor forces on you without your consent, is more valid and more genuine than what you choose for yourself, based on what you feel is best for you. The belief that sex is immutable and that gender doesn’t exist is based on a viewpoint of dyadic (non-intersex) and cisgender privilege. Everybody has an inclination of what gender they feel like they are- as male, female, both, or neither. For somebody who is dyadic and cisgender, what the doctor choose for them is in line with their inclinations of what gender they are, and therefore their gender identity is invisible to them- everything in regards to their inclination of what gender they are matches what is forced on them by the doctor and society. That isn’t to say that gender role enforcement also doesn’t hurt dyadic, cis females- because it most certainly does via the effects of sexism. However, for someone who is intersex and/or trans, there is a disconnect between what the doctor chose for them, and their inclinations of what gender they are. Even though they are socialized as one gender, their inclinations override it completely. I don’t doubt that people’s gender identity is influenced by their socialization, however, the existence of trans people, and intersex people for whom what the doctor chose for them has caused them gender dysphoria, proves that people do actually have a psychological inclination of what gender they are, because of the deleterious effects that assigned the wrong sex and gender on somebody can have. Gender is indeed very real- but sex on the other hand, even though some aspects of sex, like genotype and gametes, are unchangable, many aspects of sex that relate to gender role enforcement (ie. genitals and secondary sex charcteristics) are actually constructed, and chosen for people by the doctor, based what surgeries, hormones, or lack thereof, the doctor decides for that person. People should have the right to choose their sex, based on what they feel is in line with their inclinations of what is right for their gender, not have it forced on them by a doctor. 

genderedintelligence: LGBT Youth Scotland’s Green Light Project have produced ‘A Coming Out Guide for Young Trans People’. The guide goes over various aspects of coming out as trans - who to come out to, how to come out, things to consider, and ways to deal with situations that may come up as a result. It’s a useful guide that will be a useful read for any young trans person thinking about coming out. A full list of resources for young trans people by other organisations, as well as those produced by Gendered Intelligence, can be found on our community resources page on our website.
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genderedintelligence:

LGBT Youth Scotland’s Green Light Project have produced ‘A Coming Out Guide for Young Trans People’.

The guide goes over various aspects of coming out as trans - who to come out to, how to come out, things to consider, and ways to deal with situations that may come up as a result. It’s a useful guide that will be a useful read for any young trans person thinking about coming out.

A full list of resources for young trans people by other organisations, as well as those produced by Gendered Intelligence, can be found on our community resources page on our website.

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