Melissa Harris-Perry discusses voter suppression, marriage
By Michael K. Lavers on September 26, 2012
http://www.washingtonblade.com/2012/09/26/melissa-harris-perry-discusses-voter-suppression-marriage/MSNBC anchor Melissa Harris-Perry stressed during an interview with the Washington Blade last week that voter suppression efforts continue to impact transgender Americans.
"They don't look like what their photo IDs are," she said from New Orleans. "So if they are self-presenting in front of an election official and they have an ID that says male or female and they're sort of gender self-presenting in a non-conforming way, of course you end up with the possibility of shame or embarrassment or not being believed to be who you are."
Harris-Perry had been scheduled to moderate a town hall on voter suppression and discrimination during the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's annual Legislative Conference at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in D.C. on Sept. 20, but she remained in New Orleans after Hurricane Isaac destroyed her home late last month. Harris-Perry further stressed that another problem for trans voters who have undergone sex-reassignment surgery face is they don't have birth certificates with names and gender markers that "are not informative of what their current life is."
