Canadian ID documents - Name and/or gender change.

[Violet Bloom]

  I've been thinking more and more about this lately after a couple of uncomfortable incidents where my legal identification was out of sync with my presentation.  It's a huge hassle though to go through all of these processes to change documents and on-file institutional data and I only want to do what makes sense.  I also don't want to get trapped in one of those catch-22's where changing them out of order prevents you from having the needed prerequisites for some of them.  I'm hoping some of you on here know of what the current requirements are for Ontario and Canada and can offer some advice.

  I'm actually not sure if I want to change my legal name.  This seems to be a bigger endeavor because it forces you to change absolutely everything.  Only my current middle name would raise red flags if I changed my gender marker alone.  If I don't bother with a name change then I need to figure out what documents I will actually change for gender only.  I don't want to go through that though if I might as well have changed my name while I was at it.

Here's what I figure I would or could change along with my current preference:

Ontario Driver's Licence - updated photo and gender marker
Ontario Health Card - I still have the good old red/white one and don't know if I need to change anything if I keep it.
Ontario Birth Certificate - Not sure I want or need to change it - Do I have to change it if I want to get an updated passport?
Canadian Passport - If I don't do a legal name change am I better off sticking with a male gender designation?
Bank Accounts - I've heard you have to close them all and open new ones if you change your name/gender.
Social Insurance Number and Income Tax files - How are these affected?
Employer and work-supplied health insurance - Does it matter if it's out of sync with either of them?
Pharmacy customer file - They use my preferred name already but I don't know if anything needs to change with them.

  Is there any other entity of concern that keeps a gender marker on file?  Do I need to change it at every hospital that has a patient file?  What order should I change documents in and how much really matters for everyday life?  What kind of issues am I going to run into one way or the other with customs/border agents, particularly if entering the USA?  Am I forgetting anything?  Is there a particular organization or lawyer with the special experience to advise on all of this?

[Stephanie G]

I wish I could help you, I havnt legally done all this yet, though I plan on changing my name in a couple months. I havn't really looked into getting the gender marker changed yet I was planning on doing that after surgury. Though since CAMH wait list is so stupidily long I dont have my first appointment with them till novemberish. Though anyways

I dont know about the old health card though I do know they are updating everyone slowly to the new one anyways.  Pharmacy you will need to change your name if you get it changed due to insurance claims. Also you would need to changed things with your insurance if your on odb or whathave you because the claim the pharmacy puts through has to match what the insurance has. Income tax youll have to call them to change everything, though the basis of getting all new id is your birth certificate, so you will deffinately need to change that. You need that to get your sin then health card drivers license etc. I do know something you forgot though, and thats the credit agencies, equifax etc.

[Violet Bloom]

I wish I could help you, I havent legally done all this yet, though I plan on changing my name in a couple months. I haven't really looked into getting the gender marker changed yet I was planning on doing that after surgery. Though since CAMH wait list is so stupidly long I dont have my first appointment with them till novemberish. Though anyways

I dont know about the old health card though I do know they are updating everyone slowly to the new one anyways.  Pharmacy you will need to change your name if you get it changed due to insurance claims. Also you would need to changed things with your insurance if your on odb or whathave you because the claim the pharmacy puts through has to match what the insurance has. Income tax you'll have to call them to change everything, though the basis of getting all new id is your birth certificate, so you will definitely need to change that. You need that to get your sin then health card drivers license etc. I do know something you forgot though, and thats the credit agencies, equifax etc.

  At least I know SRS is no-longer required for the Birth Certificate change.  I'm really glad I could avoid CAMH and I'm hoping if I eventually decide to have SRS that another facility will finally be granted permission to generate the OHIP approvals.  Anything I've been doing (outside of speech therapy) has been through Sherbourne Health Centre.

  I don't understand how they decide when it's your turn to switch to the new health card.  All four other people in my family had to do it many years ago.  I'd really hate to lose my old card just because I want to update personal information that isn't even printed on it.

  From what I've read on current policy you actually don't have to have an updated birth certificate in order to change the sex designation on your driver's license.  Since the Ontario driver's license doesn't show a middle name I might go ahead and just change the sex designation on it when I get a new photo taken.  It's better than nothing and doesn't prevent me changing the legal name later on.  On that note, if you do a legal name change they automatically re-issue your birth certificate.

  Thanks for the reply.  It's helping me think this through and plan properly.  While digging around I found a few more things affected - Vehicle registration, the Ontario Outdoors Card, and likely my boating license.  I'd also been considering applying for a gun license but I'm most definitely going to put off that whole process until all of my other identification changes are settled.

[Stephanie G]

Apparently it just goes by the numbers on the card or something like that everyone is going to lose it its just a matter of time. At least that's what the receptionist at my doctor's office said. So you can change the sex designation on your driver's licence pre-op? is it just that or can you do other id as well like birth certificate?
Even though the names might not show up on the card they will still most likely have it in the system.
I was actually wanting to get an appointment at sherbourne for counselling, right now I literally see noone. Though the wait list I heard is pretty lengthy for that as well. Ya camh :S its rediculous that the government only approves them, they are basically bottlenecking the number of people that can go through. Makes me wonder if they are doing it that way to control yearly costs. I applied to camh back in sept 2013, and then had some issues so didn't get on the waiting list till like February 2014, then my first appointment is not till november. Then have to get approved and then wait for ohip funding letter, and then book my surgury x months out. I think brassard is something like 6 months or something like that. So the earliest I am looking at is like September 2016, so 3 years from when i applied to them.

[Violet Bloom]

  Apparently it just goes by the numbers on the card or something like that everyone is going to lose it its just a matter of time. At least that's what the receptionist at my doctor's office said. So you can change the sex designation on your driver's licence pre-op? is it just that or can you do other id as well like birth certificate?
Even though the names might not show up on the card they will still most likely have it in the system.
I was actually wanting to get an appointment at sherbourne for counselling, right now I literally see noone. Though the wait list I heard is pretty lengthy for that as well. Ya camh :S its rediculous that the government only approves them, they are basically bottlenecking the number of people that can go through. Makes me wonder if they are doing it that way to control yearly costs. I applied to camh back in sept 2013, and then had some issues so didn't get on the waiting list till like February 2014, then my first appointment is not till november. Then have to get approved and then wait for ohip funding letter, and then book my surgury x months out. I think brassard is something like 6 months or something like that. So the earliest I am looking at is like September 2016, so 3 years from when i applied to them.

  AFAIK you no-longer require surgery in order to change any Ontario documentation as long as you were born here.  What's silly is that you can't change you sex and legal name at the same time - you have to use two different sets of forms.  What isn't clear is if you are going to end up having your birth certificate reissued twice by doing both.

  I had to wait quite a while initially to get a family doctor at Sherbourne.  It would have been another long wait after that for counseling but neither I nor my doctor deemed that necessary.  Speech therapy at St. Micheal's Hospital was also a long waiting list.  The entire system of trans medicine is hopelessly overloaded and bogged down.  The whole thing with CAMH seems to be more about weird political power connections than intentional stalling.  There seems to be a whole lot of ego involved.  It probably also has a lot to do with why they were allowed to continue horrible and damaging practices for so long, ie. reparative therapy.  It was clearly established during the political debates about restoring SRS coverage (after it had been suspended purely for ideological reasons) that the few people getting approved per year and the associated costs represented a microscopic fraction of the annual health care budget.  Even if another facility does get the 'blessing' of the government it will still mean a very small number of annual approvals for funded SRS and will continue to fall dramatically behind demand.  This may end up becoming another civil rights battle.

  Transition certainly feels like a career!

[Stephanie G]

  AFAIK you no-longer require surgery in order to change any Ontario documentation as long as you were born here.  What's silly is that you can't change you sex and legal name at the same time - you have to use two different sets of forms.  What isn't clear is if you are going to end up having your birth certificate reissued twice by doing both.

  I had to wait quite a while initially to get a family doctor at Sherbourne.  It would have been another long wait after that for counseling but neither I nor my doctor deemed that necessary.  Speech therapy at St. Micheal's Hospital was also a long waiting list.  The entire system of trans medicine is hopelessly overloaded and bogged down.  The whole thing with CAMH seems to be more about weird political power connections than intentional stalling.  There seems to be a whole lot of ego involved.  It probably also has a lot to do with why they were allowed to continue horrible and damaging practices for so long, ie. reparative therapy.  It was clearly established during the political debates about restoring SRS coverage (after it had been suspended purely for ideological reasons) that the few people getting approved per year and the associated costs represented a microscopic fraction of the annual health care budget.  Even if another facility does get the 'blessing' of the government it will still mean a very small number of annual approvals for funded SRS and will continue to fall dramatically behind demand.  This may end up becoming another civil rights battle.

  Transition certainly feels like a career!

ya it really does lol :S. Wait they have speech therapy you can get in Toronto covered? If you can give me the information for this and how long the wait list is I would appreciate it . Whatever the reason it is just plain ridiculous, they are stalling intentionally or otherwise medical services for a group which has one of the highest suicide rates.

[Violet Bloom]

ya it really does lol :S. Wait they have speech therapy you can get in Toronto covered? If you can give me the information for this and how long the wait list is I would appreciate it . Whatever the reason it is just plain ridiculous, they are stalling intentionally or otherwise medical services for a group which has one of the highest suicide rates.

  To clarify, my speech therapy is being covered almost entirely by my employer's health plan (same with my meds).  There's only two non-private trans speech therapy programs operating at the moment - one at Mt. Sinai and the other at St. Mike's.  At the time I was looking, Mt. Sinai was so backlogged they weren't even taking waiting list names.  I couldn't be any happier at St. Mike's though and would highly recommend them.

  Sooner or later I think the government is going to get their hand forced on the medical coverage issue by sheer volume of demand.  It's not just the suicide rates, the trans community also has a disproportionate number of people living in poverty or homeless, particularly in Toronto.

[Stephanie G]

  To clarify, my speech therapy is being covered almost entirely by my employer's health plan (same with my meds).  There's only two non-private trans speech therapy programs operating at the moment - one at Mt. Sinai and the other at St. Mike's.  At the time I was looking, Mt. Sinai was so backlogged they weren't even taking waiting list names.  I couldn't be any happier at St. Mike's though and would highly recommend them.

  Sooner or later I think the government is going to get their hand forced on the medical coverage issue by sheer volume of demand.  It's not just the suicide rates, the trans community also has a disproportionate number of people living in poverty or homeless, particularly in Toronto.

so then st. mikes speech program isnt covered then? well thanks anyways, and ya i know about the low income thing im in toronto and I guess right now im one of those statitics