Quote from: pixiegirl on June 01, 2011, 10:53:02 AM
The thing is, on most forms of identification it's utterly extraneous nowadays. Gender markers on things like passports or drivers licences were useful and necessary back before photographs. Now with photo and biometric ID, it's a pointless category on pretty much anything other than a birth cert. Need a gender marker on your social security file? Nope. Need it on drivers license? Nope. Need it on a passport? Nope. It's unnecessary.
Beyond that, people are going to judge you on how you look. But there is no necessity to carrying around a piece of paper with an M or F on it.
Exactly. Legal gender markers are never used for identification of cisgendered people, but are only used to harass non-cisgendered people. Appearance and presentation are applicable for physical and social identification, but having SRS does not outwardly change this (most people aren't checking your pants). While it is relatively accessible to change a US passport (with the major barriers of the binary-biased DSM, inhibitory costs of gender therapy, regionally variable availability of therapists, and medical contraindications with HRT), having conflicting documents brings harassment. Changing birth certificates, driver's licenses, and other legal documents are all governed by different bureaucratic agency policies, which vary state to state, sometimes with overlapping and ambiguous jurisdiction. For instance, in Ohio, no matter what I do, I can never change by birth certificate, but if I jump through the right hoops I can change my driver's licence. But I was born on a US military base, and so the rules are governed by the state of Ohio as well as the federal government. It's never simple in the US. There are no clear-cut "laws" governing these issues, but there are policies of agencies, of cities, of townships, of counties, of states, of federal agencies, and ever-changing case law.
In terms of gender-designated space, suspect activity should be grounds for removal, not an inability to urinate standing up, for example. If someone is being creepy, disruptive, or harassing people in a bathroom, kick them out, and the private owner of the restroom or patrons who were harassed (or both) can press charges if they choose to, or take non-legal action (banned from the facility etc). But forcing a non-op transman to use the women's restroom because they have not had either the privilege or the desire to have bottom surgery doesn't make sense. Some policies guiding gender recognition for transmen include having a metoidioplasty with urethral extensions (a surgery with higher costs and more complications). Basically, transmen are denied recognition in some jurisdictions because they cannot urinate standing up without artificial assistance. Why bathroom habits are basis for gender recognition, I will never understand, but it does not surprise me as long as the state polices bodies and identities.
