Susan's Place Transgender Resources

I'm getting to an age where it's downright embarrassing that I can't drive because I never learned how.

I have:

Had my name legally changed
Updated my state ID to have the new name (but it still says "F")
Not done anything with my birth certificate (still has birth name and "F")
A letter from the surgeon I went to, which was useful in obtaining
A passport with an "M" on it.

This is a mess. It seems like at this point, depending on which proofs of identity I brought with me, they would put me down as F or M on the learner's permit and eventual driver's license - passport and SS card for M, or birth certificate, court order of name change, and SS card for F.

Setting aside legality for a second (because I don't know how it works).
If it says M, it won't out me in situations where the learner's permit/driver's license is needed rather than a passport card.
But it seems like it could screw me over insurance-wise.

If it says F, it won't screw me over insurance-wise.
But it would potentially out me every time I needed to show the card, unless I could successfully play it off like it was a stupid DMV mistake, or the person simply isn't paying attention.

So, questions.

1. Legally, what am I supposed to do? Surely I "have" to do this one way or the other.

2. If I am in fact in a bizarre legal zone here where I could have either marker on the card, what's the smart way to handle this? I want it to say M, but don't want to shoot myself in the foot here.

If you're over 25 it shouldn't matter for insurance purposes.

I'd go for the M, plus it's way easier to go in with your passport and/or SS card than a handful of other documents.

When I first got my permit, it had no photo and was marked "not valid for ID" because of documentation issues... still had an F on it though.

It seems to me that the smart way to do this is the way that, in legal terms, is in line with where you're going.

How are you "screwed over" by having to pay the insurance rates applied to your actual gender? Given that you're a guy, I don't see how you can justify playing a sort of situational "female card" in order to get lower rates. I also wonder whether if you did that, you might be setting yourself up for hassles with the insurance company down the road, on the basis that you weren't honest about your gender. It would suck to be accused of fraud and not be able to get insurance at all.

I know that seems a bit extreme, but... insurance companies. (https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fthefiringline.com%2Fforums%2Fimages%2Fsmilies%2Fmad.gif&hash=2be79bb1f4e13f48d20ed360196901bfeedb60c3)

It depends on your state. Texas for example requires the gender to be changed on the birth certificate before applying the change to your permit/license. Or a court order which orders the gender change.

Quite frankly no one notices the gender markers. I know I don't look and none of my coworkers do and we see between 5 and 8 permits a day 7 days a week at work hah. There comes a point in time when you don't care. You look at the dates, the name and that's about it. And in our cases the restrictions.

As far as the insurance goes they will use the federally recognized gender I believe. You might give them a ring and ask.

I changed from female to male on my insurance and my rates didn't change. They didn't care other then asking for a copy of my DL to confirm the change. They just needed the record straight in the event I get pulled over and the cop runs the insurance and registration.

For the record, by insurance I meant health, not driving. Referring to the common recommendation not to get in a hurry to change everything to an "M", because in the event of needing a hysterectomy, that "M" suddenly raises red flags. I'm not sure at what point in all this I'll be legally required to change things over with health insurance, or if that's even a thing. Sorry I wasn't clear on that before, this legal crap gives me brain failure.

My number one concern in all this is avoiding accidentally committing some kind of fraud.

Quote from: Sebryn on October 25, 2014, 06:34:22 PM
It depends on your state. Texas for example requires the gender to be changed on the birth certificate before applying the change to your permit/license. Or a court order which orders the gender change.

Alright, this is precisely the kind of information I needed. Thanks. I'll start looking up info for my state specifically.

Quote from: Sebryn on October 25, 2014, 06:34:22 PM
Quite frankly no one notices the gender markers. I know I don't look and none of my coworkers do and we see between 5 and 8 permits a day 7 days a week at work hah. There comes a point in time when you don't care. You look at the dates, the name and that's about it. And in our cases the restrictions.

This blows my mind. There's only so much information on those little cards, I'd expect at least peripheral vision to pick it up.

Quote from: blinkFor the record, by insurance I meant health, not driving. Referring to the common recommendation not to get in a hurry to change everything to an "M", because in the event of needing a hysterectomy, that "M" suddenly raises red flags. I'm not sure at what point in all this I'll be legally required to change things over with health insurance, or if that's even a thing. Sorry I wasn't clear on that before, this legal crap gives me brain failure.

Thanks for clearing that up... I worry about the health insurance thing, too.  The trouble with all this stuff is that there aren't, mostly, explicit legal requirements -- just the rules the insurance companies decide to put in place.

Quote from: Tysilio on October 26, 2014, 10:10:56 AM
Thanks for clearing that up... I worry about the health insurance thing, too.  The trouble with all this stuff is that there aren't, mostly, explicit legal requirements -- just the rules the insurance companies decide to put in place. (https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fthefiringline.com%2Fforums%2Fimages%2Fsmilies%2Fmad.gif&hash=2be79bb1f4e13f48d20ed360196901bfeedb60c3)

Found a couple of links that might be useful to anybody else in a similar situation.

http://transequality.org/Resources/DL/DL_policies_text.html

And according to this:
http://www.transequality.org/Resources/SSAResource_June2013.pdf
For someone on Medicaid or Medicare, gender information is linked to SSA records. Useful to know if one falls under one of those categories.

"An exception is that if a person is enrolled in Medicare, or is enrolled in both the Medicaid and Supplemental
Security Income (SSI) programs, their insurance record will be based Social Security data. In that case, they
may experience automatic refusals for coverage of services that appear inconsistent with a gender marker in
Social Security records. These automatic rules were developed as a means to prevent erroneous or fraudulent
billing, with the unintended consequence of sometimes affecting trans people. (This can happen with private
insurance too, but that will be based on the gender in plan records, not Social Security records.) These types
of denials can usually be resolved by having your provider's office either add a specific billing code, contact the
plan, or help you request a formal coverage determination."

Trying to wrap my head around whether it's legal to change state ID gender marker but postpone changing it with the SSA, or if that's even possible.
I'll contact a trans-specific legal advice group and see what they say.

So, from what you've poste, it sounds like (government-based) insurance records do not base your gender on your state ID. So you could probably get your M on that even if you wanted to keep the F elsewhere... if you have the right combination of documents for your insurance company. Which of course goes back to your concern over being accused of fraud...

Also, as someone who has sold alcohol for several years, I want to second the "no one checks gender" thing. I think I noticed someone's gender marker once, maybe? Like, because they had the exact same birthday as me and "oh hey, you got a F in sex, too." Or something like that, where I was paying way more attention than usual.

The first time I bought alcohol when I was in the "androgynous phase" (on T but not being read reliably yet), I was scrutinized very carefully by a suspicious liquor store owner. He clearly wasn't happy with what he was seeing--an androgynous me, a male name on the DL, a 1960s birth date, and the big F for a gender marker. He looked at the ID, looked at me, looked back at the ID and really studied it, looked back at me . . .

I didn't look very old for a guy, I guess. I was in my forties, but I had no gray and no wrinkles, and people had always told me that I looked at least ten years younger than I was--even pretransition. And women or transitioning trans men look even younger when they are read as male.

I'm pretty sure that my androgynous presentation caused him to read every scrap of my DL's information, including the gender marker. But I sure as heck wasn't going to ask.

I bought liquor a couple of other times during this phase and had no trouble at other stores. 

Blink, what exactly is your insurance situation?

I believe private insurance goes off of your birth certificate? At least that's what mine did. They didn't want the court order, DL, or SS card....they wanted a certified copy of my birth certificate before they changed their records. It might vary?

Personally I got all that....inner workings....taken care of before I changed my gende legally for this very reason. To avoid fraud accusations.

You might look into an insurance company/plan which will give you coverage for trans related operations and then your worries would be moot wouldn't they?

Aetna seems to have some good plans that are trans inclusive.

Edit: I just wanted to add that people really don't notice the gender marker. I just remembered that when I was going through TSA security pre legal gender marker change when flying that I've always been patted down and what not by a male and been refered to as male by the agents....including the ID checker. So basically what I'm getting at is the people who you show your DL/ID to see so many they don't really look at that small detail when there are other more important details like the picture, DOB, expiration and name. It kind of gets lost in the jumble.

Quote from: pianoforte on October 26, 2014, 03:22:16 PM
"oh hey, you got a F in sex, too."

Ha!
Yeah, the biggest issue is making sure I don't screw up and commit fraud somehow. Don't want to go to prison for not understanding how this jumble of crap should work.

Second biggest issue is trying to avoid other problems. My biggest concern with having a learner's permit or driver's license with an F on it would be potentially being pulled over by a cop with something against trans folks. I can use my passport card as a form of ID for other situations, such as job applications, without being outed.

Quote from: Arch on October 26, 2014, 03:35:40 PM
Blink, what exactly is your insurance situation?

Thanks for detailing your experience, Arch. I've suspected if someone did notice the "discrepancy" it would go something like you described.

I'm on my state's version of Medicaid for people with low income. They draw their gender information from SSA records, apparently. When I had to change my name over with them, the case worker commented he didn't know if it was even possible to change the gender marker in their system. At that time I had no way of doing a legal marker change anyway and told him so. Now it's more complicated.

Quote from: Sebryn on October 26, 2014, 10:06:16 PM
I believe private insurance goes off of your birth certificate? At least that's what mine did. They didn't want the court order, DL, or SS card....they wanted a certified copy of my birth certificate before they changed their records. It might vary?

Personally I got all that....inner workings....taken care of before I changed my gende legally for this very reason. To avoid fraud accusations.

Interesting. Given my birth state's current laws getting that changed could be difficult or impossible. Not something I can tackle right now in any case.

I'd prefer to get the mismatched plumbing yanked, but it's not an option right now. This state's Medicaid plan only covers that in the event of a serious health issue with it, not for cancer-preventative or contraceptive purposes, and I lack the financial means to pay for it myself or switch to a private insurance right now.

This is such a PITA it's tempting to put pursuing a learner's permit off even further until I can afford to not be on Medicaid, but that's a stupid idea since I don't know when that'll be. And being able to drive would open up opportunities.

I didn't have to change my gender marker with my insurance. After the divorce, I lost my insurance, and by the time I was insured again, I had changed all of my markers. I changed my gender with my job, and when I was eligible for insurance, I was simply reported as male.

I did need to change my marker with the health care provider; that was facilitated by my doctor, and I didn't need any documentation.

I'm pretty sure that state insurance will be pickier, though.

My state allows people to change the gender marker on a DL with a special form, and the transition does not need to be completed unless the person wants a permanent change. I have friends who have M on the DL and F with SSA.

Quote from: Arch on November 24, 2014, 01:26:52 AM
I have friends who have M on the DL and F with SSA.

Awesome. This is specifically what I needed to know, whether it would be ok to get an M on the DL but not change over with SSA just yet (since, at the moment, that could potentially screw me over in a few ways). Thank you, Arch!

I am sort of in the same boat when comes to insurance.  I am changing my legal gender to female on everything but then comes the question of insurance.  I am putting female when I apply for my new insurance next year.

I also have M on my ID and everything else has F.

Quote from: makipu on November 24, 2014, 10:33:30 AM
I also have M on my ID and everything else has F.

Me too. I'm trying to change my name, at least, with the SSA but it's all so confusing. . .

Quote from: evan114 on November 24, 2014, 11:07:19 AM
Me too. I'm trying to change my name, at least, with the SSA but it's all so confusing. . .

Changing your name with SSA is simple.  You can just download the form online, mail it to them along with your court documents, and within few days they mail you a new card.  You can also go to their office to get it handled more quickly, so you can go to the DMV to have your name changed.

Quote from: evan114 on November 24, 2014, 11:07:19 AM
Me too. I'm trying to change my name, at least, with the SSA but it's all so confusing. . .

Hi Evan, do you or did you ever run into any problems with doctors with one saying M and the other F?