BBC News Magazine


Transgender Americans take on New York


By Daniel Nasaw BBC News Magazine, New York | 4 January 2012 Last updated at 23:15 ET

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15642294


Joann Prinzivalli's birth certificate lists her as male; She says she is female

A group of transgender men and women want New York City to make it easier to change the "M" or "F" on their birth certificates. What makes a man or a woman, and why do governments care?

In the annals of unhappy encounters with driving licence authority officials, Patricia Harrington's and Joann Prinzivalli's seem particularly miserable.

Both had been living as women for years, but still carried birth certificates showing the sex they were designated at birth - male.