Tag: identification

The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law has released a new study, this time concerning the affects of Voter ID.  The Potential Impact of Voter Identification Laws on Transgender Voters in 2014 General Election, written by Jody Herman, concludes that there could be over 24000 eligible transgender voters across ten states who will not be able to vote because of Voter ID laws.  

The Institute finds that there are approximately 84000 eligible transgender voters in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Virginia, and Wisconsin.  All those states have photo voter ID laws except Wisconsin…which might have one come election time.  The study estimates that 28% of those eligible voters do not have valid photo ID that reflects their gender and name sufficient to the standards of the laws.  

Lawmakers should not overlook the consequences of enacting stricter voter ID laws on transgender voters.  Election officials must consider the potential impact of these laws in the upcoming November elections.  Voter ID laws create a unique barrier for transgender people who would otherwise be eligible to vote.

–Herman

Alessandra Bernaroli has been battling with the Italian government for the past five years to keep her legal marriage in tact.

When I was small I liked to play with little girls, I was looking to understand their femininity.  I dreamed of becoming a woman but I had no idea what trans-sexuality was.

—Bernaroli

The 43-year-old bank employee from Bologna was living as a male when she met her wife in the mid-1990s.  The couple wed in 2005.  It was only after the marriage that Alessandra exposed her transgender feelings to her spouse.

I hid my inner torment from my wife but I felt trapped in a prison, in a body that had become an enemy to me.  I suffocated my true identity.

–Bernaroli

After Bernaroli came out to her wife, her wife agreed to stand by her throughout the process.  Alessandra underwent a series of operations in Thailand in 2009.

When they returned to Italy and sought to update their national identity cards, they were informed that they would no longer be classified as married.

Idaho’s transportation department has made the surprising decision (because this is, after all, Idaho) to amend its policy on driver’s licenses to allow transgender people to change the sex designation on their licenses without confirmation from a surgeon that they have had sex reassignment surgery.

The ACLU of Idaho had expressed concern in support of two transgender Idaho residents who had changed the sex designation to match their gender identities only to have the state turn around and cancel their licenses when it was realized that proof of surgery had not been provided.  ACLU of Idaho Executive Director Monica Hopkins said the state “did the right thing in updating its policy.”

From our standpoint, [the] surgical reassignment is not necessary to operate a motor vehicle on the highway.

—Hopkins