How Voter ID Laws Impact Trans People--And Potentially Anyone!

 

I gave a briefing today to the Congressional Progressive Caucus on barriers to voting for LGBTQIA+ Americans. And I want to share these two maps.

The map in shades of red and pink shows voter ID laws. The states in the darkest two colors require photo ID.

The map in blue and tan shows states in which it is impossible (darkest blue) or extremely difficult (medium blue) for someone to change the gender marker on a driver's license or voting ID.

Note the very close relationship between the states that require photo ID to vote and those in which most or all trans residents will have a photo ID with a gender marker that doesn't match their lived gender. This puts them at risk of being harassed when they go to vote, and accused of voter fraud. Trans people therefore experience disfranchisement and the risk of prosecution when trying to vote in these states.

But it's not just trans people at risk. Cis lesbians and gay men who are gendertransgressive have long faced harassment, but can now be accused of being trans and of having a fraudulent ID. And cis straight people are at risk as well! If you've ever run into the "transvestigator community" online, you'll have seen that people who are deeply invested in gender policing seem to believe half of the population is secretly trans. Pope Leo is supposedly trans because he has a narrow jaw, revealing a "female skull!" Michele Obama is supposedly trans because she has "male shoulders!"

Many cis people may think that the laws and procedures that make it unsafe for trans people to show up at polling places will only impact a small number of people. Democratic politicians may not be talking about the disfranchisement of trans people because they think the number of transphobes is greater than the number of trans allies, so it's politically unwise to spend political capital on a small number of trans voters.

But this is wrong on two levels. One, on the level of civics and ethics: every American deserves their right to vote! But secondly, on the pragmatic level. The point of voter ID laws is intimidation and disfranchisement. To make every person of color with a non-Anglo last name fear they'll be accused of being "an illegal" at the polls, for example. And to put anyone who is not a walking gender stereotype at risk of being accused of having a fraudulent ID with the "wrong" gender marker on it--if the poll worker or some poll observer wants to harass them and deter or prevent them from voting.

This is an issue I think should be on everyone's radars.

On the Flood of Wokeface Transphobic Comments

 

Kansas Passes Law Legally Detransitioning Trans People in the State

 

John Hanna/ AP Images

You know, what they do to us, they can do to any group of Americans. . . all who read this included. 

The Kansas legislature has a Republican supermajority. They passed, over the governor's veto, a law that gender cannot be changed, and thus gender markers on a Kansas license or birth certificate cannot be changed. Anyone who had already gone through the long, expensive, arduous legal process of gender transition on their documents? Those were declared instantaneously invalidated when the law went into effect on February 26th. All trans people in Kansas are required to go get new drivers' licenses on which they are forcibly detransitioned by the state--oh, and you can't even drive to the DMV to get and pay for this license. Anyone caught driving while trans will be fined $1000 and subject to six months in jail for each "offense".

When you think about a driver's license, perhaps driving is the only activity that comes to mind for which you need one. Or perhaps buying a six-pack of beer or going to a club also come to mind. But such a list is missing two huge consequences of this Kansas law. In the US, you need a valid state ID to pick up a range of prescriptions, including pain medications, sleep medications--and testosterone, which so many transmasculine people are prescribed, myself included. So people are suddenly cut off from their gender-affirming medical care. And another major issue: Kansas is one of 38 states that require a valid photo ID both to register to vote, and to cast a vote once registered. Kansas has gone and disfranchised the 1700 trans people it has identified as having legally gender transitioned in Kansas. 

The law does more than impact birth certificates and drivers' licenses, as well. It's now a crime in Kansas to use a public bathroom matching your lived gender if that gender doesn't match the binary sex you were assigned at birth. Again, a $1000 fine per violation--only this time, any person who reports a trans person for using a bathroom gets $1000 too. 

As immigrants and family members of immigrants and people who are simply brown in the US can tell you, a disturbing percentage of the people around you are delighted to participate in persecuting their neighbors. Perhaps you saw how comedian Ben Palmer set up a fake tipline to report suspected undocumented immigrants, and got a pile of reports, including one by a kindergarten teacher who suspected a child's parents were not citizens and wanted them deported, and a woman outraged that a store employee who correctly helped her find the product she wanted "didn't speak English" seeking her deportation for that "crime." I have friends whose children have been threatened by classmates that they will get them deported if they don't hand over their snack or lose the schoolyard ballgame. And meanwhile, the president is seeking to end birthright citizenship and do the equivalent of detransitioning swaths of American citizens into noncitizens at a stroke.

People tell me this will never happen. People also told me no state would ever invalidate the gender transitions of everyone in it. And then this week Kansas did, and put it into effect overnight.

Perhaps you are neither brown nor trans. But what can happen to us can happen to any group. For your own sake as well as ours, please don't ostrich. Keeping your head down does not keep you safe for long. Stand up! Object. Resist.