Quick Hit: Changing Driver’s License Gender Markers, Coming Soon?

La edición actual de MOVIMIENTO, a magazine for the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA), includes extensive coverage of issues transgender people face with identification cards. The article “Transgender Drivers: New Norms in Customer Service,” encourages DMV staff in all states to reflect on their treatment of transgender people and sets a positive tone for transgender people in their service offices:

The notion that a person believes the sex assigned at birth is an inadequate description or application of their gender may conflict with the DMV staffs’ personal, political or religious beliefs. As public servants, personal feelings or bias cannot interfere with quality customer service extended to those we serve. When there are fewer facts known and agreed upon, there is greater controversy; where there are more facts known and agreed upon, controversy diminishes. Perhaps no greater place is this felt than in the transgender community.

The National Center for Transgender Equality is pleased by AAMVA’s willingness to learn and teach on transgender issues. In early August, NCTE and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force will join AAMVA and motor vehicle agencies from around the country to review best practices around driver’s license gender change policies. This movement comes on the heels of the U.S. State Department’s recent actualización to their gender marker change policies for passports and Consular Reports of Births Abroad. Over recent years, many states have already taken action on gender marker changes, and if other DMV’s pursue these policy changes, it may mark a turning point for the security and privacy of transgender people. Read the full MOVIMIENTO revista esta página. The Article begins on page 38.