With an increasing number of requests from transgender residents to change their gender on their drivers’ licenses, the New Mexico Motor Vehicles Division had this novel idea: create a new form to make it easier. Last month, they created one, and “[i]n doing so, the MVD clarified that gender surgery is not a requirement for a person seeking to change their gender. All that is required is the signature of a medical provider or clinician, stating their opinion that the person will not change their gender again in the foreseeable future.” So don’t go halfway on this, ya heard? Also, this should make admission to ladies’ night a much smoother endeavor.
EARLIER:
Transgender Women No Longer Need to Have Their Penises Turned Into Vaginas to Get a Lady Passport
Fitz
I can’t think of any valid reason why any state’s DMV should oppose stating someone’s gender as whatever they declare.
S
Precisely WHY does a driver’s license with a photograph need a sex marker at all?
Ash
That’s good great news!
@S: And, yeah, I kinda wonder why, too.
Hyhybt
@S: The same reason it includes eye color, hair color, and weight.
Melissa
I can’t see why sex markers are important to the state in the first place. I also can’t see why it matters that it won’t change again “in the foreseeable future”. Identity may change, and that doesn’t make any identity invalid. If someone once identified as male, but now identifies as female, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they were wrong about their male identity. No, they could have really been male, and now they are really female. These things aren’t simple, and shouldn’t require a medical signature.
Melissa
@Hyhybt: There’s a difference between eye color and sex. Sex is an identity. There’s not much that actually separates the sexes and genders. You can look in someone’s eyes and know the color they are. Eye color doesn’t often change. It is nearly impossible to know someone’s sex 100% positively, whether it be their biological sex or their sex identity.
Hyhybt
“I can’t see why sex markers are important to the state in the first place.”
Because, imperfect though it may be, it *is* a legitimate part of giving a physical description of someone.
“I also can’t see why it matters that it won’t change again ‘in the foreseeable future’.”
To stop those who are unsure or in-between in their identity, along with possibly those trying to hide their identity for some reason, from having their ID changed back and forth repeatedly.
“These things aren’t simple, and shouldn’t require a medical signature.”
The medical signature goes with the other, to verify that it’s not just something you’re doing on a whim or for dishonest purposes, in much the same way that you have to get a judge to sign off on a legal name change.