Transgender disenfranchisement in the United States

Transgender disenfranchisement refers to the bureaucratic, institutional and social barriers that prevent transgender individuals from voting or participating in other aspects of civic life.

Transgender individuals have a wide range of gender identities and their identities and behaviors can fall outside of gender norms.[1] Many policies in the United States were enacted at a time when the understanding of "gender reassignment" was that, in order for a transition from one gender to the other to be considered complete, the transgender individual had to undergo sex reassignment surgery. However, modern health experts' current understanding of gender transitions is that transitions are an individualized process that can involve a variety of steps, sometimes involving surgery, but often not.[2] Often, a transgender person will have legal identification that represents the gender they were assigned at birth regardless of whether that is the gender they accept as their own.

Discrimination associated with identity documents

The National Gay and Lesbian Taskforces' 2011 National Transgender Discrimination Survey states that, of the people who identify as transgender, only 21% have been able to update all of their IDs and records with their correct gender. Some 33% have not updated any of their IDs or records.[3] A number of obstacles, from bureaucratic to social, make it updating identification documents difficult.

Utility bill

In accordance with the Help America Vote Act, some states allow voters to use two forms of identification that only list name and address, such as a utility bill.[4] While this generally alleviates the issue of having to change one’s gender on a document, it poses another issue as the transgender community struggles with the homelessness of many of its members. In 2011, many transgender individuals reported various forms of direct housing discrimination as 19% claimed that they had been refused a home or apartment and 11% claimed that they had been evicted simply due to their gender identity or expression. Additionally, there is no Federal protection against employment discrimination for transgender people, and transgender individuals who had lost their job due to discrimination in the workplace were four times more likely to be homeless than those who were able to maintain their jobs.[5]

Birth certificate

While birth certificates can be used as voter identification in non-photo identification states, birth certificate laws are established at the state level and commonly require that the individual undergo surgery in order for the gender on the document to be updated. Some states even make it mandatory that transgender people acquire a court order in order to change the gender on their birth certificate which presents even more financial obstacles.[5]

The first case to dealing with legal recognition of transgender identity in the United States was In re Anonymous v. Weiner[6] in 1966.[7] A post-operative male-to-female trans woman applied for a change of sex on her birth certificate through the Bureau of Vital Statistics in the New York City Health Department. The Bureau turned to the Board of Health who then called on a committee on public health of the New York Academy of Medicine to make a recommendation. The application was ultimately denied and the Board of Health stated that "an individual born one sex cannot be changed for the reasons proposed by the request which was made to us. Sex can be changed where there is an error, of course, but not when there is a later attempt to change psychological orientation of the patient and including such surgery as goes with it."[8]

Today over twenty-five percent of the states in America still require that an individual undergo invasive, potentially sterilizing, reassignment surgery to augment their sex parts to more closely resemble the normative configuration of the gender with which they wish to identify.[9] Transgendered persons are twice as likely to be unemployed. In a recent poll, nine out of ten transgendered respondents reported being sexually harassed in their workplace. Laws that refuse to recognize a person’s chosen gender identity create the conditions for social discrimination.

Potential obstacles to voting

It is estimated that by requiring voters to present a government issued photo ID at the polls, over 25,000 transgender people in these states would face substantial barriers and be disenfranchised from voting in the November 2012 election.

A report issued by the Williams Institute estimated the total transgender voting-eligible population for these states by multiplying the current population of each state by .3%, which is the percentage of the adult population that is estimated to identify as transgender in the United States.

The report then accounted for ineligible transgender citizens whose voting rights are restricted due to having ever been convicted of a felony. It is estimated that there are 88,000 eligible transgender voters in these nine strict photo ID states, however approximately 25,000 do not have identification or records that reflect their gender and therefore may be disenfranchised in the coming elections.

In nine states, transgender voters who present as a gender opposite the sex listed on their ID will be required to present this ID in order to vote. At that point, it is up to the discretion of the poll workers and election officials to decide whether or not the presented ID matches the voter, which can result in allegations of voter fraud or the vote not being counted.[10]

Because the issue of transgender voter disenfranchisement has not been explicitly addressed in any court cases since strict voter registration laws have been in place, it is unlikely that these workers will have any training on how to accommodate these individuals and can decide that a transgender person is not who they say they are simply because the sex on their ID does not match the gender that they are presenting themselves as. In this situation, the individual will have to vote on a provisional ballot and will be required to provide the appropriate ID within a certain amount of time which, in the case of many transgender people, is not enough time to sufficiently change the gender on their identification.

Additionally, many transgender individuals are discouraged from voting under these photo identification circumstances because of prior experiences with presenting identification that does not accurately reflect their gender. 41% percent of transgender people reported being harassed in situations where they presented gender incongruent identification, while 15% reported being asked to leave the venue where the identification had been presented, and 3% reported being assaulted or attacked as a result of presenting their ID.[5] Additionally, 22% percent reported being denied equal treatment or being verbally harassed by government officials.[11]

Transgender incarceration

Felon disenfranchisement

In the United States, it is estimated that 5.3 million Americans have been rendered ineligible to vote due to laws that prohibit people with current or previous felony convictions from voting. The United States currently has 2.2 million people in the nation’s prisons or jails, making it the world’s leader in incarceration.[12]

Felony disenfranchisement policies date back to the Colonial period and the founding of the United States. During that time, African Americans, women, illiterate people, poor people, and people with felony convictions were all excluded from suffrage. Today, all but one of those prohibitions have been eliminated, leaving people with felony convictions as the only category of citizens deliberately excluded from participation.[13]

Laws regarding the voting rights of felons are established by individual states. Currently, there are 48 states (all but Maine and Vermont) that do not allow incarcerated felons in their state to vote. There are 35 states in which individuals on probation and/or parole are also barred from voting. In 12 states, individuals who have completed their entire sentence may still be kept from voting. Individuals with a felony conviction in the four most restrictive states: Iowa, Florida, Kentucky, and Virginia, three of which were in the former Confederacy, permanently lose their right to vote.[13] This is in strong contrast to European nations, which enable convicted felons to vote after completing sentencing.

Transgender incarceration rates

Incarceration rates are relatively high within the transgender community, which prohibits many transgender individuals from voting. 7% of transgender people have been arrested or held in a cell solely as a result of police officer bias related to their gender identity/expression. Due to lack of employment discrimination protection, as well as high rates of homelessness and harassment, transgender incarceration rates are high in comparison to the general population. Overall, 16% of transgender people have reported being incarcerated at some point in their lives, as compared to 2.7% of the general American population. This high rate of transgender incarceration greatly disenfranchises the community, as that means approximately 16% of transgender people had lost their voting right at some point in their lives.[5]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Green, J. "Transgender Equality: A Handbook for Activists and Policy Makers Introduction" (PDF). National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce.
  2. ↑ Thaler, Cole. "What Does it Mean to be Real".
  3. ↑ Grant, James; et al. (2011). "Injustice at Every Turn" (PDF). National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Retrieved January 2, 2016.
  4. ↑ "Help America Vote Act of 2002".
  5. 1 2 3 4 Grant, Jaime M. "Injustice at Every Turn" (PDF). National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce.
  6. ↑ In re Anonymous v. Weiner, 270 N.Y.S.2d 319 (N.Y. App. Div. 1966).
  7. ↑ See In re Estate of Gardiner, 29 Kan. App. 2d 92, 109, 22 P.3d 1086 (2001) (remarking that Weiner was "the first case in the United States to deal with transsexualism").
  8. ↑ In re Estate of Gardiner, 273 Kan. 191, 200, 42 P.3d 120 (2002) (quoting In re Anonymous v. Weiner, 270 N.Y.S.2d 319, ___ (N.Y. App. Div. 1966)) (internal quotation marks omitted).
  9. ↑ Green, J. "Transgender Equality: A Handbook for Activists and Policy Makers Introduction" (PDF). National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce.
  10. ↑ Herman, Jody L. "The Potential Impact of Voter Identification Laws on Transgender Voters" (PDF).
  11. ↑ Herman, Jody L. "The Potential Impact of Voter Identification Laws on Transgender Voters" (PDF). The Williams Institute.
  12. ↑ "Felony Disenfranchisement". The Sentencing Project.
  13. 1 2 Mauer, Marc. "Voting Behind Bars: An Argument for Voting by Prisoners" (PDF). The Sentencing Project.
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