Why I Ripped Up My New Jersey Birth Certificate
Just from reading the title, people may stop reading and their internalized respectability politics are probably going to show, and I, no doubt, will be finger-wagged and tone-policed by many of my transgender activist peers for this, and may even experience ableism and questioning of my competence. But, if it is the truth about my frustrations that you want to understand, then I encourage you to read on.
I am a transgender woman (mandatory pronouns: she/her/hers) in San Francisco, CA; often considered to be the transgender capital of the nation, maybe even the world. I have been able to seek transitional milestones here I wouldn’t have elsewhere, and for trans people, it seems that possibilities may take a while, but at least there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. However, there is one major benchmark that San Francisco won’t be able to offer. You see, since I was born in New Jersey, a state in which a requirement for surgery to change the gender on one’s birth certificate is encoded in statute, and thanks to Republican Governor Chris Christie, my birth certificate is the only thing that still says “male” on it, despite everything else, including my driver’s license, correctly saying female. And given that it is the “mother document”, if you will, this is significant indeed.
Ever since 2011, when I was living in Philadelphia and had just gotten through an arduous name change process, I had been sounding the alarm on the birth certificate issue, and how, no matter where I go, New Jersey will still have this impact on my life. For several years, I was trying to talk to people from Garden State Equality about this issue, until finally, state Senator Joe Vitale introduced legislation in 2013 to allow transgender people born in New Jersey to change their birth certificate without surgery. I was largely unable to help out, as I had not been a resident of that state for a while, and I was tied up with trans activism in Philadelphia. It finally passed both houses in late 2013, just after Republican Governor Chris Christie won election to a second term as Governor.
I waited nervously through the holiday season and the beginning of January for Christie to take action. On one hand, the bill did not pass with a veto proof majority and Christie also vetoed gender neutral marriage. On the other hand, he did sign an LGBT inclusive anti-bullying bill as well as a conversion therapy ban. Plus, I was hoping at least the Bridgegate scandal would take up most of his time and attention, and he’d just let it go through. Finally, on January 13, 2014, one day before the legislative session was about to end, and one day after the 29th anniversary of a doctor declaring me male, Christie vetoed the bill.
In a quote for the Philadelphia Gay News, I laid out my concerns about the veto.
For Philadelphia transgender activist Jordan Gwendolyn Davis, the bill would have helped her continue her own transition. Davis, who was born in Ocean County, N.J., changed her name in 2011 and, in the process, learned she could not change the gender on her New Jersey birth certificate unless she underwent surgery. Davis had conversations with New Jersey legislators and board members of Garden State Equality in 2012 to press for such legislation.
“The issue of being able to change your birth certificate is important because it is the source of all other forms of identification — from driver’s licenses to passports — and it creates a situation where you have to ‘override’ the gender marker on your birth certificate with a doctor’s note when applying for other documentation,” she said. “Also, one is bound by the vital-statistics laws of where they are born, so no matter where I, or any other New Jersey native moves, New Jersey’s law will apply to me.”
These concerns would all come true at the end of the year, as certain circumstances forced me to move to California. I was eventually going to go to the West Coast, but I wanted to do it on my own terms, and I was forced there through emergency. I did the research necessary to transfer my license, and was informed by the Oakland based Transgender Law Center that, despite my Pennsylvania driver’s license reading “female” since 2010, because my birth certificate still said “male”, I would once again have to submit a signed form from a physician attesting to my gender identity in order to get a correct California driver’s license, only because I state I haven’t lived in for years has decided I was male.
You see, California, like many states, requires back up identification documents to switch a license over to that state, and unless one is an enrolled tribal member, released from prison, an immigrant, or in the armed forces, one must submit either a birth certificate or passport. As I had to move out of the Northeast as soon as possible, I could not meet the onerous requirements, costs and wait times to get a passport (which allows pre-operative transfolk to have their gender identity reflected in their passport), so I sucked up my pride, and took a long New Jersey Transit journey to the Toms River vital records office for the last time to get a copy of my misgendering birth certificate.
When I got to California, getting the form filled out by a doctor (not a social worker, not a nurse practicioner, but a doctor) would be the hardest part; as I am disabled, poor, unemployed, and on Medicaid, I am limited on where I can go. Lyon Martin had a waitlist for months just to see someone, Tom Waddell mistreated and lied to me, and API Wellness basically was evasive as well forcing me to undergo invasive physicals before I could become a client. I finally found a clinic, but as many of these physicians are nurse practitioners, I had to wait for a doctor to sign it and make sure they do it right. It took me almost two months to switch my license over. This step would not have been necessary if my birth state, which I haven’t lived in for years and will likely never live in again, allowed me to change my birth certificate.
I am lucky though that, should I misplace my driver’s license and need to get a duplicate, or renew, California does NOT require secondary documents. That is not exactly true in many states, including New Jersey, where in order to get a duplicate, renew, or even change the information, you have to submit a birth certificate or passport product, the latter can be very unaffordable or even impossible for those who have been criminalized by the racist, classist, transphobic, and ableist criminal justice system. This means that you may, depending on your state, have to present your birth certificate for duplicates or renewals, meaning that the DMV would have a pretense to switch it back to the old gender marker (this is a good reason for other states to not require back-up ID for renewals, changes, or duplicates, instead relying on photograph, social security number, and thumbprints, but I digress).
Soon after, the birth certificate bill, reintroduced in early 2014, ended up passing both houses in late June 2015, it passed the Senate with a veto proof majority, but the Assembly did NOT have a veto proof majority. Once again, right before bill was to automatically become law, Christie vetoed it again. Once again, he claimed that the bill would be vulnerable to “fraud, deception, and abuse”, which is just a way of saying that he cares more about his 2016 presidential run than he does the people of New Jersey. But now, he had the audacity to laugh about it.
Regarding the veto, conservative radio host Medved asked Christie, “You have no compassion for the Caitlyn Jenners of this world?”
The governor responded, “Listen, for people who do not have a sex-change operation, all the bill required was somebody that who would seek a doctor’s treatment and that that doctor would verify they felt like the opposite gender. … I have to tell the truth, Michael, there are certain things that just go beyond the pale, and that’s not what I wanted the law to be in New Jersey. It doesn’t make any sense to me, and that’s why I vetoed it again, and if they send it to me again, I will veto it again.”
Medved observed that this position “sounds dangerously conservative,” and Christie could be heard chuckling.
The #nolaughingmatter hashtag trended on Twitter for a few weeks after this incident, and it just goes to show that Chris Christie is callous to the physical, spiritual, emotional, and administrative violence transgender people face. I realize all I can do now, given that I am in the catch 22 of this law affecting me yet not living in the state, is take potshots.
A few months after the second veto, I decided to get my birth certificates; it turned out to be expensive as hell due to the fact I had to order them online and it takes a long time for it to get across the country, but I decided I could get that and a doctor’s note to get a passport card. It should be noted that since I submitted my name change to vital records, I got birth certificates at least under my new name, even if they misgendered me.
Well, lo and behold, when I finally got my misgendering birth certificates, my heart sank when I discovered that they put my deadname on it. I struggled for months to get my name change back in 2011, had submitted the name change order to them, had birth certificates issued under my current name, and had my deadname omitted, and they add insult to injury by sending me a deadnaming document. As of right now, that document is no good for anything.
And of course, in the waning days of the legislative session last year, there were hopes of a veto override. It would start in the Senate, where the bill got a veto proof majority, but my hopes were crushed again when they failed to override the veto, due to several moderate Republican legislators’ cowardice.
I am now mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!!!!
So, I have decided that, even with other documents proving my name and gender, I will NEVER, EVER use my birth certificate for anything ever again. Although I can easily do a driver’s license related transaction without it here in California, I realize that I will now be unable to get a passport, get into many public housing projects when I leave San Francisco, or even go back to school. I have decided to do this out of protest of New Jersey being out of line with the Department of Homeland Security, the Social Security administration, and even their own DMV in terms of changing gender and name on records.
So, I decided to rip up my birth certificate, and rip it gooooodddd!!! I cannot bear to be in possession of a document that does not recognize who I am; it would be bad for my mental health. I would encourage other trans people who were born in states that don’t allow you to change the gender on your birth certificate to rip up their birth certificates (if it safe to do so and you don’t have to have it to get your state ID/DL, replaced, renewed, or changed). I know that this sounds dramatic, but it doesn’t look like I will be able to get a birth certificate with my proper name or gender any time soon. Now what to do with the remains?
The ball is in your court, New Jersey; let my people go!
