The Power in Poking Fun

This past week we had the exciting opportunity to chat with change-makers about our advocacy strategy proposals. My project is focused on reducing administrative barriers for trans and non-binary people when they are legally transitioning. My proposed solution is to remove gender marker’s entirely from Ontario driver’s licenses and ID cards since the province has already removed them from health cards.

I was paired up with Gabe Oately, a Toronto based journalist who has recently gone through transition themselves. My main question for them was “how do you get an issue on people’s radar when it’s not well known?” Trans policy issues rarely get discussed and the process of changing identity documents isn’t usually top of the list. One possible reason for this is that there are sometimes much more worrisome issues that trans and non-binary people are facing, like recent efforts in the United States to severely restrict access to gender-affirming medical care. In comparison, the burdensome process that trans and non-binary people must go through in order to change their identity documents becomes a much more mundane form of discrimination that is easily overlooked. Despite this, a lack of identity documents that match their gender has been shown to lead to a significant decrease in trans and non-binary people’s mental health. Additionally, inaccurate identity documents can create difficulties or dangerous situations when trans and non-binary people interact with systems.

My favourite advocacy tactic that Gabe suggested to me was to create some kind of social media campaign or video that uses satire to break down assumptions about gender markers on driver’s licenses to show just how unnecessary they are. Gabe recommended poking fun of the absurdity to defuse some of the tension that often gathers around publicly discussing trans policy issues. After all, your sex or gender has absolutely nothing to do with your ability to drive. Licenses are also used to prove your identity but gender is not the most effective indicator of someone’s identity, especially when there is a much more detailed picture already on the card.