Promising lawsuit filed against the Motor Vehicles department of South Carolina.
Here's the story about it: http://www.transgenderlegal.org/headline_show.php?id=490
If any of you happen to be Equality lawsuit/legal nerds (I am! I am!), here's the text of the actual court filing: http://www.scribd.com/doc/238436006/Culpepper-v-Shwedo-Compl...
A summary: a young genderqueer man (who self-identifies as male but doesn't conform to the expected mode of male presentation and normally wears makeup and dresses femininely) went with his mother to get his drivers license. Well, the Motor Vehicles folks in his corner of South Carolina would not let him get his picture taken unless he removed his makeup despite his mother explaining that it wasn't a disguise, that's how he looks. His (again his choice of pronoun) mother not only supports him and is livid at his treatment by the state agency, she, with the assistance of the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund (a worthy cause to support, if you're so motivated) has filed a Big Time Federal Lawsuit against the state!
Read the links for the whole story, and the legal rationale of the lawsuit.
Comments
Figures
it figures it is in the south as these people claim to be good Christians , what ever happened to let people live their lives as they wish . So very many things wrong in the religious south . They may be GOD fearing because of the things done unto other that are just not right . Makes me MAD :-(
Southerners
You may want to trim that tar brush just a wee bit. Not all of us born Southerners are knuckle dragging throwbacks to homo-erectus.
Indeed....
...my mother and grandmother were both as southern as sweet tea, and both were intelligent, well-read and open-minded. They did not espouse the sort of bigotry, religious and otherwise, for which the region is too well known.
Livin' A Ragtime Life,
Rachel
hmmmm
Back when this story first broke, i was leery of it. still am. not because i think it is wrong, i just dont think there is a good answer that will make all sides happy/comfortable.
I was recently pulled over when dressed as Teresa after a very nice dinner out with a friend, but still have all my id etc are in my male name. needless to say the officer was a little confused, enough so that i was made to get out of my vehicle (it was night time) so he could see me in his headlights. I was given a warning about speeding, and that was all. no question on id, etc, and i was sweating bullets as it is a very conservative state and town. I have since gotten a carry letter since i am going out more and more as myself.
this may not be so for other officers. they might decide that it is a fake (not sure if all states have the computers in their cars so they could double check the pic or not). but if i was an officer, and not versed in Trans issues, i would question it, a male name, male sex designator, but a picture of a female? I understand that is how he is, but technology has NOT caught up to that yet. it would probably require two pics for those who want to have their documents that way, just so the authorities can feel they are not being tricked, you know because KIDS NEVER have fake id's or anything. granted this one would have his real age etc so not real helpful for bars or clubs, but for all they know (and this is devils advocate here) he is one of the perverts who wants to get into female restrooms, etc.
we are having enough trouble getting them to understand transsexual issues, this just takes a further step beyond that when it comes to the bureaucracy of governments, local, state and federal. if he identified fully as female, would it have been an issue? with proper documentation of course. if not, this will be a hard case to sell on a legal standpoint, on an emotional one? depends on the venue/jury.
Teresa
Teresa L.
It's Important, Though
I think this is a very important lawsuit. I realize there's this tendency in any population to keep drawing lines, to keep subcategorizing people, to continuously divide everyone up into "them" and "us" until you get down to "us" just being cookie-cutter conformance to a single role-model, your own.
Transgender is not just "pure" transition-goal-oriented MtF. It's also FtM, which if you're not aware, has a host of SRS difficulties. It's also a wide range of conditions/personalities/experiences which reject the birth "gender binary" as being determinative of who someone is.
This is an important suit, and you should be rooting for the plaintiffs. His gain would be everyone's gain. The state seeks to repress "transgressive" gender identity or presentation. That's not good for anyone who's not a gender binary fundamentalist.
understood
first i can see it is, pushing the boundaries, my point is that he is in an even deeper well, claiming masculine pronouns but dressing female. the system is just not set up for that. Here will be one of the arguments i can see right now. if he does this, what is the difference between him and letting goth persons wear their makeup for id purposes, or cross dressers, or drag queens, etc etc.
that is the think i am iffy about. this is a LEGAL ID. he claims, and his mother confirms, this is his normal mode of dress. and if he were to commit a crime, its a perfect disguise, he "dresses" down and is not recognizable. yes i know it is just as easy to wear makeup, etc. just what i am thinking about them saying. it doesnt have to be logical to the extreme but a feasible reason to deny it.
I am all for the others, i am NOT a self-centered person, but i also follow the law. and the law is so far behind, as is the whole legal system. some options would require either a second picture, just used in the database, or second id with separate personae's if they have that, etc.f
as i said, i dont think there is a solution that will make both sides happy
Teresa L.
Consistency...
The issue is essentially meaningless in our modern multicultural age.
Should males either be required to show up with as much beard as they are capable of growing? or clean-shaven and then be denied permission to ever grow a beard? A beard makes a lovely disguise, as we all know, as does the lack of one.
Should Muslim women be refused permission to wear a hijab, or other ‘modest’ dress, in public, because male police officers might become ‘confused?’ For that matter, should nudity be mandatory in public, so that police officers can determine at a glance whether the gender designation listed on alerts for suspected villains apply to any given suspect?
How about the Pope? Should Catholic clerics be refused permission to wear ‘dresses?’ or alternatively, should men wearing dresses be required to wear age-appropriate makeup?
There’s really no end to confusion, since it’s a scientific (and probabilistic) near certainty, that in any large group roughly half the human beings present will be measurably stupider than the other half.
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"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Cheers,
Liobhan
Don't blame the South on this one.
South Carolina is very screwy, even gun permits from other states are not accepted in South Carolina. In comparison, gun permits from the other states are usually accepted in southern states, except South Carolina.
Also, other southern states have laws and regulations set up for transgendered people to change their names and IDs. It is just South Caroline that is lagging behind.