Source: Women are Human
In tweets that have gone viral, trans Twitter is swapping tips on how to circumvent laws in regions that mandate ‘transsexual surgery’ before the government will change the sex marker on legal documents.
“Early in my transition the law was you needed transsexual surgery to change the gender marker on your ID cards,” an individual who tweets under the handle keffals explained on
May 29 in a tweet that has received over 71,000 ‘likes’.
“There was no legal definition for transsexual surgery, and since I’m a transsexual who had a surgery to remove their tonsils, that is how I qualified to change them.
“I had a friend who was a trans woman and a lawyer who helped me figure this out lmao [laughing my a** off].”
Several tweeters declared their intention to use keffal’s tip to get the sex marker changed on their legal documents without satisfying regional requirements for genital surgery.
Other tweeters shared surgeries they would use to bypass the ‘transsexual surgery’ requirement, including procedures to treat a hernia, gallbladder, tonsillectomy, eyes, teeth or cysts.
“There’s no law abt what ‘proof’ you need to provide, so it’s highly dependent on what judge you get,” a person who tweets as @ennuiimpossible advised.
“In my state ‘irreversible medical treatment’ is needed but there is no definition of what that constitutes so chill physicians can decide to write you a letter after, e.g., you take your very first dose of HRT. The one upside of zero lawmakers really understanding transition care,” @evan_sruthan shared.
“Y’all are geniuses I need to get on that before legislation changes,” an excited tweeter replied.
Many women have expressed concern that allowing individuals to change the sex marker on identifying documents could lead to a confusion of vital government records used for such disparate purposes as historical recordation, tracing ancestry, health policy, tracking health conditions associated with sex, crime statistics, and tracking the state of women’s progress toward equality.
