Washington Drivers License with new gender identity options
Elayne Wylie, co-executive director of Gender Justice League, said this is a step in the right direction.
“It’s imperative of our government to include as many people as possible so that people actually feel like they’re part of society, and that they’re seen and heard,” Wylie said.
When Teresa Berntsen was named director of the Washington State Department of Licensing a year ago, people asked her about the issue. She heard from people who were frustrated that the agency didn’t offer a nonbinary option. People who visited DOL with birth certificates that listed their gender as X had to be turned away.
Is there any concern that by stating ones gender on an ID as being other than male or female might draw attention in a negative way? For example the same type of police officer that may be discriminatory towards a certain race (consciously or unconsciously), might also be discriminatory towards a person who doesn’t conform to gender norms? I believe that folks should be comfortable living their own truth, and in a perfect world states should allow an ID to reflect those truths, but I’m not sure our country is in a consensus on such progressive ideas.
So if I “identify” as a woman or man, therefore I am one? No surgery, dress code, etc. It’s about how you feel. I wish I had known that when I was dealing with an unwanted pregnancy and rape.
If being male or female is just a “choice”, does this mean that the overwhelming statistics of male violence to women, and male violence in general, is also just a “choice” and we can disregard these inconvenient facts as well? That domestic partners (male) are the leading cause of death in women under 40? That 99% of all rape is committed by men, 95% of all murders including mass murders are committed by men, the vast majority of pediphiles are male, and virtually all of the sex industry, including trafficking, is designed to satisfy men? I don’t know a single woman who has not been sexually assaulted, raped, threatened with sexual violence, sexually harrassed on the job, dealt with voyeurs and exhibitionists, sought an abortion or had to give a baby away, and in general is terrified of being alone on a street at night. I think it was Bell Hooks who made the joke that on a blind date the man is hoping she will pick up the dinner tab, and she is hoping she won’t be killed.
As long as we live in a society that discriminates against women and imposes everyday a threat of violence against them, women need safe space. They need shelters where they can go if they are being threatened, and they need rape crisis centers where they can speak to a woman who understands what has happened to them. They need women’s groups where they feel safe, and where the biological and psychological realities of being a woman can be shared and healed, instead of once again having men tell us “what a woman is”. To allow any male predator into a female prison because he claims that he “identifies” as a woman conveniently is utterly irresponsible. This issue is opening the door very wide for a great deal of abuse.
https://www.feministcurrent.com/2019/03/03/gender-identity-makes-breaking-womens-boundaries-progressive