Ontario, Canada Resident Says Getting Proper ID Is an 'Impossible Struggle'

[Carolyn Marie]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-transgender-identification-gender-1.6117750

 

 

Carolyn Marie

[VickySGV]

OK, it boiled down to an education issue for the staff of that agency where she went.  That happens, and there is a need for advocacy and training such as I and others here have done from time to time.  I have a little bit of trouble finding a lot of sympathy for her though, or maybe it is how she was reported here.  It is indeed a challenge to get some of this stuff done, and ill-informed people who are supposed to help us cannot do it smoothly.  It is a surmountable challenge though or so many of us would not be where we are.  No where does it mention that she approached an LGBTQ community center where there are informed and active people who can mentor the person in obtaining and completing required paperwork and who probably have a supervisor's phone number at the agency for contact. 

[Carolyn Marie]

My legal transition was nearly seamless, but I also encountered either bigoted or misinformed people at the bank and at the Social Security office.  I couldn't do much about the transphobic bank branch manager so I just found a different branch.  The SS staffer who denied my name change at first - I almost gave up on it but went back in and proved to him he was wrong.  He came back and apologized and told me I taught him something new, and thanked me.

 

The moral of the story is not to give up.  When faced with an obstacle, sometimes you go around it, sometimes you bust through it, sometimes you educate it, and like @VickySGVsaid, sometimes you look for help.

 

Carolyn Marie

[Ivy]

I want to get this done myself.   But I have some things in the works that it would really complicate at this time.  So I'm waiting.  I only hope another administration doesn't make it more difficult.

I was asked to show my ID a couple of days ago.  It was very unpleasant.

It bothered me more than I expected.

[KathyLauren]

7 hours ago, VickySGV said:

OK, it boiled down to an education issue for the staff of that agency where she went.  That happens, and there is a need for advocacy and training such as I and others here have done from time to time.  I have a little bit of trouble finding a lot of sympathy for her though, or maybe it is how she was reported here. 

 

I talked to her on Facebook after I saw the story, because I faced a very similar dilemma a couple of years ago.  Being unable to negotiate the bureaucracy is not always the trans person's fault.  Sometimes, there just isn't a path from A to B. 

 

In my case, the local regulations permitted changing the gender marker on my driver's license and health card only after changing it on my birth certificate.  Meanwhile the regulations on my foreign birth certificate allowed changing my gender only after providing proof that my local documents had already been changed.  Chicken-and-egg.  Each bureaucracy assumed the other one would budge first.  Usually the only way out of a logjam like that is to provide proof of surgery.  This is apparently also the situation of the lady in the news story, and is why I contacted her.

 

I solved the problem by getting the local bureaucracy to change their procedures.  I got lucky in that they were having a public consultation and survey on birth certificate gender markers right about then.  Needless to say, I provided detailed feedback to them.  As a result, they created a new process to allow gender markers on official documents to be changed without having to change one's birth certificate.

 

That is what the lady in Ontario needs to do: lobby her provincial government to create a similar process.  I suggested that to her.

[VickySGV]

2 hours ago, KathyLauren said:

That is what the lady in Ontario needs to do: lobby her provincial government to create a similar process.  I suggested that to her.

My comments on going to her nearest LGBTQ actually cover this, as a Board Member of one, we provide lobbying and activism assistance and put in a good deal of time with local legislative bodies to get these things done.  My group does not even require paid up dues for us to do those things which we know how to do, and improve your "Muscle" in making things happen.  I will admit that some news reporting does not show a person in their best light.  Thank you for helping our sibling as much as you did.