US Immigration Recognises Transgender Marriage

The U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a memorandum last week that updates the Adjudicator’s Field Manual, a guide binding all agency staff overseeing immigration procedures. It spells out policy around immigration documents issued and marriage benefits given to transgender individuals. The interim memo, released for comment from stakeholders, is in effect until further notice from USCIS.

The directive is welcome news for the transgender community and its allies. USCIS will now issue immigration documents that reflect an individual’s gender identity, so long as the individual presents “an amended birth certificate, passport, or court order recognizing their new gender; or medical certification of the change in gender from a licensed physician.” The memo points out that these criteria are “based on standards and recommendations of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health who are recognized as the authority in this field by the American Medical Association.”

USCIS will also approve green-card petitions by American citizens or permanent residents for their spouses if a petitioner establishes that the transgender individual has legally changed their gender and subsequently married an individual of the other gender; that the marriage is recognized as a heterosexual marriage under the law where the union took place; and that the law where the marriage took place does not bar unions between transgender individuals and persons of the other gender.

The directive explicitly says that gender-reassignment surgery “is not required in order for USCIS to approve” petitions “unless the law of the place of marriage clearly requires sex reassignment surgery in order to accomplish a change in legal gender.”

The National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) and Immigration Equality, advocates for transgender rights, applauded the development. The organizations have been working in tandem to advance these urgently needed policies, part of a comprehensive agenda for the fair treatment of transgender immigrants.

“Today’s announcement is another example of the Obama Administration’s long-term commitment to equality,” NCTE Policy Counsel Harper Jean Tobin said Friday. “These revisions mean that trans people and their families can obtain accurate identification while maintaining their privacy. It’ll also reduce bureaucratic delays, intrusive questions, and wrongful denials of immigration benefits.”

“This Guidance is an important step forward for transgender immigrants and their families,” added Victoria Neilson, Legal Director for Immigration Equality. “It brings USCIS in line with DOS [the Department of State] in its guidance for updating gender markers on identity documents — no longer requiring any specific surgery, but instead allowing a doctor to certify the individual’s gender.” She added, “The memo affirms existing law and precedents, and recognizes that if a marriage is considered valid and opposite sex under state law, it is valid for immigration purposes.”

This is certainly a step in the right direction, and the administration should be given credit for taking this move, but it leaves gay binational married couples, who are not afforded immigration benefits because of the Defense of Marriage (DOMA), out in the cold. Some of these couples also include a spouse who is transgender.

Tobin acknowledges the long path ahead: “While these two revisions aid some trans immigrants and their U.S. citizen spouses, and vice-versa, the revisions only highlight the need to eliminate the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act.”

This article is kindly reproduced from Trans Girls

Mexico Supreme Court Debates Transsexual Right To Privacy

When transsexuals or transgender persons in the Mexican capital have their birth certificates altered to reflect their change in identity, is it legal to include a notation on the new document indicating that Ms Y used to be Mr X?

That is the question raised by a Mexican transsexual through an appeal under consideration by the Supreme Court, which brings up the issue of the right of transsexuals to privacy and non-discrimination.

The 11 Supreme Court justices are expected to issue a final ruling on the appeal in the first few weeks of 2009, in a case that is the first of its kind to be brought before the country’s highest judicial body with jurisdiction over constitutional matters.

“The decision the judges have in their hands involves our right to live without the shadow of discrimination hanging over us,” Gloria Davenport, a transsexual who works as an adviser to the government’s National HIV-AIDS Prevention and Control Centre (CENSIDA), told IPS.

Studies show that transsexuals are especially vulnerable to violence, discrimination and humiliation, all of which are exacerbated by the length of time it takes for them to legally change their identity in Mexico City, the only place in the country where they can do so, thanks to a municipal law approved in August.

According to estimates by the governmental Human Rights Commission of Mexico City, at least 148 lesbians, gays, transvestites and transsexuals were killed from 1995 to 2006 in homophobic attacks.

The Supreme Court took on the case of a transsexual who filed an application for a writ of amparo (an action brought to enforce constitutional rights) against what the petitioner considered to be an unjust ruling by a lower court. The magistrates admitted the case on the basis that the issue involves the broader question of social inclusion of individuals.

Following a two-year proceeding, a first instance judge in Mexico City granted the petition to issue a new birth certificate reflecting the change of identity, but denied the request not to list the original name and gender on the new document.

The petitioner, who goes by the initials MBAR, argues that her change of gender should be kept confidential in order to protect her right to privacy and non-discrimination.

On Nov. 25, the Supreme Court issued a preliminary decision, with five of the justices upholding the lower court’s decision, arguing that it was legal to expressly indicate the change of sex and name on the altered certificate on the grounds that maintaining a record of the original identity of individuals is necessary to prevent transgressions and protect others against fraud.

They also rejected the petitioner’s claim that a Mexico City Civil Code provision stipulating such express indication is discriminatory. The judges found that the provision establishes a general procedure that applies to any individual who requests an amendment of their birth certificate.

Five other justices, however, found that listing the change in gender identity on the birth certificate could expose the transsexual to discrimination, and thus ruled in favour of the petitioner.

But the final ruling was postponed because one of the 11 magistrates was not present at the Nov. 25 session. A spokesperson for the Supreme Court communications department told IPS that the justices would hand down the final ruling on the case next year.

Diana Guerrero, an activist with Mexico’s Citizen Front in Favour of Transsexual and Transgender Rights, told IPS that “the Court verdict will determine future amendments to federal laws concerning the right to identity of all individuals.”

Several draft laws addressing the issue of the change of gender identity have been introduced in Congress, but they lack majority support and no dates have been set for the debates and votes.

Under the Mexico City law passed in August, the new birth certificate requested by a person who has changed their gender identity, with or without sex reassignment surgery, will not indicate whether the individual was formerly a man or a woman, although there will be an official record of the change.

The case under consideration by the Supreme Court involves a Mexico City male-to-female transsexual who changed her gender identity when the old law was still in force. Prior to the new legislation, Mexico City required that any alteration of a birth certificate be recorded in the document itself, as is still mandatory in the rest of the country.

Davenport and Guerrero concur that the Mexico City law represents a definite but limited step forward. They both believe that a national law is necessary to guarantee a proceeding that will allow individuals to change their identity quickly and without incurring great expenses.

“The Court’s ruling could chart the way for the rest of the country,” said Guerrero, who due to a lack of funds and legal representation has been unable to alter her own identity documents.

Davenport complains that the only law – that of Mexico City – that expressly contemplates the situation of transsexuals requires that the applicant submit to an expert evaluation process that can cost more than 800 dollars. This amount is added to the expenses already incurred in psychotherapy, hormone treatment and medical expenses, in the case of those who go in for surgery.

“As transsexuals, we face all sorts of problems, but discrimination is by far the worst,” she said.

Many transsexuals are forced to turn to prostitution to make a living “because there are no other job options open to them,” Davenport pointed out. She admits to having had to resort to prostitution in the past when she lost her job as a journalist in a news agency where she suffered discrimination.

A 2005 survey conducted by the Ministry of Social Development and the National Council for the Prevention of Discrimination among members of “sexual minorities” revealed that 94.7 percent of respondents felt they were discriminated against in Mexico.

José Luis Álvarez-Gayou, Director of the Mexican Institute of Sexology, explained that, “contrary to popular opinion, transsexuals are not people who decide to change their gender identity on a whim, but rather men who were born in a woman’s body or women who were born in a man’s body, and because of that suffer great anxiety and uncertainty.”

Davenport and Guerrero recalled how they realised early on in life that the male body they were born into was at odds with their gender identity.

Now they have both fully assumed their female identity and hope that the Supreme Court resolution will open the door to legislative reforms that will force the State to support and finance identity change for transsexuals

OutCry As Transsexual Inmate “Repeatedly Raped” In Prison

The Southern Poverty Law Center has demanded that the Orleans Parish sheriff in Louisiana immediately take steps to protect a transsexual inmate who has been repeatedly raped and tortured at the Orleans Parish Prison or face a federal lawsuit.

The demand was made in a letter sent to Sheriff Marlin N. Gusman today. It details the violent sexual abuse endured by S.T., a transsexual woman who was gang-raped at knifepoint by five men in one facility for 40 minutes. The Feb. 27 attack occurred was witnessed by other prisoners. Guards failed to protect S.T.

The letter demands that the sheriff transfer S.T. to a safe, secure location where deputies can keep constant watch on her. It also demands that the sheriff provide her with access to a phone at all times, so that she can speak to her counsel about her safety. If the sheriff fails to protect S.T., the SPLC will file suit and seek a temporary restraining order to have her transferred out of the sheriff’s custody.

“All of the jail buildings are all extremely dangerous,” said Katie Schwartzmann, managing attorney of SPLC’s Louisiana office. “The facilities are full of contraband. Deputies provide dangerously deficient supervision and fail to protect individuals who are particularly vulnerable to abuse. These violations resulted in our client being raped for weeks.”

Days after the Feb. 27 attack, S.T. was moved to another building at the prison, where she was raped repeatedly by another prisoner over the course of two weeks. The attacks escalated in severity and frequency, with her attacker breaking one of her teeth and attempting to strangle her. Sheriff’s deputies still failed to protect her.

S.T. was finally transported to a hospital, where test results confirm she has contracted HIV, after enduring almost a month of rapes and sexual torture at the prison. She was HIV negative when she entered the prison.

Inexplicably, after the hospital visit, sheriff’s deputies attempted to return S.T. to the same area where she was repeatedly attacked by one prisoner. Her attacker remains on that floor.

Violence and rape is widely documented throughout prison — suggesting that S.T. will not be safe as long as she is in the sheriff’s custody.

Orleans Parish Prison, one of the largest jails in the country, was investigated by the United States Department of Justice in 2009. The department found alarming levels of rape and violence. The prison has also been the subject of hearings by the Prison Rape Elimination Act Commission. Recently, U.S. Federal Marshals withdrew all federal prisoners from the facility citing concerns about unlawful conditions.

25,000 Missing Transgender Votes In Presidential Election

New voter ID laws will likely make it more difficult for more than 25,000 transgender voters to cast a ballot in the Presidential elections, according to a study released by the Williams Institute.

Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin have all passed laws requiring voters to present a government-issued photo identification before casting a ballot. But the laws impose unique barriers on transgender individuals, since many do not have an updated identification — such as a driver’s license — that lists their correct gender.

“Transgender people who have transitioned face unique hurdles when acquiring or updating identification that would fulfill voter ID requirements because they must comply with the requirements for updating the name and gender on their state-issued or federally-issued IDs and records,” wrote the study’s author, Dr. Jody L. Herman. “Requirements for updating state-issued IDs vary widely by state and can be difficult and costly. Federal requirements also vary by agency.”

According to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey (NTDS), 40 percent of transgender citizens who have transitioned reported not having an updated driver’s license and 74 percent did not have an updated U.S. passport.

Ethnic minorities, youth, students, those with low incomes, and those with disabilities were less likely to have updated identification than other transgender individuals.

In addition, 40 percent of transgender individuals reported being harassed after presenting identification that didn’t accurately reflect their gender.

“As election officials in these states begin planning for their fall elections, this research highlights the importance of educating poll workers in order to ensure that transgender voters in their states have fair access to the ballot,” said Herman.