Applied For My New Passport Just As The Passport Rules Changed For The Better

Last Friday (January 28, 2011), I went to the Post Office branch on Midway Avenue here in San Diego and applied for a passport and a passport card.

I'd assembled the required documentation, which included a certified copy of my birth certificate, my legal change of name document, a letter from my psychiatrist -- which was written in accordance with the Department of State instructions -- indicating I have received treatment for change of legal sex, passport photos, and my filled out Application For A U.S. Passport form. And, of course, I brought my checkbook.

I'd gone to that Post Office two weeks earlier to get my passport -- with all the same documentation -- but it turns out one must make an appointment at the Post Office to apply for a new passport. Given government bureaucracy, I can't believe I didn't anticipate that applying for a passport may require a passport. Oh well, live and learn.

It turns out that the passport photos I'd had taken at the local RiteAid® didn't make the cut. Apparently, the printed photos were too large -- I'll be going back to complain this coming week. So, I paid the extra fee (I was not going to wait another two weeks for a new appointment!) to have the Post Office take my passport photos.

And too, they took my documentation, and promised that  the documentation would be mailed back with the passport and passport card. That probably shouldn't leave me concerned at all, but it does -- the government is a huge bureaucracy, after all.

I ended up spending just over $180 at the Post Office for my Passport and Passport Card (I'm getting both, so there was a fee for each identification document). So now I have four to six weeks to wait for my new Passport and Passport Card.

And of course, the very day I turned in my application, the rules related to transsexual people applying for passports changed. The rules have mostly changed for the better -- it would've been easier for me if the rules were as they are now to apply for my passport. From the National Center for Transgender Equality's (NCTE's) email blast:

The U.S. State Department has announced some small but important additional changes to its policy for updating gender on U.S. passports and Consular Reports of Birth Abroad (CRBAs). The changes make clear that any physician who has treated or evaluated a passport applicant may certify that he or she has had appropriate treatment for gender transition. The revised policy also clarifies language and procedures to ensure that individuals with intersex condition can obtain documents with the correct gender.

In June 2010, the Obama Administration announced a new policy for updating gender markers on passports and CRBAs. For the first time, the June policy enabled transgender people to a passport that reflects their current gender without providing details of specific medical or surgical procedures. Instead, applicants could provide certification from a physician that they had received "appropriate clinical treatment" for gender transition. This policy was the result of years of advocacy, and represented a significant advance in providing safe, humane and dignified treatment of transgender people.

The policy announced in June was a huge step forward, but it was not perfect. It contained rigid and unnecessary restrictions on which physicians could write supporting letters for applicants, and contained confusing provisions regarding people with intersex conditions. With input from NCTE and other organizations, the Department moved swiftly to clarify and improve the policy.

It's pretty noteworthy that the revised passport policy now has language that insures that people with intersex conditions can obtain passports in their correct gender -- From the outside looking in, it's obvious to me that transgender identified people were advocating for intersex inclusion in how federal regulation is written.

Beyond that, the language used in State Department regulation has other potential applications. Again, from the NCTE eblast:

The passport policy as it now stands represents a model that other federal agencies, such as the Social Security Administration and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, should move swiftly to adopt.

Sometimes, short of legislative process, progress on a community's freedom, equality, and justice can be accomplished with regulatory changes. Transgender community has an opportunity for further progress.

If you, like I have, want to apply for a passport under your correct gender, there is a new guidance document from NCTE entitled The Prep Work I'm Doing To Get A Passport Under New State Department Rules