It's official! My name AND my gender marker have been legally changed by the state of New York as well as the Social Security Administration! (Insert confetti)
Now I just have to change it with the DMV next week and then everywhere else that is still using my old name. Hopefully it doesn't take me 4 hours in there to get it done. (Insert laugh track)
I didn't think that it would be so important to me to have the M on my license instead of the F. I mean who really looks at that anyway? They usually just check DOB - but surprisingly I'm really excited about it. I suppose it became more exciting once the SSA passed the policy that no longer required surgery to be a pre-requisite to changing your gender marker. Once they allowed a letter to do the trick I think my excitement started growing from there.
It used to be necessary to have full gender reassignment surgery before a marker could be changed in their system, and now I walked in with a letter from the surgeon and (although there was a bit of debate at the office) all was changed right there.
It's astonishing to think that things are changing so drastically in such a short amount of time. Now that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage nationwide - we can start working on trans issues and trans rights going forward. I can tell you this, it is a very exciting time to be alive and I can't wait to tell my kids all about how much better it is for them growing up than it was for us just a few years ago.
