OK, so...twenty five years after first coming out as transgender, and almost seventeen years after my surgery, I STILL have issues that rear their ugly head, and prevent me and transgender people like me...from fully integrating into society in our true, correct and lived gender.
We are routinely denied the protection of Federal HIPAA laws. And just what are those? HIPAA The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act are laws that allow people to keep their health information private. This is particularly important in the employment marketplace. The right to keep your health information private from a potential employer...who may then use that information to make a negative employment decision regarding you — is a right MOST Americans enjoy. In fact, all Americans EXCEPT transgender people enjoy these rights.
OURS are routinely denied us in countless ways that those who are cisgender have never considered. For starters, when we are forced, on job applications to “please list all former names under which you have worked” — what do you think that does to a transgender woman like me?
When Diane must put on a form that she was once known as Jack...it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that we are transgender. Which information can then, in 30 states...be used legally to deny us employment. But it is information we SHOULD, under HIPAA laws...be allowed to keep protected and private. Because the process of the transgender journey IS a part of our health information and medical history.
Consider that if you are a cancer survivor, or you are HIV positive, or even have high blood pressure...you are not required to reveal this information to a potential employer...in fact, employers are forbidden to even ask. Because these are also things which could cause an employer to make a negative decision concerning your employment.
BUT...when we reveal former names...that is precisely what we are doing...divulging health information that we should have the right to keep protected and private, as everyone else gets to.
This became an issue for me, because a potential employer (and I seem to have gotten the job anyway, but that isn’t the point here) requested me to provide them a high school transcript. As you may well imagine, being as I was born in 1971, I did not get to transition as a teen...so my original school records were in a male name and gender.
When I had my legal name changed, I did have Austin Independent School District (AISD) change my school transcript to the new, correct, legal name. (I graduated Class of 1989 from David Crockett High School...go Coogs!)
When I was requested of my transcript...which in all my time in the workforce I never once was asked for before...I went about obtaining it...and requested that they also change the gender on my transcript to reflect my new and correct gender. They made these changes, and sent me a sealed transcript, which — had I opened it...would have made it void.
I gave it to the employer, who did open it. And that is how I came to see the manner in which they changed my transcript. They AMENDED it...crossing out my old name and writing in my new name...and crossing off my old gender and writing in my new gender. THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE!! This does NOT provide me the opportunity to keep what should be my private health information...protected and private...and it opens me up to potentially being legally discriminated against.
It seems to me if the State of Illinois, where I was born...can issue me a brand-new Birth Certificate (not amended) — and seal the old one (even I no longer could access my old birth certificate in my former name and gender) — then the same could be done for my high school transcript...and countless other paper trails that exist and serve to out us as transgender, and deprive us of the protection of Federal laws that everyone else enjoys.
In this day and age where transgender people literally are being demonized, this becomes essential. Now...as an out and proud transgender woman, and a political activist, Officer in my State Democratic Party, and former and future political candidate...I suppose I CHOOSE to give up my anonymity..because I choose to fight for the rest of us.
So I have contacted the Legal Department of the Austin Independent School District in Austin, Texas...to see if something can be done by which transcripts could be re-issued (not amended) for transgender people. I have yet to hear back, I left a phone message for a Ms. Ylise Janssen.
I will update this Diary as the situation develops. Ii should point out that in the State of North Carolina, where I live...in the State of Kentucky, where my name was legally changed, in the State of Illinois where I was born...and literally every other state in the nation...in order to change your name, you are required to submit to a national and state background check, and even provide your fingerprints for this purpose. And if you have a felony on your record, you are NOT going to get a name change.
Any other pertinent information, minor crimes/misdemeanors, debts, etc...are all transferred into your new name. They follow you. You do NOT even get a new Social Security Number...you keep the same one. The point is that...all of this background checking obviates the need of any employer to conduct research on your former name...as everything WILL be in your new name when your name change is legally granted.
So there is NO legitimate business need or purpose to forcing transgender people to out themselves in this manner...depriving us of the protection of Federal HIPAA laws, and forcing us to out ourselves, and, in 30 states, forcing us to give a potential employer a reason to legally discriminate against us. Which is why passage of The Equality Act would help immeasurably...but still, in the meantime, and even into the future (assuming The Equality Act ever becomes the law of the land) we STILL should have the right to keep our private health information protected and private, as every other American is allowed to, under Federal HIPAA laws.
As it stands now, we currently are NOT afforded these protections...in many ways that cisgender people (people who are not transgender) have never even considered.
In fact, it is the very reason that I...as a Precinct Chair (the first openly transgender person so elected in my County’s history) and a member of the Platform and Resolutions Committee of the NCDP — have submitted a resolution to be hopefully included in our Party Platform addressing this very issue. I also serve on the Civil Rights Task Force of the Wake County (NC) Democratic Party.
In this...and in many other ways...I continue to fight for the rights of my transgender family, that we, too, may be afforded the full protection of the laws of this nation.
Tuesday, May 21, 2019 · 4:55:50 PM +00:00 · Kalisiin
I spoke with a Mr. Tiffee, in the AISD Legal Department. They are going to make a corrected Transcript for me, in my new name and gender NOT AMENDED.
Furthermore, they are putting me in touch with Student Services, so that policy can be made and disseminated in the future, so that this does not happen to future students of AISD who are also transgender.
This also could then be used as a model for other school districts policies concerning transgender students.
A victory!!!