The National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) is a 501(c)3 social justice organization dedicated to advancing the equality of transgender people through advocacy, collaboration and empowerment.
(January 11)Department of Homeland Security Issues
Final Rules for REAL ID Act
The Department of Homeland Security issued final rules for the implementation of the REAL ID Act which became law in 2005. NCTE, in collaboration with many other organizations, has worked in opposition to this dangerous law that would create a national ID card and place significant personal information at risk.
We have worked since passage, particularly on the implementation rules, to ameliorate damage inherent in this bad and dangerous law.
Specifically to transgender people, NCTE was concerned that:
1) The REAL ID Act requires states to have gender as a mandatory field on driver licenses. The final rules unfortunately do not eliminate that requirement.
2) The REAL ID Act could have mandated a preemption of state gender change policies in favor of a federal standard or even federal definition of gender. We are pleased that the new rules would reserve gender definition and gender change rules for the states.
3) The REAL ID Act essentially mandates a national database (a network of state databases) that would include personal information that could lead to discrimination and violence against transgender and other people. These new final rules do not address these concerns and we continue to be very concerned about this privacy degradation.
Though NCTE's analysis of the new rules are not yet complete, since this 284 page document was only issued at noon today, we are also initially concerned about a requirement that states match their databases against Social Security Administration (SSA) databases. NCTE has been working with states, most of which already match with SSA, to understand that federal requirements do not mandate matching gender data with SSA.
Another notable point is that people born before December 1, 1964, will not be required to have compliant IDs until 2017.
NCTE will issue a more thorough analysis in the following weeks after consultation with other allies that are also performing analyses of the new rules.
For more information now, the following sources may provide insight:
Reaction to new rules from Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Sen. Patrick Leahy
Department of Homeland Security
ACLU's background and action center on the REAL ID Act
Electronic Privacy Information Center
CNN
Senate Bill to Repeal Title II of the REAL ID Act (S.717)
(January 8, 2007)New Resource: “Social Security Gender No-Match Letters and Transgender Employees”NCTE receives calls regularly from transgender people across the country who have been “outed” to their employers by the Social Security Administration’s unfair gender “no-match” employment letter policy. To help transgender workers, NCTE is releasing today a new resource: “Social Security Gender No-Match Letters and Transgender Employees – Information for Employees.” You can view it on theweb or download aPDF.
This new resource explains what Social Security no-match letters are and what transgender employees can do if the subject of one of these letters. Anyone who has been confused, curious, or concerned about Social Security gender no-match letters will find this information clarifying.
