Gender Marker / Gender Recognition
(noun phrase)
Refers to any gender designation on official forms. Often seen in discussions around driver’s licenses, state IDs, social security, and birth certificates. Some trans people choose to change their gender markers while others do not. There are several movements in the trans community around gender markers with the most predominant being a push to include X for non-binary genders.
The next most predominant movement is a push to remove gender markers from official documents entirely. This is because the concept of “biological sex” is scientifically unsound and gender markers only encourage people to attribute gender to strangers, resulting in misgendering those who are gender non-conforming or non-binary. Until such time as gender markers are removed from documents, it’s important that trans people have access to change their gender markers as gender markers that don’t align with one’s outward presentation can lead to harassment and abuse from people like cops and bouncers.
e.g. Ashley applied for a microgrant from TransLifeline in order to pay for her gender marker and name change.
Further reading to gain expanded context:
ID Documents Center | National Center for Transgender Equality
X Gender Markers by State | Lambda Legal
Why Transgender People Suffer from ‘ID Anxiety’ | Time
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