Here’s a headline that stood out in the Sunday Washington Post: “‘M’ or ‘F’? Outdated IDs don’t cover transgender individuals.” It even had the period, for emphasis. This was meant to be a news story on A-5, by AP reporter Lisa Leff, even though it read like a libertine-left pamphlet.
The “outdated” part is an ID that describes a man who “identifies as” female. AP’s Leff constructed a whole story of Transgender Equality lobbying, without a whisper of someone who disapproves, as she tweeted it, that “Transgender activists are racking up wins on one of their biggest issues.”
Even Leff's Twitter bio sounds liberal: “AP reporter with one of journalism's funnest jobs -- covering LGBT, youth and aging issues, education, medi-pot and Northern California's crazy coolness”. This reporter relayed that “mismatched” ID cards are oppressive and dangerous:
Holding mismatched identification also exposes transgender people to the threat of discrimination or violence, advocates say. A 2008 survey of 6,450 transgender people conducted by the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force found that 40 percent of respondents had been harassed after presenting an ID that conflicted with how they looked. Three percent reported being attacked and 15 percent said they had been refused service.
Most U.S. residents don’t think twice about the gender printed on their government-issued documents. But those “M’’ or “F’’ markers — and the legal and administrative prerequisites for switching them on passports, birth certificates and other forms of identification — are a source of anxiety and even discrimination for transgender individuals.
The new revolution for the “T” in “LGBT” is removing the requirement that you actually get surgery to alter your natural gender. They want to “simplify” the requirements so you don’t have to do anything but “identify” as the gender you’re not:
Over the past few years, however, the emerging movement for transgender rights has been quietly pressing the issue, persuading state lawmakers and federal and state agencies to simplify the lengthy and often costly process. Advocates recorded their latest victory Friday when the Social Security Administration announced that it would no longer require proof of surgery to alter the gender identification of individuals in its computers and records.
The move mirrors similar actions by the State Department, which amended its passport application policies three years ago to do away with the requirement involving sex reassignment surgery, and Citizenship and Immigration Services, which last year did the same for green cards, work permits and other documents it issues.
Notice the word "Obama" is nowhere in the story. There's no idea that the Democrats are pandering to a libertine base with an extreme agenda, that the State Department and the Social Security Administration need to "correct" the "mismatched ID" problem. No, AP likes to help policy "evolve" so the Left achieves victories without any actual opposition getting into the newspapers:
“Most people may not see this as a big deal, but transgender people know that this seemingly small technical change will protect their privacy and give them more control over their own lives,” said Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. “Since 9/11, it’s become . . . incredibly important to have accurate and consistent identification. Without it, you can’t open a bank account, you can’t use a credit card, you can’t apply for a loan, you can’t get a job, you can’t vote, you can’t get insurance.”
As a result of lawsuits and lobbying, about half of U.S. states — most recently Virginia, Illinois, Alaska and Idaho — allow residents to revise the gender designations on their driver’s licenses without first undergoing surgery or getting a judge’s approval. Applicants instead must provide a letter from a health professional stating they have received counseling, hormone therapy or another form of gender-transition treatment.
...The trend toward making it easier to update identification reflects not only the community’s growing visibility but evolving ideas about what it means to be transgender. While sex reassignment surgery used to be the benchmark for when a person had fully transitioned to the opposite sex, doctors and psychologists now recognize that not every patient wants to be surgically transformed or can afford the surgery.
“The gender-change process that was used in many states for identity documents was established in the 1970s, and our understanding of who trans people are . . . has evolved over time,” said Masen Davis, executive director of the Transgender Law Center.
AP’s Leff might insist there’s a Republican in her story, but note how Assemblyman Don Wagner merely likes the status quo in requiring surgery before ID-card changes: “Wagner says that although he empathizes with people who find the system cumbersome or cost-prohibitive, he is concerned that eliminating long-standing hurdles creates opportunities for identity fraud.”
AP doesn’t want to have an “awkward” conversation in its news reporting where anyone is allowed to disapprove of “transgenderism” and finds it odd that reporters who claim to believe in truth, reason, and science, change pronouns at the whim of any “Lauren Grey” who wants to say he’s a woman.
See "Lauren Grey" plead his case on TV here.
