BETHLEHEM, PA - Come 2020, ‘X’ marks the spot
"Drivers licenses have all kinds of identifying information--they have your height, they have your eye color, they have the color of your hair, they have your photo, they have your address and they also have your gender marker," explains Lehigh Valley Renaissance Leader, Corinne Goodwin, "But if you are a non-binary person and you don’t identify as female or you don’t identify as male, how do--how does a police officer who pulls you over for a speeding ticket or a hotel clerk know how to address you? If you have the gender non-binary marker, it prompts them to ask you for your pronouns and that way you start being treated appropriately right from the get-go."
Pennsylvania drivers will be given a gender neutral ‘X’ option in the new year, instead of F or M. For non-binary people, those who identify as all genders other than female or male, man or woman, this is a huge win. Drivers like Mars Bielski, who identifies as non-binary say, it’s been a long time coming.
"To me it’s important because it--when people see the male or female indicator and then if you don’t present what they know to be male or female, it becomes kind of frustrating," Bielski says, "Then there’s the looking, the ‘what are you doing?’ your sex indicator says this but you don’t look like it so there’s a lot of having to fight with social norms about what female and male expression looks like."
As other states, like Arkansas and Maine, opened gender options, and amid growing calls for the third, gender neutral choice, the Pennsylvania state Department of Transportation decided to make the change. Under the state vehicle code, the agency has the authority to make the change without legislation.
"It’s very validating," says Khrys Exposito, "One of the things I always say to people is that there are more of us out there than you think. There are people who present one way and they know that they are non-binary or gender fluid and so they, like me, can pass. And then you have to have people in your culture or society who accept you. But it’s nice, and it validates, that PennDOT probably had experiences with their own employees as well as the people around them in society."
But in a state like Pennsylvania, not everyone is eager for the change to fully take effect. Some conservative lawmakers and community leaders have voiced their concerns. But there seems to be a disconnect and questions unanswered; Why is it so important to recognize a third gender?
"Myself personally, I identify on the trans-feminine side of the spectrum but you know for 40 years my drivers license had an M next to it yet, for many of those years I looked and presented on the feminine side. And so I always just was deathly afraid of what would happen if I was pulled over, how would I be treated at my doctor’s office (which was not great), how would I be treated when going in and checking in for a hotel room," Goodwin shares with PBS39 News Tonight reporter, K.C. Lopez, "Once I got that identification, not only did I feel better about myself, now other people knew how to deal with me in a more appropriate manner and that has implications not just for safety but just for general social interactions. I think now there are about a dozen or more states that are in the process of either creating gender non-binary options or who have them, but it’s just one step along the way and, I can take my Pennsylvania ID with my non-binary marker on it and go to Nebraska and they’re not going to treat me appropriately because they don’t respect that non-binary identity."
With about 28 thousand respondents, the 2015 US Transgender Survey is the largest survey ever devoted to the lives and experiences of trans people. 32% of those surveyed reported being verbally harassed, denied benefits or service, asked to leave or assaulted when they showed an ID with a name or gender that didn’t match their outward expressed gender.
"I remember going to a club and that was the case, and my ID still says F under the sex indicator and I handed them the ID and they pulled me to the side and they looked me up and down and there was a whole (thing) so--and getting pulled over is stressful on its own but on top of having that indicator on my license, on top of the way I express gender, on top of being a minority, is just a lot of stress all at once," Bielski says, "So there have been a lot of instances where, not even with my ID, but having to constantly come out to every new place I go to is always a big risk that’s ran."
And Two-thirds of those surveyed didn’t have their preferred gender on identification documents.
Bielski tells Lopez, "My birth name was Marissa, and then when I transitioned into being Mars, it was very frustrating, it was very hard because I kind of forgot that all of my legal paperwork said what it said."
"You want the person on the receiving end to treat you with respect, to refer to you with the appropriate pronouns, to treat you in a way that all humans should be treated," says Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center Executive Director, Adrian Shanker, "When people on the receiving end can see that somebody has an X designation on their license, they’re not going to immediately call them Mr. or Mrs. or Sir or Ma'am, they’re going to more successfully be able to interact with that person by knowing that they are talking to a non-binary individual and that they should do so with respect and dignity."
For non-binary people like Khrys Exposito, they say, it’s not about male or female, it’s about expressing the person you are and having the document to back it up...
"To be able to get a drivers license that not only marks it, but can be used to express to others, it really does feel like another threshold…"
Pennsylvania joins ten other states that give drivers an ‘X’ gender option.