Born again?: (non-) motivations to alter sex/gender identity markers on birth certificates

ABSTRACT

This research will examine one type of official identity – the birth certificate – and how the ability to alter such a document, after the enactment of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 in the United Kingdom, affected individual trans people’s motivations to alter, or not, the official sex/gender identity marker on their birth certificates. An examination will be made of a series of interviews conducted with trans identified persons in order to better understand the motivation, or not, to change one’s official sex/gender identity marker on a birth certificate from that which was medically assigned at birth. Respondents reported a number of motivations including access to various social and legal benefits, a greater sense of psychological well-being, and a desire for jurisdictional coherence. They also reported a number of non-motivations including the financial burden, ethical objections to having to be judged by a panel of presumed experts, and the desire for conflicting documents as a form of willful political protest. The goal of this research is to better understand the motivations, or lack thereof, of individuals to alter (or not) the official sex/gender marker on their birth certificate.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender identity
• gender expression
• transgender identity
• official identity
• Gender Recognition Act 2004
• United Kingdom

Acknowledgments

The reflection developed drew on data collected in the frame of the European Research Council funded project TRANSRIGHTS: Gender citizenship and sexual rights in Europe: Transgender lives in transnational perspective. The project reflects only the views of the author, and the European Union cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC grant agreement n° 615594.

Notes on contributors

J. Michael Ryan

J. Michael Ryan is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Nazarbayev University (Kazakhstan). He received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Maryland (United States). Dr. Ryan was previously a researcher for the TRANSRIGHTS Project at The University of Lisbon (Portugal) and has taught courses at The American University in Cairo (Egypt), Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO) in Quito, Ecuador and the University of Maryland (United States of America). Before returning to academia, Dr. Ryan worked as a research methodologist at the National Center for Health Statistics in Washington, D.C. He is the editor of Essential Concepts in Sociology (2018), and co-editor of Gender in the Contemporary Middle East (with Helen Rizzo, 2019), Sexualities in the Contemporary Middle East (with Helen Rizzo, 2020), The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social Theory (with Bryan Turner et. al., 2018), The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Consumption and Consumer Studies (with Daniel T. Cook, 2015), and The Concise Encyclopedia of Sociology (with George Ritzer, 2011). He has also served as advisory editor on The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies.