A marcher at 2016 Trans* Pride (Image: CHS)
With a Donald Trump presidency looming, the Gender Justice League is raising money for an emergency fund to help transgender people change their legal documents to correspond with their identities.
Danni Askini, executive director of the group, launched an online fundraising campaign for clinics to help people change their identification documents and to provide direct funds to trans people who can’t afford to make the legal changes.
“We need to prepare for the potential State-sanctioned discrimination that is to come,”Askini writes. “Having legal identification documents that correctly correspond to our identities is the first step in helping us navigate a Trump regime as smoothly as possible.”
According to the campaign, four out of five trans people don’t have updated legal documents.
“This means that should a Trump administration make promise on implementing bigoted policy, Trans people will face even more discrimination finding employment, housing, at schools, and when traveling out of the country,” the campaign description says.
The campaign has raised more than $5,000 of its $40,000 goal for the Gender Justice League to hold clinics to help trans people fill out forms and get letters to change their names and gender markers.
Askini has scheduled the first clinic for Wednesday, November 30 at Agnes Underground. Only about 70 people can fit in the space, additional clinics are expected to be scheduled in December.
According to the event’s organizers, the clinic will have volunteer attorneys helping people fill out and understand forms and medical providers who can write same-day letters for gender marker changes.
The clinic will help with names changes in King County and driver’s license, social security, birth certificate and passport changes.
In King County, it costs $171 to change your name. Birth certificate costs are $20. Passports are $135. Washington IDs are $54. Driver’s licenses are $89 and changing your name or gender on a license or ID is $20.
Attendees will also be able to have their passport photos taken for free.
QLaw Foundation, Teller & Associates, U.T.O.P.I.A, and the King County Bar Association are participating in the event.
Volunteers are needed for the event. If interested email [email protected].
To donate to the clinic go here.
Having recently gone through this process myself I know how expensive it can be.
Legal name change: $165 (paid in cash!)
Driver’s license: $20
Passport: $140 to the state department, $25 to the acceptance facility
Birth certificate: depends on the state you were born in
Social Security is at least free. But you also need access to a doctor who can write up the gender marker change letter.
Also there’s a bunch of little things, like getting a passport photo – for me it was only $1 since I already have a nice camera and lighting setup and just got it printed at Bartell’s, but most places that photograph for passports charge $20 or even more.
Oh, and a huge word of caution for people trying to update passports (which I really recommend doing, or applying for one if you don’t already have one): most of the passport acceptance facilities are by appointment only, and many of them are shutting down for all of December! Your best bet is one of the Neighborhood Service Centers; I went to the Central District one at 23rd and Jackson. Really friendly and kind people, but there can be a bit of a wait.
But yeah I am very fortunate to have the kind of money that this wasn’t an impediment to me. Most transgender folks aren’t this well-off.
Hm, looks like the amounts I paid are different than what was cited above (and didn’t notice until just now). I did most of my stuff in May, although the passport stuff is fresh in my mind because I only just got it taken care of yesterday.
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