'The system is unfair' US trans and non-binary people hit by voting
- 4 years ago
'The system is unfair' US trans and non-binary people hit by voting
When My-Linh moved from Texas to New York, they knew they wanted to vote in elections without risk of discrimination against their non-binary identity. But the only options on the form to get a state ID are male and female.“The system set in place is very unfair, and it doesn’t give any opportunity for people who have intersectional identities to be able to feel comfortable to identify themselves,” says My-Linh. Few states in the US have passed a law requiring voting registration forms to include an X or unspecified option for anyone who doesn’t identify as male or female. Only 18 states and Washington DC have that option when getting a driver’s license – neither Texas nor New York, where My-Linh would vote, do. For non-binary people, as well as the transgender community as a whole, barriers to getting an appropriate ID leave hundreds of thousands of people vulnerable to disenfranchisement. In a February 2020 report, the UCLA School of Law Williams Institute estimated that 965,350 transgender people will be eligible to vote in November’s presidential election. But of the 45 states that conduct elections in person, 42% of transgender people don’t have the correct identification. These numbers don’t account for the estimated 25% to 35% of transgender people who identify as non-binary, or those who are non-binary but not transgender – which a 2014 study in the UK estimated as about 0.4% of the population. The 2015 US Trans Survey also found that a third of the people who showed ID which didn’t match their gender presentation faced negative results such as harassment or even assault – something that can discourage transgender and non-binary people from casting a ballot. Allison, a trans femme who had recently moved to California before the November 2016 elections, had not changed her gender marker due to the high cost of the paperwork. Though she had registered online, poll workers asked for her ID, citing their reasoning being it was her first time voting in the state which does not have strict voter ID laws. She only received a provisional ballot, meaning her vote may not have counted.
When My-Linh moved from Texas to New York, they knew they wanted to vote in elections without risk of discrimination against their non-binary identity. But the only options on the form to get a state ID are male and female.“The system set in place is very unfair, and it doesn’t give any opportunity for people who have intersectional identities to be able to feel comfortable to identify themselves,” says My-Linh. Few states in the US have passed a law requiring voting registration forms to include an X or unspecified option for anyone who doesn’t identify as male or female. Only 18 states and Washington DC have that option when getting a driver’s license – neither Texas nor New York, where My-Linh would vote, do. For non-binary people, as well as the transgender community as a whole, barriers to getting an appropriate ID leave hundreds of thousands of people vulnerable to disenfranchisement. In a February 2020 report, the UCLA School of Law Williams Institute estimated that 965,350 transgender people will be eligible to vote in November’s presidential election. But of the 45 states that conduct elections in person, 42% of transgender people don’t have the correct identification. These numbers don’t account for the estimated 25% to 35% of transgender people who identify as non-binary, or those who are non-binary but not transgender – which a 2014 study in the UK estimated as about 0.4% of the population. The 2015 US Trans Survey also found that a third of the people who showed ID which didn’t match their gender presentation faced negative results such as harassment or even assault – something that can discourage transgender and non-binary people from casting a ballot. Allison, a trans femme who had recently moved to California before the November 2016 elections, had not changed her gender marker due to the high cost of the paperwork. Though she had registered online, poll workers asked for her ID, citing their reasoning being it was her first time voting in the state which does not have strict voter ID laws. She only received a provisional ballot, meaning her vote may not have counted.