D.C. clinic helps transgender people change ID documents

Park always ached for Halloween when she was a child. For her, it was not a time to put on a costume but a chance to dress like her true self.

“It was the only day of the year that I could dress like a princess and not be scolded,” she said.

More health and science news

Children survive tornado in elementary school bathroom

Lenny Bernstein

“Then we looked up, and the whole ceiling was gone,” 11-year-old student Alexander Ghassimi said.

Huge tornado kills scores in Okla.

Joel Achenbach

The state medical examiner’s office said 51 people have been confirmed killed and that officials are expecting 40 more bodies.

Allergy symptoms can be triggered by infections or changing weather

Consumers Union of United States

Effective treatment starts with identifying the cause of congestion and sneezing.

A generation apart, a shared struggle

Megan Buerger

Four gay rights advocates create a mentoring group for LGBT teens to ease the challenges of coming out.

• Where LGBT youths can go for support
  
• Share your coming-out story
• Chat, Thursday noon: Mentoring LGBT youth

Where LGBT youths can go for support

We’ve compiled a list of Washington area organizations for LGBT youths.

Share your coming-out story

Megan Buerger

Use the hashtag #whenicameout or include it in the comments.

Live chat with LYFE's co-founder

Live Q&A

Noon Thursday | Spencer Olson takes your questions about his LGBT-specific mentoring program.

Born a biological male and raised in a strict South Korean orphanage, she says she has thought of herself as female since she was 4 or 5 years old.

At age 7, she was adopted and brought to the United States by a socially conservative family that had nine other children. She said that discussing her transgender identity at home “was absolutely never an option.”

“But there was no doubt,” she continued. “I was totally aware that I was a woman.”

And it was as an adult woman, undergoing hormone therapy and preparing for surgery, that Park moved to Arlington two years ago. Ready to begin life with her male partner, she was saddled with a driver’s license that identified her as a man, with a name she no longer used. (Because transgender issues often spark emotional reactions, she spoke with a reporter on condition that she be identified only by her middle name.) To secure work, she needed to obtain documents that matched the persona that she presented to the world — a process that private lawyers said would cost thousands of dollars.

In the fall of 2010, her physician at the Whitman-Walker community health center put Park in touch with Victoria McNamee, a volunteer lawyer at the clinic who had begun to help transgender clients change their legal identities.

McNamee’s efforts prompted Whitman-Walker to launch the Name and Gender Change Clinic on June 12. At these sessions, clients can meet one-on-one with lawyers to begin changing the name and gender identity on driver’s licenses, passports, birth certificates, Social Security records and other public documents — free of charge, no appointment necessary.

The clinic, first of its kind in the Washington area, is a partnership between TransLAW (Trans Legal Advocates of Washington) and Whitman-Walker, which specializes in serving HIV/AIDS and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) clients.

It’s hard enough for people such as Park to change their social identity, a transition that can involve hormone therapy and several kinds of surgery, as well as emotional issues. Changing their legal identity presents a different but no less complicated set of challenges.

Without an accurate ID, one can’t open a bank account, enroll in college, apply for Medicaid or Medicare, or lease a house. Even entering a bar can be complicated.

“You don’t think about the number of times in a day — or a week or a month — that you need to pull out your license,” said Nellie Phelan, one of the program’s volunteer lawyers.

A complicated process

Whitman-Walker’s lawyers began to assist informally with identity changes in the early 2000s, and the caseload has rapidly increased. McNamee, who managed Park’s case, arrived at Whitman-Walker in 2011 from the international law firm Hogan Lovells.

“This was the [caseload] that I never expected,” she said. She had come to the health center as a “deferred associate” to work pro bono for a year until the firm hired her full time. After the year, she has stayed on as a volunteer.