Audrey Mbugua Wins Her Landmark Case!

Been talking about this on the blog since last year, and finally have some wonderful news to report.

Prominent Kenyan trans activist Audrey Mbugua has won her landmark case against the Kenyan National Examinations Council {KNEC}!

KNEC was ordered by the High Court Tuesday to change the name and gender marker on her academic certificates.   

Justice Weldon Korir said KNEC had failed to demonstrate why they couldn't make the changes requested by Ms. Mbugua, and gave them 45 days to print a new certificate without the gender marker.

The court ruled that Ms. Mbugua would have to pay for any extra costs to make the change, but you can obviously presume she was exceeding happy about this latest legal victory.

We won,” Mbugua told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “It’s a huge watershed moment.”

Back n July, the High Court ordered the Kenyan authorities to register her lobby group, Transgender Education and Advocacy, saying their refusal to do so had no legal basis and was an abuse of power.

Mbugua has also been nominated by the Dutch government for their Human Rights Tulip Award for the innovative and groundbreaking human rights work she has been doing raising the profile of transgender human rights issues in Kenya.

This is a huge win she's been fighting hard for, and congratulations to my Kenyan sis.  Common sense and justice did prevail in this case.

Trans Namibians Facing Documentation Problems

I keep pointing out that trans human rights issues are worldwide issues, and it is very interesting to note that no matter what country we reside in, some of our problems are the same.

One of those trans problems that crosses international borders is documentation.

It shouldn't be, but as my now 8 months and counting drama just to get a Texas drivers license is an example of and Valentina Verbal of Chile being forced to drop out of a race for a seat in her national legislature because of it, we go through a lot of drama as transpeople because of mismatched identification. 

That being said, let's move to Namibia, where some of our transpeeps living in that nation like 24 year old Mercedez von Cloete are receiving resistance when it comes to acquiring documentation that accurately reflects who they are now.

Article 13 of the UN Charter of Rights and Freedoms states:

• (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
• (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

According to an article in The Namibian, despite being able to transition and have SRS be legal in that nation, Namibian trans people like Cloete are being shown the door when they attempt to get the documentation that they need to travel in and out of the country.

Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration head Jacobius van de Westhuizen says this shouldn't be happening and no Namibian should be denied the right to identification documents.

But the reality for Mercedez and other Namibian transpeople is quite different.  Cloete applied for a new passport photo in June 2012.  The application was not only turned down, but she didn't find out about the denial despite checking multiple times until a year later.

In the meantime, that puts Cloete in the situation every time she travels to South Africa of being subjected to lengthy questioning and delays by both Namibian and South African customs officials because her old passport photo looks nothing like the woman she is now.

We shouldn't have to go through lengthy bureaucratic delays and unnecessary drama just to get documentation that matches the people we are now.  

 
   

Taiwan To Allow Legal Gender Change Without Medical Or Surgical Intervention

After three hours of heated debate on December 9, Gay Star News is reporting that the Taiwan Ministry of Health and Welfare has decided to allow trans and intersex people intending to change their legal gender to do so without transitioning or surgical intervention.

Taiwan back in 2008 took steps to make it easier to change gender identity, but it required compulsory genital surgery, removal of all relevant sexual organs and evaluations by two psychologists before they would approve any document changes. 

Even if you did go through with all of that, you had to be unmarried and your efforts could be undone by your parents having veto power over the process.   

Taiwan's Ministry of Interior will come up with the new regulations and policy necessary to implement the of the Ministry of Health and Welfare after further discussions. 

But it is a decision that is being hailed in the trans and intersex communities there as a major step forward and more progressive than their Asia-Pacific Rim counterparts. 

‘The Interior Ministry’s household registration system is linked with all our legal documents, so the sex registered at birth will have to change for other legal papers to change,’ said intersex rights activist Hiker Chiu to Gay Star News. 

‘The Interior Ministry’s household registration system is linked with all our legal documents, so the sex registered at birth will have to change for other legal papers to change,’ said intersex rights activist Hiker Chiu - See more at: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/taiwan-allows-legal-gender-changes-without-transitioning091213#sthash.sLmOm975.dpuf

Here's hoping the new regulations are compiled swiftly and their implementation for our trans an gender variant cousins in Taiwan goes as smoothly as possible.

TransGriot Note: photo is of Taiwanese trans model Alicia Liu. 

DC's Jones Birth Certificate Bill Signed Into Law

The JaParker Deoni Jones Birth Certificate Equality Amendment Act of 2013, that seeks to modernize DC's laws and make it easier for trans and intersex residents of the District to request a birth certificate that reflects their current personal information, has been signed into law by Washington DC Mayor Vincent Gray (D).

The bill was amended after its initial committee approval and the initial council vote on June 29 to explicitly include intersex people to it.  It also allows physicians and any medical professional to sign off on changing gender markers. 

The bill received final council approval in July and was signed by Mayor Gray into law August 6.  It will become law after the mandatory 30 day Congressional review.

With Mayor Gray's signature the District of Columbia now joins the federal government and 23 states in protecting trans identities and allowing birth certificate changes without surgical intervention.  The Jones Birth Certificate Bill is according to DC Trans Coalition social policy organizer Andy Bowen, who spearheaded passage of the bill the strongest in the United States.

And it's also a fitting memorial to Deoni Jones.      

Audrey Mbugua Landmark Kenyan Case Update

I wrote back in June about the groundbreaking lawsuit that my Kenyan homegirl Audrey Mbugua filed against the Kenyan National Examinations Council (KNEC) and the Kenyan Attorney General's office to change the name on her KCSE certificates and other identity documents including her national identity card and passport to reflect who she is now.

In an August 6 hearing at the Milimani Law Court, the Kenyan Christian Lawyers Fellowship stuck their noses in Audrey's business and indicated they wished to join the case, claiming this landmark case will have an impact on legal practices in the country.  

Audrey (and I concur with her) says otherwise, but Judge Wilson Korir is giving the KCLF lawyers seven days to file an application proving that contention which Mbugua says she will oppose. 

The KCLF lawyers bid to join the case will be heard on September 2. 

Just for grins Audrey, I'd investigate whether some of our American faith based haters are either pumping cash into the Kenyan Christian Lawyers Fellowship, advising the KCLF attorneys or they have any connection to either Scott Lively, Ugandan MP David Bahati or other high profile American based or African continent fundamentalist haters and organizations. 

Hopefully this turns out to be just a legal speed bump and in the end common sense reigns and she emerges triumphant, which is probably what's scaring some of these faith based transphobes in the first place. 

Georgia Cis Woman Asked To Prove Femininity To Correct Birth Certificate Error

For those of you who are skeptical of the point I repeatedly make that Black trans issues are Black community issues as well, I submit that after her recent drama, 37 year old Nakia Grimes of Clayton County, GA would be the latest cis person saying amen to that.

Her birth certificate contained a typo on it listing her in the gender code as male that she'd never noticed, but an unidentified female employee in the Georgia Department of Public Records did.

As part of the restrictive Voter ID laws that many Republican controlled dictatorships states have enacted to make it harder to get a driver's license so you can then vote, they require you to produce a birth certificate in order to get it.   

When she showed up at the driver license place on the cusp of her 37th birthday the error was noted, and she now had to make a trip to the Georgia Department of Public Records to correct the birth certificate before she could get her license..  

Should be a simple process right?   Umm, no vanillacentric privileged conservafools, it isn't because the Voter ID Suppression laws you overwhelmingly support aren't specifically designed to frack with you.   

The still unidentified Georgia DPS clerk told Grimes she needed to have a PAP smear done, have a doctor write a notarized note verifying she was female before the error would be changed    

Never mind the fact that Grimes is the mother of a young son and of course she was highly pissed off after hearing that request.

She wasn't having it, much less undergoing an invasive medical procedure to verify for a bureaucrat what she knew in her mind, body and soul that she was a cis female. 

Grimes took her concerns to a local ATL television station and when FOX5 turned their unblinking TV camera eyes on this situation, the birth records for her son were pulled up by the GDPR and verified the fact Ms. Grimes was his mother.   Ms. Grimes' jacked up birth certificate was expeditiously corrected after that. 

No one cis or trans should have to go through that much drama, much less have to go to court to get a simple documentation change on your birth certificate so you can vote or get a drivers license.  It's one of the reasons why I was so pissed about the SCOTUS ruling invalidating Section 4 of the VRA and their BS reasoning for it.  

Trans people's fight to make it easier to change identity documents will also benefit cis people like Ms Grimes who have coding or other errors.

The moral of this story is once again it proves that we all exist in an interconnected web of mutuality.  What negativity you aim at a despised group has ripple effects that can blow back upon you cis people in unexpected ways. 

It also is more conclusive evidence that what ails Black trans America also ails Black America as well and vice versa.

Huge Social Security Win For Trans Community

The worldwide trans community has been on a good karmic roll lately with either policy or legislative victories in various nations, and we had a huge one come from the Social Security Administration.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) announced the modernization of the medical requirements transgender people must show to update the gender marker in a person’s social security record, eliminating the archaic genital surgery requirement and replacing it with “appropriate clinical treatment” as several other federal agencies already have done.

SSA also issued guidelines on how staff should interact with transgender people. This includes important protections: confidentiality, proper pronoun usage, and treating trans people with respect and dignity.

This is a crucial change because the Social Security number is used as a defacto national ID and because the varying standards of changing identity documents from state to state lead to inconsistent documentation for trans people.. 

It also a huge win for trans individuals because access to employment, housing, health care and travel all can hinge on having appropriate documentation. When employers and governmental agencies like state Departments of Motor Vehicles encounter SSA document gender discrepancies while verifying a person’s identity, transgender individuals often face discrimination or other hardships.

For our trans elder population on Medicare it's also important because the gender marker on the face of Medicare ID cards is pulled directly from the Social Security database. State government agencies, including Medicaid, also often match data with SSA, causing problems for trans people with mismatched SSA documentation.

Audrey's History Making Kenyan Case

I've had the pleasure of conversing with Audrey Mbugua online for several years now and I'm looking forward to the day I finally meet this trailblazing Kenyan trans activist.   .
 
I'm following with keen interest her Kenyan history making legal case in her homeland in which she sued the Kenyan National Examinations Council and the Kenyan Attorney General to change the name on her KNEC certificates and other identity documents including her national identity card and passport to reflect who she is now.

“The process of changing my name and gender in my identity, travel and academic documents was fraught with challenges such as lack of understanding among public officers in charge of these processes,” Audrey says in a recent interview.

The initial court hearing was on May 28 and the counsel representing KNEC and the attorney general asked  High Court Judge Weldon Korir for more time to prepare a response to Mbugua's petition because this case is in their words 'tricky'.   The counsel also indicated that the petition response will require extensive consultations between several Kenyan government departments, including the Registrar of Births and Deaths.

There's nothing 'tricky' about it.  29 year old Audrey lives her life as and presents as female, she has undergone a medical transition except the genital surgery she started in 2001, and her documentation needs to reflect that.

  


Audrey's interview on NTV Kenya



Good luck sis!  Hope common sense prevails on August 6 and your document changes are granted..

Audrey Mbugua's Fight For Her Kenyan Document Recognition

One of the missions of TransGriot I take seriously as a child of the African Diaspora is to relentlessly point out trans people exist on the second largest continent on our planet and the Mother Continent for humanity.  

One of the things that's a common thread across the world in our trans human rights struggle is getting documentation to match our new identities.  In some places it's a simple process to get that changed, while in others you have to fight tooth and nail and sometimes litigate it just to get it done.

One of the persons finding themselves in the fighting tooth and nail category is someone whose videos and writings I've highlighted on TransGriot before in Audrey Mbugua. 

Audrey transitioned in 2001 and she's in the news in her native Kenya because she's having to take the Kenya National Examinations Council to court in order to recognize her gender change and make the necessary documentation corrections to reflect who she is now.   KNEC is resisting her request to change her KCSE certificates, and it's negatively impacting her ability to find employment. 

'I have made several requests to the Kenya National Examinations Council to change the name on my KCSE certificate to reflect my true identity in vain," she said in a Kenyan Daily Post interview.

In her lawsuit she has named the Kenyan Attorney General and KNEC as defendants, and it goes to trial on May 28.

Good luck sis, and hope you prevail.

Argentina's Gender Identity Law Takes Effect

Our trans cousins in Argentina are also savoring a huge win for transkind as their groundbreaking Gender Identity Law took effect on June 4. 

It overwhelmingly passed both houses of the Argentine Legislature by lopsided margins.  It passed in the Argentine Chamber of deputies by a 167-17 margin and a 55-0 one in the Argentine Senate before being signed into law by Argentine President Cristina Fernandez. 

It makes it easier for trans people in that country to change their national identity documents to reflect who they are now in addition to adding groundbreaking benefits that ensure access to trans specific medical care in their national health plan..

Transpeople in that nation are eagerly lining up to take advantage of their new rights to change their identity documents without having to navigate the hurdles of a doctor or a judge and it's something that needs to be replicated in the United States.

Game Changing Trans Document Decision In Canada

The positive momentum for trans rights issues continues in Canada

In what is seen as a game changing decision, on April 11 the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal struck down a rule that required gender reassignment surgery in order to change the gender code on birth certificates.

The 95 page decision was the result of a challenge filed by a trans woman who complained she was discriminated against because she could not change her legal documents unless she had surgery.

The transwoman in question later had SRS in 2008.   

“She had an orchiectomy (the removal of the testicles), at least in part to satisfy the requirement to change the sex designation,” explains lawyer N. Nicole Nussbaum to Xtra.ca.

“They completely knocked that out,” Nussbaum says. “The tribunal doesn’t have the authority to strike down a law, but they can say the law is not enforceable.”

The tribunal found that the Vital Statistics Act requirement of “transsexual surgery” prior to changing the sex designation on a birth certificate discriminates against trans people, she says. The provincial government has been ordered to remove this stipulation.  

Birth certificates are also used as foundation documents to change other federal level documents such as passports in Canada   

As a result of the precedent setting decision, the province of Ontario has 180 days to revise the criteria for a sex designation change.  

In addition, the decision of the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal could potentially precipitate changes to similar laws in other provinces and territories and strike a major legal blow against the rule that only allows gender code changes on Canadian passports after SRS surgery

Looks like our Canadian trans cousins in Ontario are celebrating a major win that hopefully will be replicated across the Great White North.