In a win for many transgender workers, the Social Security Administration (SSA) will no longer compare gender markers on employment records with those in the Social Security documents, the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) has announced.
The change ends a practice that outed many transgender people to their employers and resulted in firings. The new policy will take effect Sept. 24.
"Alerting employers about differences in someone's gender threatened people's jobs and did not accomplish what this verification system was designed for," said Mara Keisling, executive director of NCTE, in a news statement. "There was absolutely no reason for it and it was extremely dangerous for transgender people, who still face significant disrespect, discrimination and violence in the workplace."
In past years, when employers ran quarterly checks with SSA on employee social security numbers in their systems, they could also mark an optional gender box. Many employers, believing that it would aid the verification process, checked that box. Employers were consequently notified of gender mismatches.
According to NCTE, 711,488 such letters were sent in 2010.
"Nobody wanted it or needed it done," Keisling said. "They were just doing it because they were doing it."
Keisling said that NCTE began talks with SSA about the letters during the Bush administration, but changing computer systems and forms took years to complete.
Keisling estimates that hundreds of transgender workers were fired as a result of letters. Workers either lost their jobs due to simple discrimination or because employers thought they were legally required to fire them for having mismatched information.
Other transgender people who were outed but kept their jobs sometimes complained that the outing made them unsafe or uncomfortable at work.
Transgender activists have also criticized SSA's policy for changing gender markers within the system. Last year, the federal government released new guidelines to make it easier for transgender people to update the gender markers on their passports.
SSA, however, has yet to follow suit. SSA still requires that transgender people undergo gender-reassignment surgeries before changing the markers. Such surgeries are often expensive and not always wanted. Because social security cards do not display a gender marker and because the process of changing a gender marker through SSA can be difficult, many transgender people opt not to.
As a result, transgender workers who updated other identity documents were often outed as trans by the SSA gender-match letters.
Keisling said the next step is to get SSA to update the policy for changing change within the system.
"I am confident that they are going to update their policy," said Keisling. "They don't really have an interest in keeping it the way it is."
How long that process could take, however, remains to be seen.
