Ohhhhhhh! Shiny! My first female ID!

[Ceera]

In yesterday’s mail, I got something that marks a very important milestone in my transition journey. My first female-identified, government-issued ID card! I applied for it on the 21st of last month, as the first thing I did after going before a judge and getting my legal name and gender marker changed.

Wow, it sure is colorful and shiny! Oregon just moved to a new style of driver license, loaded with anti-tampering and anti-forgery features. In addition to the subtle coloring, they have multiple layers of holographic details in the plastic laminations. A photo doesn’t begin to do it justice, with regards to how pretty they are.

I posted this to my Facebook yesterday, and got lots of complements. Both on the milestone achievement, and on it being an amazingly nice photo of me. One friend asked my secret to getting such a nice ID photo. My reply was, “Being really happy when the picture was taken!”

[Devi SM]

Wow! Wow! Wow!
What a great achievement. Congratulations Ceera.
I just hear that past January was approved that California accept applications for gender corrections.
I'm working with a team for support of the trasgender community of my health insurer, btw great people, for all those legal issues and one of them is to legal change my name.

[AllieSF]

It looks wonderful. I love your smile. I got mine a couple of weeks ago. I presented all the extra identification documents to get the DL with the "Real ID" certification so that I can use it as legal photo ID when flying domestically after June 2020. Congratulations again. Now you need to go out and get carded at some bar just to be able to show it off to someone! Enjoy.

[Ceera]

Vanessa, yes, California recently adopted similar legislation to what Oregon did a year earlier. A much simpler application process for gender changes on driver licenses, and I think also on birth certificates, and allowing a non-binary “x” choice for gender. Hope your application goes as well as mine did!

Allie, unfortunately, Oregon had to completely update their administrative systems to allow for the RealID database requirements, so we won’t be able to get a RealID compliant license in Oregon until June 2020. Long before then, I hope to have a female passport.

[pamela7]

ab fab!!! i only got mine a couple of months ago!

xxx

[Jeri Ann]

Way to go Ceera!

A new Texas D.L. is a piece of cake. It takes a court order but S.S. requires that anyway. I got mine a year ago. Complete the form, take a number, pay $11, take a picture and done.

[Sara Olivia]

Congratulations Ceera, that is a huge milestone. Unfortunately its probably also just the beginning of the bureaucracy. I think I'm somewhere in the 30's and counting in terms of documents that require my name and/or gender designation to be updated. Its amazing how much paperwork is generated by a transition. But don't let that take the sparkle off the drivers license. That was a huge day for me too.

[Ceera]

Sara, oh yes, so much more yet to change! In the whirlwind of the first two weeks: on the first two days alone, I got the court order, updated my driver license, car registration and car title, got Social Security updated, got both of the banks I do business with taken care of, updated Facebook, and already had one new debit card in hand with the new name on it.

I also made a list, with over 60 different places it needed updating! Post office, Car and homeowner’s insurance, medicaid, VA health care, cable tv / internet provider, and a heads-up to my medical providers soon followed. Also a new Costco member card, Bi Mart member card, updated my Barnes and Noble, Hot Topic and Fred Meyer shopper affinity cards, and updated my Apple ID. But for most of my credit cards and shopper affinity cards, I need to call a customer service 800 number and have them send me a form to send back, with a photocopy of the court order. For a number of the shopper affinity cards, it may be simpler just to apply for new ones, and scrap the old ones.

The big ones coming up will be updating my birth certificate, and getting a US Passport. Need to do a two hour road trip to expedite the birth certificate and return with certified copies the same day. Never had a passport before, but with the new driver license and birth certificate, that should go okay. Also need to update utilities providers (power, natural gas, water, sewer, trash pickup), and other services like pest control, and a company that does annual checks on my irrigation system’s backflow preventer. Then there are club memberships, and a list of websites that I have yet to compile, where I have accounts that will need changing.

For updating local friends, I have printed off ‘calling cards’, with my photo, new name, new email, and my facebook and phone info. Giving those out to people who knew me as a woman but with another surname, and to those to whom my female identity is fairly new. Starting to contact friends and relatives who are out of town from where I live. That is a list in itself. And there are still about 20 cousins or old friends who I haven’t seen in two years or more, who don’t yet know I have transitioned at all!

I will count myself lucky if I have it all done before my bottom surgery... and that has a one year waiting list!

[Sara Olivia]

Ceera, I don't mean to monopolize this thread but when you mentioned Costco that brought a story to mind that happened to me. I had not yet updated my Costco card but was shopping there. On previous occasions I had simply handed them my old card, with my male ID, and noticed that they never actually looked at whose card it was. On this occasion, of course with a long line of customers behind me, the cashier looked at my card and said to me "Oh excuse me Ma'am but I see that this is not your card. I can't let you purchase your items here with this card. I assume this card is your husbands. Is he in the store? Can you get him to come here to the check out so we can finish the sale?" I stood there stunned. I didn't want to out myself in front of a long line of customers. Yet there was no husband, nobody to come and bail me out. I whispered to her "Thats me. I just haven't updated my card yet" She looked at the card closely and then apologized profusely for challenging the card. It was not her fault and I told her as much but that same day I stopped at Customer's Service and had them issue me a new card with the correct identity and photograph.

[Ceera]

Love it, Sara. My Costco card was the first thing with my photo on it to show me as a woman. Took about three years to get to the name change. Fortunately, my given name as a male was somewhat unisex.

[LydiaL]

Ceera,

Celebrate. Buy a Costco hot dog for lunch and bring home a bargain rotisserie chicken bird for dinner and the expected mucho leftovers.

Grins, L

[Nicole Erin]

At least in Oregon they let you smile on your ID photo. Here in Indiana, we all have mug shots. We have to look dead neutral. I HATE my ID photo.

[Ceera]

Yeah, Oregon allows, “neutral expression or a natural smile”. Technically no makeup allowed, but they were fine with my wearing enough for a toned-down ‘natural’ look with face powder and lipstick, no eye shadow.