Nashville News Blog

Being a transgender Tennessean in need of a driver’s license isn’t going to get easier anytime soon.

Since 1977, Tennessee has been the only state in the U.S. that prohibits sex-change recipients from retroactively revising the sex designation on their birth certificates to correspond with their new gender identity. The law makes it difficult for those who have undergone such surgical changes to get driver’s licenses, passports and new Social Security cards, because obtaining such critical documents invariably requires a birth certificate.

A bill in the legislature, which we wrote about here, would have dispensed with this piece of unnecessary moralizing, er, law. But last week, the sponsors of the bill—Reps. Jeanne Richardson and Mike Kernell, among them—withdrew the change after the health committee tacked on an amendment proposed by Rep. Jason Mumpower (at right in the image above). The amendment required that any change of sex on a birth certificate be reflected on the document, essentially creating a new category of sex. “A birth certificate can be amended with the designation MTF,” Mumpower tells Pith, “designating male to female, or FTM designating female to male.”

Mumpower says that it’s a security issue, though he doesn't say exactly how. “During one of these operations, someone’s appearance is changed…so if someone were to present a birth certificate with a changed name and an altered appearance, the fact of gender needs to be represented.”

When asked why Tennessee would need such specificity, when no other state or the federal government require it, Mumpower says, “I’m not a representative in any other state.”