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It happened quickly and quietly, making virtually no headlines: The Social Security Administration changed its gender notification policy last week, a shift that avoids outing transgender workers.
Under the new guidelines, the agency will no longer cross-reference employers’ reports of employees’ genders—submitted along with their Social Security Number upon hiring—to their database. More importantly, the administration will not notify employers if the listed gender of their employees does not match that on record.
This change will end a dangerous bureaucratic nightmare for thousands of Americans.
A National Center for Transgender Equality Freedom of Information Act request found that the Social Security Administration sent more than 700,000 no-match letters last year.
A no-match letter, sent when the recorded gender of an employee does not match the gender listed on the social security account, gave a transgender person two options: Try to change their gender with the Social Security Administration, or reveal their transgender status to employers and fellow employees.
Neither of these options was ideal.
Under President George W. Bush, the agency implemented a new rule that barred individuals from changing the gender marker on their account without having sexual reassignment surgery, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars and is not typically covered by health insurance plans. Many transgender people, too, have no desire to have surgery—transitioning with hormones or a simple shift in how they present themselves.
And coming out to employers carries with it the risk of termination: Only 15 states have enacted discrimination protections that include gender identity. In the other 35 states, it is wholly legal for employers to fire or refuse to hire someone simply because they are transgender.
“Alerting employers about differences in someone's gender threatened people's jobs and did not accomplish what this verification system was designed for,” said National Center for Transgender Equality Executive Director Mara Keisling in a 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."
The end of no-match letters is a step forward for transgender Americans, whose unemployment rate is at least twice the national average.
But the real fight is yet to come. One of the National Center for Transgender Equality’s priorities is making it easier for people to change the gender marker on everything from their social security account to their birth certificate.
Along with the agency’s surgery requirement, at least 36 states require proof of surgery before changing the gender marker on someone’s birth certificate—many of these specifying genital surgery—and three (Tennessee, Ohio, and Idaho) will never change the sex on a person’s birth certificate, regardless of treatment or surgery. Only Iowa explicitly recognizes the diversity of transition experiences.
The State Department, which changed its guidelines last year to allow transgender people who have not had surgery to alter the gender marker on their passports, is the only federal identification agency to make that progressive step.
The Social Security agency could follow, and turn this small-but-notable improvement into a clear federal message: Americans deserve respect as their self-identified gender.
Shay O'Reilly is a staff writer with Campus Progress. Follow him on Twitter @shaygabriel.
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