Next year, San Francisco will issue municipal identification cards showing the usual name, birthdate and photo.
What the card won't include: gender.
When other cities considered issuing ID cards without regard to legal status, the debate was over illegal immigrants. In San Francisco, where the Board of Supervisors approved such an ID on Tuesday, transgender activists added gender to the discussion.
"Transgender" is a broad term for people who do not identify with their birth sex. Those who refer to themselves as transgender include cross-dressers and transsexuals.
"The card really makes gender a non-issue," says Kristina Wertz, legal director of the Transgender Law Center in San Francisco. ...
Supervisor Tom Ammiano, who introduced the measure, says illegal immigrants will benefit most. They will be able to open bank accounts and use the card for city services such as checking out library books.
He expects others, including transgender individuals, to find it useful.
"When they go from one gender to another, the state gives them some hassle about what is desirable for validation," Ammiano says. "Having a municipal ID helps them quite a bit."
I've been to San Francisco several times in the last year and if there's one thing that town really needs is a card that identifies gender. A surprising number of people in that town would really be stumpers in a "guess the gender" game.
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