The SAVE Act Is Not Just About “Married Women”— It’s About Trans People, Too

When Laurel M. M. Benfield changed her name, she went through months of bureaucratic labor and countless hoops and expenses to ensure that her new legal name was reflected on all identity documents, including her birth certificate. The process required criminal background checks, notaries, court documentation, trips to the DMV, an updated license, a new marriage certificate, and finally a state ID, birth certificate, and passport that all align with the same name and gender.

“That process was infuriating, vulnerable, scary, frustrating, and just never-ending,” she said. “There’s always something else to update, and the whole point of doing all of that work was so that I can continue to publicly exist.”

Benfield took these precautions in part because she knew, as a transgender married woman who took her wife’s last name, that her identity might be put to the test in the future — at the voting booth, at the border, or even in the context of employment.

Now, with the potential passage of the SAVE Act, trans people and married people who change their names could have their right to vote threatened if they don’t successfully complete the same process she did. The bill, proposed by House Republicans under the false premise that there is a widespread problem with non-citizen voter fraud, would require voters to show up to register in person with proof of citizenship such as a passport or birth certificate. For those who have changed their legal names due to marriage, gender change or other reasons, the legislation does not clarify whether name-change documents or marriage certificates could be presented alongside citizenship documentation. Voter identification laws in the United States have always served as a tactic for disenfranchisement, and they disproportionately impact low-income people and those experiencing housing insecurity. They are also racialized: According to the American Civil Liberties Union, 13 percent of Black voting-age people don’t have a government-issued ID, while just 5 percent of white potential voters do not. And under this rule, even a state ID would not be enough.

Benfield, who works for the North Carolina Coalition to End Homelessness, says the process of aligning all your documents after a name change is impossible for many.

“I have only been able to do these things because of the privilege and access and stability that I have in my life, which many many, many trans people do not have,” she said.

Much of the news coverage of the SAVE Act has focused almost entirely on the broad category of “married women” — a bloc of 69 million who may not have updated documents. But arguably, such a law is aimed directly at transgender people in addition to affecting married people who change their names. And that’s not to mention the 140 million U.S. citizens who don’t have passports and tens of millions who also don’t have easy access to a birth certificate. Regardless, the fact that trans people are at the center of this story has been easy to sideline: A story published by NPR last week listed eight things to know about this legislation — but didn’t mention the implications for trans people at all.

For almost all trans people, access to identification that matches their chosen name and gender is an obstacle: As Benfield described, it is expensive, time-consuming, and typically requires legal guidance and a consistent mailing address. Precisely for these reasons, a vast majority of trans people don’t have all our documents in order. The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey found just 11 percent of trans people said that all of their forms of ID aligned with the name and gender they preferred, and 68 percent said none of their IDs had the correct updated information. That means the remainder, some 21 percent of trans people, have inconsistent information on their identifications. Whether it is because of inconsistent documents or identification that does not align with their current gender presentation, 89 percent of trans people could face challenges registering to vote.

Benfield is concerned that not naming trans people as a target of this legislation contributes to an insidious process that is ongoing: the erasure of trans people from public life in general.

“It’s going to affect lots of different kinds of people,” she said of the SAVE Act. “But the reason that the erasure of trans people worries me in this conversation is that it’s consistent with strategic erasure from the public sphere that’s already been happening.”

That strategic erasure includes President Donald Trump’s series of executive orders attacking so-called “gender ideology” and both state and national legislation that attempts to criminalize support for trans youth in physical and social transition. There are now only two genders — “male” and “female”— and anyone who falls outside of that could potentially face being pushed out of public life, including schools, sports, restroom facilities, and now voting itself. Even policies like Trump’s executive orders that aren’t immediately enforceable create a chilling effect, pushing trans people into the closet through intimidation.

The legislation now heads to the Senate where it will need 60 votes to pass. The SAVE Act is clearly an attack on women’s right to vote — especially women who are low-income, Black and Brown, trans, or houseless. That means this fight is yet another opportunity for solidarity that places trans stories at the center, rather than the margins, of our analysis and strategy. Instead of sounding the alarm that “married women” will lose the vote, why not sound the alarm that tens of millions of U.S. citizens could see their voting rights threatened — and trans people, a highly politically active group, are core targets.

The pull toward rhetorical strategies that make trans people invisible may be hard to resist. But now is precisely the time to double down. As Benfield put it, “I don’t want us to be some fairy that ceases to exist when people stop believing in us.”