Trans Americans are facing ‘nightmarish’ voting hurdles
Trans Americans deal with additional obstacles to obtaining ID as well as discomfort at the polls. Recent surveys show they are also more concerned about violence than most voters. THIS ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED ON UNCLOSETED MEDIA A NEW INVESTIGATIVE LGBTQIA+ FOCUSSED NEWS PUBLICATION. THIS STORY WAS REPORTED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH VOTEBEAT, A NONPROFIT NEWS ORGANISATION REPORTING ON VOTING ACCESS AND ELECTION ADMINISTRATION ACROSS THE US. WORDS BY SPENCER MACNAUGHTON AND ABBIE THOMPSON ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY SAM DONNDELINGER AND HOPE PISONI Lori Moss, a trans woman from Milwaukee, is fed up with the “nightmarish” bureaucratic process trans people must go through to make sure they are able to vote.
After a six-month process that involved filing new paperwork, getting a judge’s approval, and publishing her new name in a newspaper classified ad, Moss learned that under Wisconsin law, the gender marker on her ID still cannot be changed until she can provide proof of having had vaginoplasty surgery – an expensive, painful and time-consuming task that some trans people don’t even want.
Her new ID arrived in the mail this week, listing her name but labelling her gender as “M.” A recent study has found that trans and gender-diverse people encounter more problems than cisgender people when trying to cast a ballot.
According to another study conducted by the Williams Institute, more than 800,000 trans adults are eligible to vote in the 2024 election.
