As soon as the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act was introduced, LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations warned against the legislation disenfranchising transgender, gender-nonconforming and intersex Americans. Although the SAVE Act did not pass, conservative states were quick to implement their own strict voter identification laws, which opponents say will make voting in the 2026 midterm elections more difficult for such voters.
Melissa Firstenberg [she/her], is a transgender woman who lived in New Jersey for several years and is originally from Florida, one of the most restrictive states for transgender people. Firstenberg said she was able to vote in person in New Jersey last year. “It was wonderful to be able to go to the polls as a trans woman and have my name on my driver’s license match my name on the polls.”
Firstenberg cautioned against stricter voter ID laws: “We have to make sure that we don’t disenfranchise people by requiring documents that cannot be produced. In my case, I am not able to produce a birth certificate that has my name, Melissa, on it, that will match my driver’s license and my other documents because the state where I was born, [Florida], will not issue a changed birth certificate.”
In 2024, Florida’s Department of Health updated its policy of amending birth certificates, prohibiting any updates to the gender markers on birth certificates. Before 2024, submission of documents that show a legal name change, or evidence of receiving gender-affirming care, would allow trans people in Florida to update their birth certificates. The department’s rationale is, according to one letter received by a transgender Floridian, that “documentary evidence does not establish that the sex identifier on the birth record contains a misstatement, error, or omission.”
For other gender-nonconforming Floridians, the rationale of denial they were given was that there is no documentation supporting that the person experienced gender dysphoria before the age of 7. This is particularly insidious for trans men, who often don’t experience gender dysphoria until they go through puberty, and devalues the experience of transgender individuals who did not pursue medical intervention until later in life, critics say.
Ripley Mandanis [she/her], an adjunct lecturer at the City College of New York, said these laws are based on the “erroneous and quasi-eugenic assumption that ‘biological sex’ exists in a binary.” In Feb. 2022, the Oklahoma governor, Kevin Sitt, signed a ban on selecting “X” as the gender marker on documentation in the state. As of 2022, only 22 states, including New Jersey, allow for the selection of an “X” gender marker on residents’ driver’s licenses, and only 17 allow for an “X” on residents’ birth certificates.
Clearly, this introduces a problem for those living in states with stricter voter identification laws, which mandate that all documentation needs to match. However, even those living in states with protections for transgender Americans may not choose to update their gender markers. Twenty-year-old Naphtali Dow [they/she] is vice president of Transmissions at Rutgers University, and they happen to be nonbinary. When asked whether she considered updating their gender marker to an “X” to reflect her gender identity, they said they felt this would place a target on them. “It would be like a literal ‘X’ on my back,” Dow said. Transmissions is an organization aimed at providing a safe space for transgender students where they can connect with one another on campus.
Firstenberg pointed out the importance of community building when it comes to advocacy. “If we unite with our BIPOC friends and family, if we unite with our LGBTQIA community, instead of internalizing just as a trans community, our community becomes even bigger. If we unite with all those who would be disenfranchised, we are the majority, and we can make change.”
Dow, along with Transmissions President Evelyn Cruz [she/her], 21, expressed concerns that the SAVE Act, if it had passed, would have “set up means for identifying people who have legally changed their names.” Surveillance of voters is a concern for everyone, not just those who are disenfranchised. The Trump administration has filed lawsuits in 31 states as of mid-October to seize names and partial Social Security numbers of registered voters.
Firstenberg believes the laws that require trans people — or anyone who may have conflicting information on their documentation — to get that in order is a modern poll tax. “By spending lots of money and time to either procure a passport, or a revised birth certificate if it’s even possible to do so, amounts to a poll tax, which is illegal in this country. Of course, we also recognize that this current administration doesn’t much care what is and is not illegal. They kind of do what they want … and wait for somebody to tell them, no, you’re not allowed to do that.”
“the right has no real issue with a wealthy, pro-capitalist trans woman like Caitlyn Jenner.”
Mandanis corroborated this and added a layer of nuance to the conversation around wealth, power and access as it relates to trans voters. “I always come back to class analysis. You miss a lot of necessary nuance without it. For example: the right has no real issue with a wealthy, pro-capitalist trans woman like Caitlyn Jenner. She’s part of the ruling class, so she’ll continue to get her needs met, regardless of what happens to poor and working trans people. A capitalist state’s concern is, first and foremost, capital, so its deeper motivations are rarely just social or ideological.”
In 2021, transgender people were more likely to experience poverty at a rate of 21 percent compared to the non-LGBTQ+ poverty rate of 12 percent, according to the Williams Institute. This makes the financial barriers related to obtaining proper documentation more difficult for trans people.
When examining the legislation’s wording, Mamdanis sees many of the laws as effectively unenforceable
Alongside documentation, many queer advocacy organizations recommend that trans people bring proof of address with them to the polls in case they are denied the right to vote. However, some transgender Americans may not have access to stable housing. Having a utility bill as proof of address may be difficult.
A study done by the Williams Institute in May of 2020 found that 30 percent of transgender people had experienced homelessness at some point in their lives. The rate is even higher among transgender youth at 38 percent. It is possible for a homeless transgender person, who is legally a U.S. citizen, to be denied their right to vote due to these issues.
There is some hope to be found in what Mandanis sees as a weakness in legislation. When examining the legislation’s wording, she sees many of the laws as effectively unenforceable when compared to cross-dressing laws in the ’50s and ’60s, for example.
“The main goal here is, again, to scare us into submission,” she said. “The administration would love it if the trans community went into a collective panic and started self-policing. That would save policymakers “a lot of time and effort.” It seems that many in the trans community are not planning to make it easier for the administration.
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