In the middle of the 13 years I spent incarcerated, there was a brief period in 2018 that I was out on parole. Being on the sex offender registry in Georgia barred me from almost every job I could find while simultaneously drowning me in hundreds of dollars per month in fees, and before long my parole was revoked.
The second job I’d taken, as a secretary at a veterinarian’s office, was slightly too close to a school. But during my brief window outside, I started the process of legally changing my first name to “Christina,” the name I as a trans woman had chosen for myself because the previous legal name didn’t fit me.
You can start this process while in custody, but to be issued a new social security card you have to go to the office in person. I was reincarcerated before the process was complete, but after I received the court order approving the change I mailed it to the Social Security Administration, which promised to issue a new card upon my release.
In the meantime, I filed the appropriate paperwork updating the Georgia Department of Corrections, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. When I was released in September 2023, I immediately went to my local SSA office and got the new card, then got a driver’s license that matched. I applied for and was hired for jobs under that name.
Then I got married. So in February, I repeated the process to change my last name. Then came a journey into a labyrinth I’d thought I was prepared for: tax season.
I logged into the IRS online portal to find that my identity had been flagged.
The thing is, I was prepared. I’d crossed every I and dotted every T with every government department imaginable. And I knew that I’d be filing my taxes under the last name I’d had prior to marriage—since that’s the one under which I’d earned the relevant income—but that should have been fine. I logged into the IRS online portal to find that my identity had been flagged.
I’d come prepared, but the SSA hadn’t. It had somehow failed to automatically register my first name change, “Christina,” with the IRS.
A familiar sinking feeling set in. Both times I’ve changed my name, I’ve done so as an act of asserting my true self, an identity that is uniquely my own. However, with each change came the burden of updating all legal documents.
I was now tasked with producing mandatory yet elusive identity confirmation letters that required SSA appointments scheduled weeks in advance. Back in 2018 when I wanted to go to the SSA office in person, I did not mean I wanted to go this often. It’s become a frequent stop during lunch breaks at work.
Armed with the hard-won documents and having followed up with infinite tedious calls to ensure they were properly processed, I naively hoped I would now be allowed to file my taxes. Instead I was required to schedule an in-person appointment with the IRS, which in the end meant both travel expenses and time off from work.
I’m sure no one enjoys this kind of bureaucracy, but between the expenses and restrictions of the sex offender registry, medical debt from gender-affirming care, and the constant threat of parole revocation, it’s truly a high-stakes obstacle course with no end.
Our identities as human beings are not static; we evolve.
The irony is not lost on me. In prison, we absorb constant rhetoric about overcoming barriers and becoming productive, rehabilitated, law-abiding members of society. But now that I’m in the free world, I’m finding that the system perceives my journey through foster care and transitioning and incarceration and marriage and new jobs and a new life as simply too complicated. As if our identities are obstacles to overcome, when it’s the bureaucracy itself that’s in the way.
Our identities as human beings are not static; we evolve throughout our lives, and at times so do our names. Beyond the logistical inconveniences, this takes a deeper emotional toll for trans people and others who might have to change their name more than once. Each setback, each new hurdle to clear is a challenge to my personhood.
Trans women are disproportionately incarcerated and often left to navigate the bureaucratic maze of SSA and IRS while in prison, and while struggling to adjust after release. In a way it helps to know that I’m not alone in this struggle, but why as trans people must we prove our identities over and over and over, and why must the process be so tiresome and expensive?
As I prepare for yet another IRS appointment, I remind myself that my true identity isn’t determined by bureaucracy and that I am more than the sum of my documents and paperwork.
I remain hopeful that one day, verifying my identity will be a straightforward affirmation of who I am, rather than a battle against a system that fails to see me for me. All I’m trying to do is pay my taxes.
Image via Wyoming Department of Health