Licensing Success

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Submitted by marsha on Sat, 08/08/2009 - 3:45pm
Dear Friends,
 
This is how equality can be brought out of the confusion within bureaucratic systems: 
By working together with unfailing respect for each other – and giving this same respect to the other side of the system for as long as those representatives show honest commitment to the work.  
 
By recognizing the particular skills of each participant, and by never quitting the process, even when to keep going means working without recognition or praise. 
 
By calling every skill and every idea into the work. 
 
And we have succeeded! The issue today is the advance in Washington State’s Driver’s License Policy regarding changing gender markers. The unworkable birth certificate approach has been abandoned, and the new Policy is much closer to the great goal of a policy that truly improves lives while also meeting governmental needs. 
I thank my fine colleagues, the dedicated people who have given so much to this effort: Spencer Bergstedt, Seth Kirby, Lisa Mottet, Josh Friedes, and the members of the Washington Transgender Equality Project. We met in dozens of preparatory and official meetings, spent hundreds of hours working on research and preparing documents, and engaged in untold numbers of educational conversations. 
And I say this as well: The new policy advance could not have happened without the personal efforts and day-to-day courage of the people who visit Ingersoll Gender Center. These individuals have faced a thousand challenges, large and small, and they go on! They survive and grow strong in their identities and bring themselves into the world as equals, productive and participating individuals who help us all advance. 
One more thing. I want to give my personal thanks to the state officials who stayed with our process, took the time to really understand what we were bringing to the table, and then used that knowledge to make the changes needed. I know from long years in activism that the “systems” often do not work, but this time – thanks to good people in places of decision – the process worked. Of course there is more to do! We must do it!
But this success is encouragement for more work. 
Thank you my friends, thank you all. Never quit the struggle for justice, fairness and full equality. The Time to be Happy is Now! 
 
Marsha Botzer
Ingersoll Gender Center founder.