Post-9/11, the ability to demonstrate through a birth certificate that you are who you claim to be may be of crucial importance for obtaining employment, housing and services. That is precisely why the refusal of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to substantially change its policy on the issuing of amended birth certificates to transgendered people is of such signal importance to the transgender community.

Previous DOH policy allowed post-operative transsexuals—who constitute only a small segment of the transgender community—the option only of eliminating the “M” or “F” on their birth certificates when they obtain sex reassignment surgery (SRS). In a decision by the Board of Health announced on Dec. 6, post-operative transsexuals can now change the M / F designation on their birth certificates with proof of surgery. But many transgendered people do not want SRS, and most of those who do cannot afford it. And so the new policy offers nothing for the vast majority of transgendered people who live in a gender other than that assigned at birth but who have not obtained SRS.

The ostensible explanation—that DOH made this decision because of these “broader ramifications”—simply lacks credibility. Initiative No. 24 (the New York City transgender rights bill) was introduced in June 2000 and enacted as Local Law 3 of 2002, and in December 2004, the New York City Commission on Human Rights adopted guidelines for implementation of the TG rights law; in considering those guidelines, the commission consulted with city agencies, including DOH. So DOH has had at least two years—and arguably four or even six—to consider the “broader societal ramifications” of a change in birth certificate policy.

It is clear to us that this misguided decision was made at the highest levels of the Mayor Bloomberg administration for political reasons that had nothing to do with either security or “broader societal ramifications.” This decision represents a repudiation of the broad and inclusive conception of community embodied in the transgender rights law and its guidelines for implementation; it is not progress in any meaningful sense (except those few with the desire and the resources to obtain SRS) and it is a significant setback for progressive public policymaking as well as for the transgender community; but it is not the end of the story, not for those of us who are committed to fighting for public policy that will help empower all those who live in a gender other than that assigned to them at birth, with or without benefit of surgery.

Dennis DeLeon is president of the Latino Commission on AIDS and served as Chair and Commissioner of Human Rights for the City of New York in the Dinkins administration. Pauline Park is chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA) and led the campaign for enactment of the New York City transgender rights law.