Gummint all up in our business
by digby
A 37-year-old Georgia woman says that she was humiliated when the state told her she would need to have her vagina probed to prove she was a woman before she could renew her driver’s license.
Nakia Grimes told WAGA that she never had a reason to notice that her birth certificate had incorrectly listed her gender as male. But because of new rules at the Georgia Department of Driver Services, Grimes was required to go to Vital Records Services to obtain a copy of her birth certificate before she could renew her driver’s license.
That’s when the mother noticed that the document listed her as a male.
“When I went to retrieve my birth certificate, I let her know the sex status is wrong,” Grimes recalled. “I’m a woman, was born a woman.”
A state worker told Grimes that she would have to prove that she was a woman to get the document corrected.
“She said I needed to go have a Pap exam, have a doctor write a note verifying you’re a woman, and bring it back-– notarized,” Grimes said.
Luckily in the end a slightly more creative mind took over and realized they could prove she was a woman by accessing her son’s birth records. But pity the poor childless woman — or any man — who runs into a problem such as this.
And anyway, why should it matter to the state which sex you are? In these days of authorities being allowed to take DNA for any serious arrest it hardly seems necessary for identification purposes. Certainly, it isn’t necessary to know this if a police officer pulls you over for a traffic violation.
But let’s assume it is necessary for some reason I’m not seeing. What kind of an idiot thinks it’s ok to demand a pap smear to prove you are a women? That’s a cancer screening procedure, fergawdsakes.
Anyway, they can just call in the TSA to do a pat down. The last time I traveled, I got one so intimate there could be absolutely no doubt to the agent what sex I am. In fact, I’ve had sexual encounters that were less intimate. These days the government is all up our business.
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