Why I Changed My Birth Certificate 25 Years After I Transitioned

My wife was the one who told me that the birth certificate for Baby Girl Boylan had finally arrived in the mail in late summer. It had been a long time coming — 66 years, in fact — because Baby Girl Boylan, of course, was me.

When I transitioned nearly 25 years ago, changing my birth certificate didn’t seem necessary: I’d been able to have all my other vital records altered, from my driver’s license to my Social Security card, without that step.

I’d also declined to get my birth certificate changed because it seemed like a rewriting of the historical record. To all of the onlookers on the day I arrived — my parents, the labor and delivery nurses at Bryn Mawr Hospital — the child they delivered appeared to be male. Everything else came later, as I gained consciousness, and clarity, about who I really was.

When I thought about it (if I thought about it), I wondered what a birth certificate is for. Is it a living document that can be amended in years to come, like the Constitution, as the person it belongs to gains agency and insight? Or is it a simple statement of long-past fact — like whether, on the day I was born, it was hot or cold?

But the threat of a second Trump presidency means that having my birth certificate reflect present reality has turned into a matter of grave importance. Quite frankly, whatever is on that document may in the not so distant future determine whether one can live one’s life in peace.

In the years since my transition, many states have formalized processes by which the gender on one’s birth certificate may be changed — while others have enacted laws to make such changes impossible. In August the Texas Department of State Health Services imposed a policy that blocks transgender people from making the change, even if they have a court order allowing them to do so. It was yet another salvo in the fight against trans rights and lives, an ongoing effort to render us invisible and to make our lives as difficult as possible.