It doesn’t mean I’m a spy…

01Dec09

I’ve just been to change my name at the bank, and although they’re a big name ‘brand’, they’re still not much good. I was actually told today “well, this sort of thing doesn’t happen often”, her talking about me I suppose. But even if something doesn’t happen often, still doesn’t mean you have to be bad at it!

After explaining the situation to the lady in the bank, she looked over my official, legal Deed Poll document with my title and name on; my *legal* and *official* name and title, I hasten to add. After a quick perusal she tells me “you need to bring in your new passport with these details on before I can change them. I remind her that this is not required and that the Deed Poll document is a legal document. She then goes off to her ‘manager’ for one of the two lengthy trips she does during my visit. Coming back, she argues that you can’t just change details without ID. I remind her that my passport is nothing to do with my bank account, and indeed I can have a bank account without a passport and a passport without a bank account. I understand that you need to supply information to identify yourself /initially/ but my identity was already proved by her running through security with me.

The sticking point seems to have been the change from Mr to Ms. Now, legally, I can do this. What it doesn’t immediately mean is ‘Was-born-in-female-body’. It just means that my title is ‘Ms’ and /not/ ‘Mr’. I asked what would happen if I just changed my name to a male name, and she agreed they’d just change it; which I know to be the case already.

After going off to talk to this mysterious oracle in the back of the bank, she returned and reluctantly started to fill out the correct forms and photocopy my paperwork. I asked, politely, if she had had any diversity training and she was very quick to say yes, as if suggesting it was a stupid question. It’s not a stupid question though, it’s important.

The real reason that I had trouble in the bank today was because the staff weren’t knowledgeable about trans people. I had to argue just to change my details on the system, which I’d not have to do otherwise. This, is different treatment based on the type of person you see before you and is the thin end of discrimination, which is of course treating people differently based on an arbitrary characteristic or attribute of that person. It’s also passing the buck, and asking the passport office to think about if I’m allowed to be called Ms or not.

She also reminded me that I’ll not be able to change my gender on the official records until I have the right paperwork. Yes, thanks for that. That’s exactly what numerous people tell me too, and can you not see that I’d be aware of this more than you – and can you not also see that it’s a really very stupid and insensitive thing to say to someone?

My name and title are *legally* what I gave to the bank today, and they finally agreed to fill out the forms. HSBC; you’re not doing me a favour by ‘allowing’ me to change my details with you!

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Tags: bank, document, identity, legal, name, title