Social Security Implements Self-Attestation of Sex Marker in Social Security Number Records
Reading Time: 1 MinuteLast Updated: October 20, 2022
Kilolo Kijakazi, Acting Commissioner of Social Security, announced that we now offer people the choice to self-select their sex on their Social Security number (SSN) record. We implemented this policy change and the new option is now available.
“The Social Security Administration’s Equity Action Plan includes a commitment to decrease administrative burdens and ensure people who identify as gender diverse or transgender have options in the Social Security Number card application process,” said Acting Commissioner Kijakazi. “This new policy allows people to self-select their sex in our records without needing to provide documentation of their sex designation.”
People who update their sex marker in our records will need to apply for a replacement SSN card. They will still need to show a current document to prove their identity, but they will no longer need to provide medical or legal documentation of their sex designation now that the policy change is in place.
We will accept the applicant’s self-identified sex designation of either male or female, even if it is different from the sex designation shown on identity documents, such as a passport or state-issued driver’s license or identity card. SSN cards do not include sex markers. Currently, our record systems are unable to include a non-binary or unspecified sex designation. We are exploring possible future policy and systems updates to support an “X” sex designation for the SSN card application process.
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Tags: social security, Social Security benefits, Social Security card, SSN
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Sarkari R.
I agree with you, God does not make mistakes. I am over people changing our constitution, history, an other things just to accommodate a few. She explained about the whole matter, you just said it’s about one case, there’s no comparison with the topic. I totally agree about the line of teaching academics.
Kh
From reading the majority of comments it is clear that this is a waste of money, you send money on this and deny benefits for the real issues we face in retirement!
If you want to know what I “identify as” ? How about “sick of the stupidity”!
Albert E.
Right on! How about”sick of all the “wokeness” stupidity and the “new” definition of the word “equity “? Don’t try to force your liberal agenda on me.
Tony
When people update their address or marital status, they don’t need to apply for a replacement SSN card.
Why does updating your sex marker requires application for a replacement SSN card when the new SSN card doesn’t even show the sex marker?
It will cost taxpayers thousands or millions of dollars processing and mailing replacement SSN cards.
Tony
In previous blogs, the SSA said people don’t need a replacement SSN card unless the change their name or when finding employment.
How come the sex marker is an exception where they have to apply for a replacement SSN card that will cost taxpayers thousands or millions of dollars when it doesn’t even appear on the new SSN card?
Victoria C.
They have to update the information. Not necessarily have a new card sent. Also, in many cases, transgender individuals do legally change their names as well. Your argument is invalid. Would you also be angry with people who lose their cards by carelessly keeping their cards in their wallets to be lost or stolen? Should we be outraged that when women get divorced and change their name back to their maiden name because they no longer want to be associated with the married last name? Why don’t they just keep the last name the same until they die or remarry? I mean, that is costing money too no?
Harrison H.
I have two daughters aged 16 & 14 whose father passed away. They receive survivor benefits that come in my name and their name. Well recently their older sister (25) has been telling them that the checks that come is theirs to spend on whatever they want. I’ve tried explaining to them that the checks are to help pay the bills since their father is no longer here to help pay the bills. They get almost everything they ask for and the bills are paid. But ever since their sister told them this, they fight me and say they are going to live with their sister because she will give them their whole check. Can their sister get their checks from me and could you tell me if the money is for bills or for the children to go on a shopping spree?
A.C.
Hi, Harrison. We are sorry to hear about your situation. Yes, it is possible that benefits be paid to the sister if the children live with her, and she has legal guardianship. Generally, we pay the benefits to the family member who is the primary care provider of the children. Keep in mind a representative payee must use the benefits to pay for the beneficiary’s needs and solely for that purpose. For more information about representative payees, please visit our When People Need Help Managing Their Money page. If you have additional specific questions, you can call us at 1-800-772-1213, Monday through Friday, between 8:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m., for assistance. You can also contact your local Social Security office. We hope this helps.
mohammad.iqbal.mughal.
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lee w.
The lunatics have taken oven the asylum again and again and ………….
TIMOTHY B.
100% Agree with you. Stupidity at its height.
Sonam B.
I think this is a very forward movement to accepting people as they are with regards to gender identification. I get it that this is hard for some who are not understanding this topic. I appreciate from my experience with my clients in my practice how beneficial a change like this may be. Thank you.
KH
If they need acceptance then they do need a therapist. This is not the place to seek treatment for a mental disorder and it’s only making their illness worse to falsely validate it.
Treat them so they can accept the truth.
Preston
The logic here is unbreakable, but why stop there? Married women also need to be treated for the Submissive Mental Disorder that makes them want to change their names to match their spouses. Divorced women need to change the Dominant Mental Disorder that makes them leave their spouses, and forgetful people need treatment for the ADD and/or early dementia that made them lose their social security cards and need new ones, too. I’m sure you’d contribute your taxes to relieve the burden on a mental health care system to treat all these newly disordered individuals so they don’t burden our already struggling and overscheduled one. Anything to spare the quiet agony faced by a clerk typing a new first name on a trans person’s social security card.
Seriously y’all need to wake up and face the fact that since 2005 we have all, /all of us/, been able to request ten new cards, three a year, for funsies, and I’m pretty sure you weren’t burning the place down back then. That you are now says a lot about what natural-born citizen you don’t want to call an American.
PL
How exciting, thank you! This is fantastic news for so many people I know. I personally look forward to the implementation of an X option, so that all of my ID documents will finally match. Thank you for all your work on our behalf!
ANITA k.
Why is a govt agency catering to mentally disturbed people who the science experts have proven this is a pyscological problem? Who have provided numerous medical papers that show without a doubt there is no medical basis whatsoever this problem is associated with anything pyhsicial and only mentally. This only shows that by our govt supporting this they are also supporting and encouraging another govt agency: Educational System undermining what parents are forbidding teachers to stop allowing their own personal views that cross the line of teaching academics only? They are required to teach academics and nothing more. Again govt agencies and the civil servants work for the PEOPLE and are paid by the PEOPLE. Exactly why the Constitution was written for the PEOPLE.
jeanl
ANITA k, obviously you are unaware that sometimes children are born without a clear distinction in their outer sexual organs between a male or female. The doctor declares what he/she thinks is the better option. I know of sometime who was declared female at birth, likely because there wasn’t a fully formed penis. “She” always wore boys’ clothes & refused to wear a dress even to be an attendant in sister’s wedding. In “her” 30s, genetic testing showed XY chromosomes. This person had been male from birth!
Bianca
She explained about the whole matter, you just said it’s about one case, there’s no comparison with the topic. I totally agree about the line of teaching academics.
Preston
1) To be simplistic, sex is what’s between your legs (and often but not always in your DNA), and no transgender person I have ever met denies biological sex exists. However, gender’s what’s between your ears. It’s cultural and social. Some cultures that exist and function just fine have three genders or five. When someone in our binary culture experiences a disconnect between the sex characteristics they were born with and the gender they are expected to express, they may feel strong discomfort with their bodies and want the two things, gender and sex, to conform more closely to each other. When this becomes uncomfortable is often when people seek treatment to make the two more congruent. Not everyone experiences discomfort before they seek treatment. Not everyone who feels incongruent seeks treatment. Over 98% of people who transition remain that way, and of those who don’t, 26% cite pressure from society, 33% the pain of the transition process, and between 3-6% being unable to afford it. That leaves precious few who “got over” being transgender or “aren’t that way anymore”.
1a) A word about “mental disturbance” and this being triggered by wild educators: You can’t go through a medical transition without having multiple contacts with mental health professionals, and encountering other medical professionals whose careers are invested in making sure you’re not going to regret a radical surgical decision or permanent effects from hormones. I know people who’ve been waiting seven years just for a consult. The idea that it’s a bunch of woke people TikToking into a clinic one day and getting bits cut off is just crazy right-wing hyperbole and fear of The Other.
2) Two percent of the population have some form of genetic intersex condition. Sometimes it’s not physically visible but resides in their DNA or is reflected in their internal organs or brain. Sometimes it doesn’t present until puberty. Often it’s not discovered unless there’s a need for an autopsy later in life, which is why some doctors estimate it could be as many as 4%. But it can and does affect the perception of gender in some individuals. It doesn’t account for all transgenderism, but it would account for unusual gender perception and confrontation in 40 to 80 people in my high school.
3) If it were another condition affecting that many kids in a school, allowances would be made to help them cope with it, right? If a kid (like my first boyfriend) had both sets of organs and developed with both characteristics, started having serious physical illness, was being bullied constantly, what would you tell him? Flip a coin? Shut up and stop being woke? Or would you do what you could to accommodate his needs? What if 40-80 people in your high school were blind? Would you tell them to walk wherever, it’s a waste of time for the government-paid school to make sure they didn’t fall down stairs or go into construction areas or get run down in the parking lot? Or would you talk to them and their families about their needs and try to keep them healthy?
Maybe look into it a little before you say stuff that sounds, well, like you didn’t look into it at all.
Anan
Thank you Preston
LJ
For the people and by the people. Guess what? Trans people are actually people too. The people includes everybody. You seem really judgmental. Like you think trans people are below you. They’re not.
Preston
Thank you. I’ve been on a tear in these comments, man. What gives anybody the right to say “we the people” does not include the /whole/ people as the founders intended? As it is, these complainers are arguing they, and in fact the Constitution of these United States and the laws of decency, are under attack if I can expend my own time and money for paperwork, court orders, doctor visits, postage for certified letters, filing fees, and god knows what in order to get the first of a string of new documents I’ll also have to beg bureaucratic organizations to relinquish to me, to earn the ID the government requires so I can vote, get a job, and pay taxes. You know, that same ID that /they/ got in a single afternoon of playing Candy Crush in air conditioning at the DMV.
But there’s no voter suppression. We’re all just lazy, right?
Cindy M.
I agree with you, God does not make mistakes. I am over people changing our constitution, history, an other things just to accommodate a few. I personally think there are much greater issues that need to be addressed in this day an time
Preston
I don’t get an accurate SS card, I can’t get an accurate birth certificate. I can’t get accurate paperwork, I can’t get an accurate RealID. I can’t get an accurate RealID or other paperwork, I can’t vote or work, even though I was born in this country and have worked all my life. I can’t even give proof to a cop that I am who I say I am unless I’m allowed to update my ID to match a masculine-speaking person with a beard.
I’m an American who can’t vote and can’t work because my papers don’t match what people have decided I should look like, and this simple thing, something anybody else just gets assigned for being born here, is finally a little bit easier for me to get so I can slowly try to get the cash together for all the filing fees and court appearances and doctor visits and letters and medical records I have to pay to requisition in order to get the rest.
God didn’t make a mistake. I was born a man. People are just desperate to insist I have to conform to what that looks like, and if I don’t, I’m not allowed to do what other humans do. In fact, other humans are encouraged to deny me basic services and are defended for treating me like garbage. A culture of supporting that treatment, lauding it, laughing with it, is growing. Around me, I watch it happening to an expanding group of people who are “different”. That shift is un-American, and it’s hard to picture “much greater issues that need to be addressed in this day and time” than whether we are behaving as Americans or as America’s most reviled enemies.
Hetro M.
This is great. Let a person choose what sexual identity they prefer. Seems change is hard for conservatives.
CCau
How much is this going to cost in administrative time and resources to accommodate these the people who require this?
Preston
Since trans people make up less than 1.5 percent of all people, and married women and folks who lose their cards at least once in their lives make up a considerably larger portion of the population, I wouldn’t sweat it. It’s paper. It’s one word to type. Did you know you can get up to 10 new cards in your lifetime just because oopsies? Did you know in 2018 we issued a million before half the year was done and we still had cash for bombs and oil? Take a breath, all is fine.
Weemaway
We don’t care. Just don’t pass law that restricts speech, like they tried to pull in Canada.
Bob
No, being stupid is hard for conservatives.