Reflection Questions

Reflect 

• Have you ever been denied access to a place or a service because you didn’t have the right documentation?

• Who are the people most impacted by inability to obtain identification? How might this contribute to the use of fraudulent identification documents? 

• What is the purpose of collecting identification documents as a condition of receiving medical care? What is the role of health care providers in “verifying” the accuracy of identification?

• Read When it comes to health care, transphobia persists - The Globe and Mail.  

Research

• What is required to obtain identification that your health care institution would accept? An address? Proof of citizenship?

• What is required in your city or state to obtain identification that matches your gender identity? 

  • Watch How ID laws can put trans people in danger

  • Watch The Trans Panic Epidemic: The Daily Show 

  • Watch “False Personation”

• Read Iroquois Lacrosse Team Faces Hardships by Traveling on Their Own Passports | Cultural Survival 

• Read Restrictive ID Policies: Implications for Health Equity

Practice

• What is your hospital policy around the suspicion of fraudulent identification documents? If existing policies present a barrier to care, what can be done to change them? 

• Are there situations where your institution insists on ID? Why? Is it possible to reduce reliance on ID? Talk to frontline staff about identification policies and how they might be implemented to avoid or reduce criminalization.

Imagine

• Read these two poems by Maria Ibarra-Frayre:  “Papers” and “A Different Oral Argument”

• Think, write, draw or doodle about what belonging means to you. If you need some inspiration, read “Self-Portrait with No Flag” by Safia Elhillo and “Annunciation” by Marie Howe.