The increasing acceptance of gender reassignment — a fundamental change in categories for a person — will mean amusing occurrences like this will take place.
As a side note, the issue here is not The Government — indeed, this very case belies the idea of some monolithic entity — but, rather, the opposite, that different government agencies have different policies and practices, implemented by people at the front desk. So that the people at the SSA, a local (state? county?) DMV, and the local PD had different ways of categorizing Ms Jones is not surprising, though it does go toward challenging how immutable and fundamental such categories actually are.
Reshared post from +George Wiman
This is funny as hell; I totally want to see this on some lawyer show like The Good Wife. Or Harry's Law would be a better fit, but they canceled it.
Seriously, TN, what the hell?
TN Couldn’t Decide Whether Andrea Jones Is Male Or Female, So They Arrested Her
After Andrea Jones had gender reassignment surgery and was recognized as female by the Social Security office, she went into a Tennessee DMV office to change the gender on her driver’s license—but they denied her request. So she walked out into the parking lot, removed her shirt and the police arrested her for indecent exposure,…