My Coworker is Having a Gender Change

For anonymity sake, let's say my coworker's name is Nicole. I've worked with her for a few months, and I know her as a female, as does everyone else in the office. She has very striking features, and it would be quite impossible to second-guess her gender.

Since working together, we've learned that we have quite a few things in common, and have become friends. She's been dating a guy for a while, and occasionally comes to my office to talk about things that may be frustrating her, or to just tell me about a cool new restaurant that they visited the other night.

Usual stuff.

So yesterday, she comes into my office with a you're-never-going-to-believe-this look on her face, and sits down on the other side of my desk.

She reminds me that she's going on a trip to Mexico in a few weeks, and this prompted her to get her first passport, which came in the mail a couple weeks ago.

She is very anxious for her trip, as anyone in their right mind would be with the last few months of weather we've had, and has started getting things together, making lists, etc.

So, she grabs her passport, which she hasn't really taken the time to look at since she received it, and starts to pencil in her current contact information on the front page.

She reads her demographic information and double checks the spelling and all that jazz, when she notices an "M" under the Sex/Sexe/Sexo heading.

Buzzzzzzzz.

So, she had just gotten off the phone with the passport office before coming to my office. She goes on to summarize her conversation with them, and it turns out that the social security office has her listed as a male as well.

So, she called her parents to ask them if there's anything she should know about her medical history.

Her mom then tells her that she actually remembers getting the hospital bill after she was born, and they had to dispute a few charges on the listing...including circumcision!

She is currently working with her birth county authorities with her birth certificate to ensure that she was "logged into the system" as a female, but she is really concerned...and honestly, she seems a little confused too. The social security and passport officials have requested that she send "proper documentation" that proves that she is, indeed, a female. She's called her doctor to fax her the latest demographic information from her last visit as documentation, and she's making a copy of her driver's license with says she's female as well.

Now, she's really concerned about using her current passport when going through customs. Both of us wondered why she should be concerned, as we don't really know if they could question anything. My justification as to why she'd be fine was whether they stop crossdressers coming through security because their ID says otherwise? I know they're resorting to considerable racial profiling in some cases of security checks, but gender profiling?

Anyway, it's a very unique story, and I feel privileged to be part of it so directly.