Yesterday, a friend who works at a large national company called to ask for advice on how to respectfully serve trans clients who are phoning customer service.

I get so excited when people ask me these kinds of questions! It’s rare for large companies to consider the implications for trans folks in customer service, so calls like this one tell me we are inching closer towards the world I want to live in.

But you might be curious about where this question came from.

You see, my friend’s company uses a number of security prompts to verify a caller’s identification over the phone. Key indicators include the person’s name, and whether the tone of their voice matches their gender identity.

“Key indicators include the person’s name, and whether the tone of their voice matches their gender identity.”

You can imagine why these indicators might be problematic for trans folks…and I would further argue they are problematic for all of us.

See: Anne.

My good friend Anne Agustin is a wonderful ally to our community. She is a straight, cisgender woman, whose parents long anticipated having a boy…instead she was the third girl; they named her Anne-Toni. This is the legal name that often shows up in paperwork, even though Agustin goes by “Anne.” Agustin also happens to have a wonderfully deep, gravelly voice.

Due to her legal name and the tone of her voice, Agustin is almost constantly misgendered on the phone. Once, this experience actually prevented her from accessing bank accounts when she really needed to. For Agustin, being misgendered usually only happens on the phone, meaning the consequences are more frustrating than devastating.

Some folks are constantly misgendered—at work, in school, at the store, at the gym. A negative phone call with a service provider is just one more reminder that the world doesn’t support those who don’t fit into neat little boxes. Carrying the weight of an identity, which is constantly shamed into believing that it shouldn’t exist, is simply exhausting.

Gender policing has to stop.

Which is not to say that I think we should give up on identity verification (I’m not keen on sharing my cell phone information with anyone!). Rather, we need to stop understanding gender as a simple, binary concept that has the ability to inform all of our beliefs, structures and behaviours.

Gender is complicated, unique, and often invisible. The world in which I want to live one day celebrates gender in all its beautiful forms.