Good Morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.
My name is Dylan Daniels and I am an indigenous South Dakota man. I am a father and a soon to be nurse who also happens to be two-spirit and transgender.
Two years ago as I began applying for nursing programs, a top priority and huge source of anxiety for me was making sure that my identification documents aligned. I was used to fearing harassment because my license did not match my perceived gender, but now I was also worried that a contradiction on my paperwork could deny me the opportunity that I had been working so hard for. Like many Transgender individuals, I’ve often experienced the gender dysphoria that can arise from an incongruence between body and mind. The day that my first gender marker was changed from an F to an M, the tension lifted and it was like things fell into place in a type of congruence that could only be described as Euphoria. that little “M” changed things for me in a profound way that day. Accurate personal documentation is an essential right and from bureaucratic perspective a gender marker change* is a simple correction on a piece of paper.
But, for the thousands of Transgender, Gender Non-Conforming, and Two-Spirit South Dakotans like myself that I am speaking on behalf of this morning, to us it is a message that we matter enough to have the same basic human rights and opportunities as anyone else, and it goes a long way toward helping us fell a little more safe in an often unkind world.
With this I ask that you’d take into full consideration the damage House Bill 1076 would have on real people like us, and vote no.
Thank you for your time.
*Amending the sex data field on your birth certificate is commonly referred to as changing your gender marker.