Legal Identity and Biological Reality
Sydney Aviles' story shows why Detransitioners must be able to change their birth certificates back to their original sex
What do you have in your passport or ID card? A “sex marker” or a “gender marker”?
It’s no coincidence that the words used to describe identifying characteristics in official documents reflect the political/ideological bent of the jurisdictions that issue them. For instance, the very trans-friendly German federal government refers to “gender markers,” while the U.S. Department of State refers to “sex markers.”
Under Germany’s Self-ID law, anyone can change their gender marker and first name once a year if they wish. There are no formal requirements to meet, thus effectively erasing the biological definition of sex entirely, with all the adverse consequences that entails. The Biden administration's policies for sex markers for passports were similar. Individuals could simply select the sex marker they preferred. The Department of State even went as far as to add an “X” marker to cater to those with an esoteric gender identity. The Trump administration immediately reversed this policy and directed federal agencies to recognize only two sexes (male and female) based on biological classification, but with a patchwork of state-level policies, it’s complicated.
In the U.S., each state determines whether and under what circumstances a trans-identified individual may change the sex marker on their birth certificate or other vital records. Democratically controlled “blue states” tend to resemble Germany in that they enable a person’s biological reality to be erased by means of a bureaucratic act. In contrast, Republican-controlled “red states” are taking a sex-realist approach and have recently acted to prevent people from self-identifying into a different sex category. This is a positive development. However, one unforeseen difficulty with this approach is that it can also prevent detransitioners from getting back official documents that accurately detail their birth sex.
Detransitioners who are struggling to restore their original legal sex are caught in the middle. Some, who changed the sex markers on their official documents when their state laws were liberal, now find that they cannot change them back, and this has implications right across their lives, from voting rights to insurance coverage.
It highlights the ongoing lack of visibility and support for detransitioners struggling to live a life beyond transition, and the problem of ideological overcorrection in a partisan climate. Detransitioners like Sydney Aviles, who have already changed their birth certificates, need to be able to change them back again.
Sydney’s Story
My name is Sydney Aviles, and I am a 23-year-old detransitioned woman from Northwest Indiana. I had my first period when I was 9 and didn't have any information about female puberty when this happened, and I was horrified.
From an early age, I showed signs of premenstrual dysphoric disorder, but I wasn't diagnosed because it was just assumed that's normal for the women in my family, and I've always had a bit of trauma around medical professionals and treatment.
I was always an awkward girl. I was overweight, and there were signs that I might be bisexual before I even knew what that meant. Around that time, I also started hearing about trans bathroom debates on the news. I didn’t see the controversy immediately; I was just intrigued by the idea of being able to pursue medicalization to alter your body. To me, this looked like an escape route for what I had been dealing with.
I wouldn’t say I was ever convinced I was or entirely wanted to be male. My idea of a trans guy was the Tumblr soft boy aesthetic: short hair, flower crowns, and GC2B binders. This should have raised concerns for the therapist I was seeing at the time, whose job was supposedly preparing me for the reality of transitioning. I had never experienced top or bottom dysphoria until I got deeper in the Tumblr gender discourse community. I felt guilty about the transmedicalist “true trans” narrative and forced myself to act more masculine. I also pursued medicalization in an attempt to outdo other local trans folks. I was trying to prove a point, but ultimately failed.
I’m too poor to throw medical providers under the bus, since I can’t afford to fight against the statutes of limitations for medical malpractice. But there’s a bigger, more personal issue I want to bring attention to.
In March 2025, Indiana Governor Mike Braun signed Executive Order 25-36, which defines legal sex and outlines how Indiana's legal departments should handle gender ideology. The order also restricts ALL amendments to birth certificates, including those in detransition cases. This is despite the fact that the Executive Order defines ‘Sex’ as “an individual human being’s immutable biological classification as either male or female” and repudiates ‘gender identity’ as an “internal and subjective sense of self, disconnected from biological reality and sex existing on an infinite continuum, that does not provide a meaningful basis for identification.”
But this doesn’t seem to apply to me. The State of Indiana no longer allows any change of sex markers on existing documents, so I cannot get my immutable biological sex reinstated on my identification documents.
On March 11, 2026, I had a hearing with a Porter County Superior Court judge and received a certified court order to amend my name and sex on my birth certificate. The Indianapolis Department of Health’s vital records department received the order by mail on March 16. I also put in a Vital Records Digital Help Desk support ticket in hopes of being seen and processed more quickly.
On April 8, a Program Director at Vital Records, responsible for maintaining and issuing certified copies of civil documents, such as birth certificates and marriage certificates, rejected the amendment to my records entirely because the department was “awaiting further directive from Braun regarding his order.”
I believe this specifically contradicts the rationale behind Governor Braun’s order. Now, the state of Indiana is forcing a biological female to carry male identification documents, despite Braun’s claim that those documents are fraudulent!
While I understand their aversion to transgender ideology, I don’t think Indiana government officials intended to pursue overzealous policies that would force biological females to maintain male documentation after regretting a legal sex change during their vulnerable teenage years. Unfortunately, Indiana’s current policy creates barriers that leave detransitioners with no way out. The whole point of Executive Order 25-36 is to define sex as a biological reality. It would be entirely hypocritical to put a legal blockade in place that traps a female into the very gender ideology that policymakers claim to be fighting.
This needs to change. Because of an identity that only ever existed in my official identification documents, I’m now forced to forfeit my right to vote unless I show up to the voter’s station with a male name and commit voter fraud. My insurance can deny me female healthcare, and my employer thinks I’m a man.
A judge approved my original transition in court when I was a 17-year-old who didn’t know any better. Now I’m stuck with a legal dilemma and no pathway out. I have a vagina, XX chromosomes, and a male marker on my birth certificate. What more do I have to do to reclaim my legal identity and biological reality as a woman in the state of Indiana?
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Not only does the ability to alter a birth certificate and modify birth facts affect detransitioners, but it is disrespectful to parents as well. There are so many reasons not to change birth facts on vital records. I have written about this issue. https://thetranstrain.substack.com/p/it-is-time-to-preserve-and-restore
I would be grateful for additional articles on the ramifications of modifying birth certificates years, even decades, after the birth. Thank you for covering this topic.
This is so sad. If only people knew just how difficult & serious this is. What a mess.