Jeffrey Carlson as Zarf soon to be Zoe in ABC’s All My Children (Lou Rocco/ABC)

NEW YORK, NY December 19, 2006 —Since the 1970s, issues regarding gender identity have slowly been moving out of the closet. But now people who are taking action to permanently change their gender are beginning to make their voices heard, both in public policy and in mainstream society. WNYC’s Richard Hake looks at the issues.

REPORTER: Tucked away on West 13th Street in Manhattan, The Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgender Community Center is housed in an old public school. In an annex off the main building is The Gender Identity Project, where since 1989, social workers like Carrie Davis meet with clients who are looking for answers.

DAVIS: Some people come here and have never met another transgender person in their life. And since our staff are all peers as well as professionals, it’s a very moving moment for them.

REPORTER: Davis has also worked with city officials in developing a new Department of Health plan that would have allowed people born in the city to change their birth certificates to match the gender they identify.

DAVIS: In 1971 New York City was at the forefront of transgender identity documents by allowing transgender identified New Yorkers who had genital surgery to have their gender marker removed from their documents. Now that was considered progressive in 1971.

REPORTER: In 2006 the plan was to add a female or male identification to the birth certificate and allow that amendment without surgery. A person would have to prove he or she is using other methods like hormones to change gender. But earlier this month, the Department of Health, scaled that back. Deputy Commissioner Lorna Thorpe says the new rules will allow the revised gender to be included on a birth certificate, but surgery is still required in order to make the change.

THORPE: So the medical reasons for broadening the definition are very strong and we learned a lot. We have more to do in understanding what are the ramifications for other institutions and other parts of the city.

REPORTER: The Health Department says certain public institutions like hospitals, schools, jails and some workplaces need to segregate people by sex. This also raises questions about same sex marriage laws and getting around them. Carrie Davis, who’s seen thousands of clients at the Gender Identity Project, explains that identifying people based on physical characteristics doesn’t necessarily classify someone’s gender.

DAVIS: In the past that criteria had been related to genital surgery and the idea that gender lies between the legs and not between the ears. Cleary that seems to be an outmoded way of thinking about gender.

REPORTER: And most of the medical community is only looking at the psychological aspect. Gal Mayer, medical director at the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center, says he never heard the word transgender in medical school. He’s had to learn the complex trans- medical issues, as he says, in the wards.

MAYER: I can tell you that if medical education represents the medical field then there is no acknowledgement. Transgender is acknowledged as a phychiatric diagnosis.

REPORTER: Mayer says since by law there are medical regulations that must be adhered to in order to transition to another gender-- in the form of prescriptions or surgery. It gives Doctors power they may not want.

MAYER: It’s a very unique position that the prescriber is put in where in my hand I have the key to this person’s, the realization of this person’s identity.

REPORTER: Often government policy and medicine are way behind the way people are actually living and thinking. To get a snapshot of how the everyday person may look at a controversial issue simply look to the media.

ALL MY CHILDREN DIRECTOR: Stand-by. Quiet folks, stay still please, here we go. In five, four, three…….

REPORTER: And more specifically to the storylines in the soap operas.

REPORTER: ABC’s All My Children, is currently portraying a character coming to terms with her transgender identity. Biologically a male, the character Zarf is in transition and will be Zoe, a female by the end of the month, although at soap opera speed.

CARRUTHERS:It’s not a smooth ride and so in order to portray it we are showing all the ugly sides as well as the sides anybody would be proud to see.

ALL MY CHILDREN DIRECTOR: Here we go you guys, places please. Hallway left, camera three is right here…..

REPORTER: Julie Hanan Carruthers is the Executive Producer and says the show historically has tackled controversial issues, but this story line got a different response.

CARRUTHERS: The sales department supported it. The publicity department supported it. The actors couldn’t clammer fast enough to say am I going to be a part of the story?

REPORTER: But is mainstream America ready? Here’s another television show broadcast last month.

DAVID LETTERMAN: Listen to this…ABC has one that’s called All My Children, are you familiar with that?

REPORTER: On CBS, The Late Show with David Letterman.

DAVID LETTERMAN: And they are going to introduce a transgendered character to the plot. Laughs.

REPORTER: An uncomfortable laugh and snicker by the audience….and from Dave.

DAVID LETTERMAN: And then his trademark self deprecating punch line. But would the reaction be the same if he joked about let’s say a gay character today? Ten years ago, probably it would. Back at All My Children, Executive Producer Carruthers says the show is making the unfamiliar…familiar.

CARRUTHERS: My hope is that all those people who were snickering tune to snicker at us and find themselves caught up in a compassionate story of a human soul.

AMC CLIP: How many people truly know who they are? I think I do. Well, how long did it take you before you could say that? A long time. Yes, most of us haven’t figure that out yet.

REPORTER: Zarf, who will become Zoe, in a scene with the character Bianca on a recent episode on television.

AMC CLIP: Scream at me…you’re a boy damnit! Hit me with every slur and label that’s popped into your head since I walked in. Pervert, uh, freak, she-male. I would never say those things.

REPORTER: At ABC’s West Side studios, actors Jeffrey Carlson who plays Zarf andZoe and Eden Riegel…Bianca, rehearse for an upcoming episode in the massive wharehouse like studio that’s divided up into little sets of living rooms, offices and front doors.

CARLSON: Spray sounds and I’m getting sprayed. I’m uh turning from Jeffrey into Zoe, getting the rollers pulled out of my hair

REPORTER: In the make-up room, Carlson says he feels a responsibility for getting the role right.

CARLSON: As long as it causes a conversation. When people are talking about it then one is acknowledging what one might not know about and then you do. Right there there’s a change.

REPORTER: And to get it right, ABC consulted with GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, which provided staff member Andy Marra to work with the producers and writers.

MARRA: Well, when I was younger I saw shows like Jerry Springer and Maury Povich that really exploited transgender woman and people and for me it really did not resonate as a transgender woman.

REPORTER: All My Children has shown a sensitivity to LGBT issues, winning three GLAAD media awards and introducing the first regularly appearing lesbian character six years ago, played by Eden Riegel.

RIEGEL: It doesn’t even seem like it could have possible been a ground breaking story because it’s like breathing it’s like the most natural thing in the world that a character on a soap would come out of the closet. And yet when we did it was a really, really big deal.

AMC PA SYSTEM: This is also a standby for Erica, Jack and Sean and Colby. For Erica and Jack’s living room

SUSAN LUCCI: Historically it is really what All My Children is all about.

REPORTER: Susan Lucci has been playing Erica Kane on the show for almost 31 years.

SUSAN LUCCI: Erica Kane had the first legal abortion on television, never mind daytime television on television.

REPORTER: And according to Andy Marra, for her the show is so much more than entertainment.

MARRA: GLAAD really believes strongly that this is an opportunity for transgender people to look at the show as a role model to live open and honest lives.

REPORTER: And that includes living without discrimination and being welcomed into society according to Carrie Davis of the Gender Identity Project.

DAVIS: Trans people want access to health care, they want access to jobs, they want access to housing, they want access to healthy relationships. To get that access they have to overcome what I call a gender based oppression that’s systemic in our culture.

REPORTER: At this point there is no data on the number of transgender Americans. But the growing acknowledgement in public policy, medicine and the media may soon add it to the broadening definition of civil rights. For WNYC, I’m Richard Hake