Transgender Law
Center Investigating Offensive Letter from DMV
Employee
San Francisco - The
Transgender Law Center is outraged that a California Department of
Motor Vehicles employee sent a letter to the home of a transgender
woman calling her "an abomination" and telling her that she is
going to hell.
Last week Amber Yust, a transgender woman
living in San Francisco, went to the San Francisco Department of
Motor Vehicles to change her name on her driver's license. With her
court ordered name change and all of the DMV paperwork in hand,
Amber was able to get a new driver's license in her new name. But
her experience with the DMV did not end there.
Unbelievably, on Monday, Amber received a
letter from the person who had processed her name change at the
DMV. In the letter, which had been mailed to her at home, the DMV
employee quoted from the Bible and stated that Amber had made a
"very evil decision." The strongly-worded letter told Amber that
she was "an abomination" and said that homosexuals should be put to
death.
"I was shocked to receive this letter from
the person who processed my paperwork at the DMV," said Amber. "I
would never have expected that a DMV employee could use information
from my name change application to reach out and personally attack
me. This has been a traumatic experience for me and I want to
ensure that nothing like this happens to anyone else."
The Transgender Law Center is
investigating the incident.
"This was an egregious act committed by a
government employee," said Masen Davis, Executive Director of the
Transgender Law Center. "Transgender people deserve to be treated
with respect at agencies like the DMV. What happened to Amber is
despicable, and we intend to do everything we can to hold the
responsible parties accountable and to prevent this from happening
again."
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