Make a photocopy of your passport, perhaps have it notarized, but at least have a copy.

Can you carry a notarized letter from your surgeon or endocrinologist?

Good suggestion from @YARNLADY as well.

@YARNLADY: Thank you! I will be sure to bring several copies. I was also thinking of printing out the documentation from the State Department website that explains about changing legal sex on passports, because I can’t expect TSA to be familiar with it.

@gailcalled: Thank you. This is a case of very bad timing. This was the only available appointment at the consulate for a month so I had to grab it. Yesterday my endocrinologist asked me to email him letters so he could print and sign them on his letterhead and mail them to me, but I won’t get them in time for my trip tomorrow >_<

Can you at least get a fax from him since something may be better than nothing?

@gailcalled : Thank you! I will call him right now.

Any other Mds who could reinforce his info? It is crappy timing, I agree. Hard enough to travel w/o your issues.

OMFG. I have an original signed copy of exactly the right letter I need, but it is in French.

Thank you @gailcalled. I will call my other doctor right now and see if she is free.

Insist to her staff or middle man that this is a crisis and will take only a few minutes. Do the translation yourself and have someone notarize that also.

I just had a thought… The campus health center closes at 5, and there’s no way I could go to campus, edit a copy of this letter so it refers to a different doctor, print it, and then high tail it over to the health center in time to see another doctor.

I’m having trouble thinking straight right now O_o

Maybe have the chair of the French dept translate the letter instead since that covers the necessary material.

With the original letter in French and the translation stapled to it, you may be OK. Most consulates have a native speaker or two hanging around, somewhere.

Several deep breaths, please.

Thank you, @gailcalled.

Did you mean someone in the French consulate?

That would mean that I would have to let someone there know that I am transsexual. Which might bias them against me, and I have no recourse if that is the case.

I did.

Oh, I didn’t realize that there was a privacy issue.

Can you translate it?

Do you think I could cancel my trip home (or just plan to miss it) and plan another return flight right now, using the information (F) that is on the photo ID I will have on the way back? Money is not a concern at this point. I just don’t want to be stranded.

And to answer your question, I could translate it myself. I composed it.

Can you rent a car and drive home from the consulate? Then you won’t have to worry about the TSA at the airport on the way home.

How closely does your photo on the valid driver’s license resemble you? If it’s a reasonable match (I realize that the hair style may not be current), then I don’t think that anyone is going to scrutinize the details on the license. They want to see a name match to the ticket / boarding pass, and a photo that looks more or less like you. That way they can match “the valid ID belongs to this person in front of me, who is named on the boarding pass and is not on our no-fly list”.

Do you need to surrender the passport in person? We apply for visas all the time to various countries, and we do that via an express courier service that manages the entire process. Take a look at this.

Alternatively, make the outbound flight using ONLY the driver’s license as identification, and that will give you the confidence that it will also work on the return flight. And if the gate agent gives you grief on the return, you can legitimately complain “It worked fine for the other leg of the flight! Don’t you people follow the same standards?” They don’t, but don’t acknowledge that.

Is there any way you could go back by renting a car?

Otherwise, you could make a photocopy of your passport and explain that you had to leave it as the consulate or you could dress like a girl that day.

@WestRiverrat : Thank you for the idea, but I don’t think I’m old enough to rent a car. I thought you had to be 26, and I’m younger than that.

@CWOTUS: The face looks pretty much the same. I just look a lot younger (I was 16). But my license has drawn scrutiny from bouncers in clubs before, who have asked me for other ID because they saw the F.

And I do need to be prepared to surrender my passport. I’m applying for a long stay visa, which I’ve never done before. I am explicitly required to appear in person, and they asked me for a prepaid Express envelope to send my passport back, so I think they are pretty serious about taking our passports.

@marinelife : Thank you for the thoughts. But I wouldn’t even know how to appear like a girl anymore even if I had a single item of female clothing in my wardrobe. I will definitely be bringing some good color photocopies of my passport.

Also, is there no way you could go to a local DMV yet today and get a photo ID? Getting an updated Driver’s License (or even just a State issued ID) would do the trick.

Also, just to really really set your mind at ease, I have colleagues who’ve lost their wallet (had NO photo ID) and TSA let them thru. (And that’s THIS year, in 2013.) You will likely want to give yourself extra time because they’ll want do a full pat-down / extra screening—but you’ll be OK. Just explain that you surrendered your passport for the Visa process at the consulate, show them the photo copy, show them your (older) driver’s license and you should be just fine. Really.

@geeky_mama : Thank you. I can’t get a license in my current state that shows my true gender. Because this state is bass-ackwards. Part of why I never bothered to get a new driver’s license.

That is indeed comforting to hear. Thank you very much for telling me that story.

Oh, they will definitely take your passport; I have no doubt about that.

I still think that you can fly on the driver’s license without much trouble. TSA requirements are actually not as tough as bouncers, I think. They just need that three-point match: face matches photo ID – name on ID matches boarding pass. They won’t care about your age, and I doubt if they will give more than a passing glance at the noted sex. And if they do, just look ‘em in the eye, smile and tell ‘em that’s subject to change.

@CWOTUS: Thank you very much. This stuff stresses me out a lot, obviously. I’ll just try to be as prepared as possible.

Thank you again to everyone who answered here. I truly appreciate it.

Shame you’re not flying trans atlantic, you’d simply breeze through all the bullshit :)

@ucme: I’ll take a joke from you over Wundy any day :-p
This is but one frustrating step of many so that I can fly trans-atlantic next month!!

Just bringing a smile where once was a frown, that’s the idea anyway…good luck with it.

I haven’t read the above answers so forgive me if this is a repeat. Are you ok travelling as a female? Why not just travel round trip on your license as a female? Call up the airline and say you noticed the mistake. There is a good chance they won’t even notice, but just in case it is better it matches.

@ucme: Thanks sweetie, kiss kiss. I mean cheers mate ;)

@JLeslie: Thank you for the idea, but I won’t do that. That would make me so uncomfortable and angry that they’d probably think I was a terrorist. I haven’t had any women’s clothes for 3 years. And I have facial hair.

@bookish1 I understand. Will you be issued temporary papers when you surrender your passport?

I think they won’t notice it is mismatched. I haven’t noticed them swiping licenses at airports for mag strip info like they do at doctor’s offices. If they did then I might say the computer would catch it and to change everything to match even if you don’t look female.

@JLeslie: I highly doubt it, especially since the passport is not required for domestic travel; it’s just one of several IDs we can use.

Homestly, I don’t know how up and running that system actually is. Often with gov’t systems the left is not talking to the right very well. I think they worry most about a name match and birthday. Name match to make sure you are not on the list of suspected terrorist. My BIL’s name was on the list and it was a real hassle for a few years until he had it straightened out. His last name is Cunningham, and his first and middle are a match for the suspicious person. Must be from the IRA days.

All: I used a stupid throwaway joke line in my answer to @bookish1‘s dilemma after giving him two serious answers. On reflection, I thought that it could have been hurtful and I apologized to @bookish1 via PM. Now, I just want to say that transgender issues are never a matter for joking. I am very sorry that I wrote what I did.

Doesn’t the consulate give you papers of some sort? It would be official verification for the reason you don’t have your passport with you. I can’t help but think this is a situation that has several times so they likely have a solution prepared.

@bookish1 Steady on old chap, people will start to talk ;-}

@marinelife: Thank you again.
@Supacase: Thank you. I did not see anything about temporary papers on the consulate website, but I’ll be sure to ask about that.

Update: Thanks again to everyone who posted suggestions and support here.
I had no problems with documents on the way back. The person who checked my driver’s license and boarding pass did indeed just look at my face and to see that the names matched.
I had a pretty degrading experience at security though. I always opt for the pat-down instead of the creepy-ass body scanners, which would surely set off red flags and probably result in a strip-search for me. When I was flying out, the TSA guy who patted me down was extremely professional and nice, but the one I chanced upon on the way back viewed me as a waste of his precious time standing around, and pretty much grabbed my genitals and told me they felt weird (and this was against TSA policy—they’re supposed to stop when they “feel resistance”).
But, boy did I feel safe!~

Thanks for checking in, @bookish1. Glad you made it through ok, if not… comfortably so. I really wish we could hold these security goons accountable for improper behaviour.