Catherine O’Carroll’s thesis showcases original data from 15 qualitative interviews with trans and gender non-conforming individuals in Seattle and Chicago to ask: how can trans and gender non-conforming peoples’ lived experiences with state practices and street level bureaucrats help shape policies surrounding gender identity? More specifically, Catherine draws on insights from gender studies, surveillance studies, and queer theory to show how state and local governments’ current policies surrounding gender classification function to increase trans and gender-nonconforming people’s vulnerability to forms of non-spectacular violence, like that of employment discrimination. Catherine puts forward policy recommendations based on their data that would make the process of changing gender markers more equitable and just.