Luc Bensimon’s mother knew early in her child’s life that he would struggle. For a start, he was black in America. Then he was diagnosed with cerebral palsy on his right side, necessitating years of operations and physical therapy.

But there was something else that Bensimon’s mother only came to recognise years later: she assigned her son as female on his birth certificate because that is what his physical appearance told her.

Bensimon, who is now 47, says he was “born with three strikes. Being African American. Being physically challenged. And being assigned female. My mother told me those are three things that you’re going to battle your whole life.”

His mother was right. But for all the racism and physical struggle he endured, it is the fight to be recognised for who he is that has been the most demanding.

Having a mismatch between your identity documents really exposes transgender people to discrimination. Omar Gonzalez-Pagan

“I had a very strict religious upbringing. My uncle was a Baptist minister. My mom and my dad and I went to a Pentecostal church. My mom would dress me up for Easter in those ugly little dresses and I would just be angry,” he said.

Then there was puberty.

“I had to go get the training bra. I was just not OK with it. I guess my mom thought I was just rebelling and that was a teenage thing. So I told her in so many words that I’m pretending to be something I’m not comfortable being. My mom was, ‘I’m not OK with this’,” he said.

Much has changed. Bensimon began to transition in his 30s. A diminutive man with a neatly trimmed beard proudly wearing a sash proclaiming him “Mr Black Trans Kansas 2019”, he now has a name reflecting his gender. He describes his mother as very supportive in recent years.

But to this day, his Kansas birth certificate says that he is female.

For Bensimon, having the state effectively deciding who and what he is was an intolerable position. When he goes for a job, he’s required to prove he is a US citizen. The birth certificate he has to give to HR outs him in what is all too often a hostile world.

“You’ve got the dead name [the name before transition] and then the gender. You might have been living for God knows how many years as the gender you were meant to be. But you turn in that birth certificate and they’re just like, ‘Who is this?’,” said Bensimon.

That is finally about to change in Kansas. Earlier this month, Governor Laura Kelly said it was time for the state “to move past its outdated and discriminatory anti-transgender policy”. After years of resistance to change by Republican governors, the Democrat elected to the state’s top office last year withdrew opposition to a lawsuit by Bensimon and others seeking the right to say what is on their birth certificates.

“People say I’m just trying to erase the past. No, I’m not. But I can’t play a role I’m not meant to play. I’m a bad actor,” said Bensimon. “It’s important. Maybe not for some people but it is for me.”

Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, a lawyer at Lambda Legal who has fought an array of cases on behalf of LGBT people, said Kelly’s decision leaves only Ohio and Tennessee as the outliers in refusing to allow transgender people to amend the record of their birth (Gonzalez-Pagan has filed lawsuits against both remaining states).

“The birth certificate is the quintessential document that is used for pretty much every aspect of your life. If you don’t have a passport, the way you get employment is by showing your driver’s licence and your birth certificate. Having a mismatch between your identity documents really exposes transgender people to discrimination when it comes to employment, education and everyday parts of their lives,” he said.

Nyla Foster at home. Photograph: Barrett Emke/The Guardian

Nyla Foster, who grew up in Kansas City where she works for a homeless charity, also took on the state. She is quick to say that she was not looking to change her birth certificate but to correct it. Foster said the gender was wrong from the day her mother filled it out 30 years ago and ticked the box saying her child was male.

Foster told her family in her early teens that she did not feel like a boy. She decided to let the rest of her world know during Spirit Week, a tradition in many American high schools built around themes that often involve dressing up.

It’s a piece of documentation that subjects me to discrimination. It outs me by having to present a document that I can’t change. Nyla Foster

“One of the days was gender switch day where the boys dress like girls and the girls dress like boys. That was the day I decided to come out,” said Foster. Typically boys put on a wig or a skirt for laughs. Foster arrived at school in a bra and makeup, and with her hair styled.

“My gender switch was very serious, it was very intentional. I looked like a natural girl. It wasn’t comedic. It wasn’t drag queen looking. It was very passable. Folks were confused. Gawking and staring. The administration said I was a disruption to the learning environment and escorted me home,” she said.

But Foster had broken a barrier and arrived at school the next day dressed the same way. “I was sent home. Just leave. Eventually they suspended me and put me in an after-school programme, just me and a teacher. It was isolation basically. I was 14,” she said.

Foster describes that isolation as traumatising and said it contributed to a struggle to establish a normal life that at one point resulted in homelessness. Foster was able to change her driving licence but that wasn’t good enough when applying for a job because it doesn’t establish a right to live and work in the US. Without a passport, she was obliged to show her birth certificate.

“When I show a birth certificate that has my dead name that has a male sex on it, they are: ‘Wait. Is this fraudulent? Is this real? Who is this person?’ It’s a piece of documentation that subjects me to discrimination. It outs me by having to present a document that I can’t change,” she said.

Foster said forcible outing exposes her to harassment and violence.

“It’s retraumatising. You never know who you’re going to get. This is not a country where everyone’s understanding, especially if you sound, act or look different. You’re just subjected to how that person’s going to respond,” she said. “There’s an epidemic of violence against trans women. Every time I walk out the house I put myself in danger.”

Two days after Kelly announced the policy change, an African American trans woman was found murdered on the Missouri side of Kansas City. The police said the circumstances were unclear but Brooklyn Lindsey, 32, appeared to have been shot in the face. Neighbours reported hearing an argument followed by gunfire in the middle of the night.

The LGBT rights group the Human Rights Campaign has warned that the murder of transgender people is on the rise. Last year, one trans woman was killed every two weeks, the majority of them black. This year, two murders within a fortnight in Dallas have shaken the transgender community. One of the victims, Muhlaysia Booker, had been badly beaten a few weeks earlier in an attack described by Dallas’s mayor, Mike Rawlings, as “mob violence”.

Bensimon has turned his house in Topeka into a refuge for vulnerable younger transgender people, eight of whom live with him and call him dad. He said he feels particularly vulnerable to abuse and violence by other African Americans.

“It’s horrible to say. A lot of times when I was in school and I was teased, it wasn’t the white kids teasing me. It just wasn’t. It was my own. That’s where a lot of my non-acceptance comes from even today. I’m very ashamed to say that. But it is what it is. It’s true. It’s real,” he said.

Jessica Hicklin, who fought for her gender to be changed on her birth certificate. Photograph: Jessica Hicklin

The new policy on birth certificates holds out a different kind of hope for Jessica Hicklin. At 40, she has spent her entire adult life in male prisons for a drug-related murder she committed at 16. Hicklin’s transition and evolution as a woman has taken place entirely behind bars under the gaze of guards and prisoners who frequently showed little understanding or sympathy, at least until more recently.

“When I first came to the department of corrections I wasn’t identified as trans. I was identified as homosexual because that was what they understood. I was thrown in one of the most violent wings that existed in the department at the time because ‘you people, we don’t have to protect because you know you’re not really normal’. I spent the first couple of years being sexually assaulted and it was bad,” she said.

If nothing else your government’s not going to be the one telling you that you don’t exist or you’re not a real person. Jessica Hicklin

Hicklin, who was born in Kansas but jailed in Missouri, made history last year when she won a federal case forcing the prison system to provide her with the necessary medical treatment to transition. She has now been on hormones for 16 months and more than a dozen other prisoners in Missouri are doing the same.

By then, the greater understanding of transgender people on the outside was influencing attitudes in prison. “There’s been this big change. There are more guards that are supportive of me as a trans woman than are against,” she said.

Hicklin relates the example of two guards using the cover of a routine search to make fun of the women’s underwear she is now permitted to buy from the prison shop.

“They were, ‘We can’t believe this man would have this bra’. There were so many staff members who stood up for me and told them, ‘You can’t do that’,” she said.

Official attitudes have also evolved. Missouri now requires guards to call her Ms Hicklin.

The opportunity to amend her birth Kansas birth certificate potentially opens the way for Hicklin to be moved to a women’s prison inside the Missouri system. She becomes emotional as she describes what it means to her. “If nothing else your government’s not going to be the one telling you that you don’t exist or you’re not a real person. So it’s huge,” she said.

The longer term hangs on another legal change. Hicklin was sentenced to life without parole plus 100 years for the murder at 16 of her dealer after using methamphetamine – a killing she said she lives to atone for. “I’ve regretted it from the first day. It was my horrible choices and I’ve always stood accountable. I try to live my life reflective of that. I’m trying to make up for something you can never fix,” she said.

In 2012, the US supreme court ruled that life sentences without the possibility of release for juveniles were unconstitutional. Hicklin will now be able to apply for parole next year, after 25 years in prison.

The next challenge for Bensimon is to persuade Topeka’s city council to fall in line with other municipalities in Kansas and across the US by including protections for transgender people in anti-discriminatory ordinances.

“We’ve got a lot of people on city council that will not budge. You cannot discriminate against race, creed, colour. But you’re still allowed to discrimination against people on gender identity and gender expression,” he said. “This is a very conservative part of Kansas. Even the Democrats here are conservative. For years they were against racial equality. They only just come around to equality for women. When we say, all we’re looking for is equality, we’re being murdered because of who we are, stand up for us. All they say is, it’s always been this way.”