As part of the process of becoming a US citizen, I was required (yet again) to travel to Detroit and visit a USCIS field office for a 'biometrics' appointment. As the name implies, they measure your statistics, take photographs, and fingerprint you.
(While I can understand the desire to prevent known malcontents from falsely acquiring official documentation, the process is overly invasive and to top it off, costs the applicant $80. That's a discussion for another day, however.)
What they did not tell me at the time is that the photograph would later appear on my official Certificate Of Naturalization - if they had, I might have worn something other than an oversized hoodie. Alas.
Now I have to have my Certificate reissued as my legal name and gender having changed and fortuitously, the USCIS allows for this (although there's another $555 fee, because of course there is).
Thankfully, they will let me supply my own photograph this time. So I put on my best dress, did my hair and makeup, and met up with my photographer nephew at the local park for a photoshoot. I'm excited to see the results!
As a fun bonus for the day: on the way home, I stopped for bubble tea at a new Vietnamese restaurant. I recommended the place to my coworker yesterday; and was entertained to see him walk in five minutes after I did to collect an order. I was more delighted to see that he didn't actually recognize me at first - presumably because he's never seen me in a dress before!