Barriers

Here in Connecticut if you want to change your name you have to pay $150 to the court, fill out a form, and come back in a week to see the judge. And if you can’t afford the $150 you can fill out another form to ask for a fee waiver. We are lucky; some states require your name change to be published in the newspapers.

However in someplace it is a lot harder.

Transgender Costa Ricans fight discrimination over name-change rights
By Fabiola Pomareda
The Tico Times
September 6, 2014

What’s in a name? For many transgender Costa Ricans, a lot. Starting with the fact that in many cases, the names on their government-issued IDs have nothing to do with self-image or identity.

Karolina Malone Esquivel, 24, told The Tico Times that she began her transformation from boy to girl at the age of 14. But since graduating high school, she said it’s been impossible to find work. And that discrimination starts with the name on her cédula.
[…]
Anyone can change his or her name in Costa Rica free of charge, in a simple bureaucratic process at the registry, as long as the new name is of the same gender as the birth name. And herein lies the problem for transgender Ticas and Ticos.
[…]
Typically an attorney charges transgender clients about $560 for a name change, and that doesn’t include extra fees for the time spent before judges. Transvida argues that this is discrimination.

They have petitioned the courts to require the Civil Registry to waive its gender rule, but the case is stalled in the courts.

We sometimes forget that no matter how hard it is here in the states to change our name some countries make it a lot harder.