Name Change

One of the rights of passage is changing our name to our true name. Most of my life I lived under an assumed name and I hide my true name from everyone. It wasn’t until I attended a my first support group that I was able to say my true name, Diana and it wasn’t until 2007 when it became my legal name.

The process was simple, fill out a form, pay $150, swear that I wasn’t changing my name for any illegal purpose, and stand before the judge. But in some states it is a much different process…

A new frontier for Florida courts: Transgender name changes
Tampa Bay Times
By Sue Carlton
Saturday, September 24, 2016
On a rainy summer afternoon inside the courthouse by the railroad tracks in Plant City, the case is halfway down the crowded docket.

Petitioner: Christine Rose Novak, it reads. Name change.

Weary-looking people fill the benches in family court, most of them here for divorces. But in the third row, wearing a vibrant blue necktie and the beginnings of a beard, sits the petitioner, his girlfriend at his side.

"Novak," the bailiff calls.

The petitioner stands, starting to sweat. He wonders if the judge will be judgmental. He has had some experience with judgmental.

Hillsborough Circuit Judge Tracy Sheehan waves him up close to the bench, looks into his file, asks a few questions.

"And you are currently Christine Rose?" she says.

Yes.

"And you wish to change your name to Christopher Skye?"

"Yes ma'am," says Novak, 27.

By now the restless audience has stilled to listen. "He's a girl?" a woman whispers to her friend.
[…]
In Florida, as long as it's not for nefarious purposes like avoiding a bankruptcy or hiding a criminal record, you can change your name for pretty much any reason. Pay your fee ($414 in Hillsborough County, $395 in Pinellas), submit your paperwork, show up for your court date. You don't even need a lawyer.

In Connecticut it is now $225 to change your name.

In Indiana a trans man was denied a name change and is suing to overturn the law barring his name change.

Transgender man suing over Indiana law blocking name change
CBS News
AP
September 24, 2016

INDIANAPOLIS A transgender man granted asylum by the U.S. last year is challenging an Indiana law that prevents him from changing his first name to a male name that matches his gender identity.

The 31-year-old, who was brought to Indiana from Mexico illegally by his parents at age six, contends in his federal lawsuit that Indiana’s law requiring anyone seeking a name-change to provide proof of U.S. citizenship is unconstitutional and essentially forces him to “out” himself as transgender whenever he must display his driver’s license.

That law was passed in 2010 amid what his attorneys say was a spate of “anti-immigrant lawmaking” in several states.

The man’s federal lawsuit says his driver’s license lists his sex as male alongside the female birth name he wants changed, a contradiction that’s forced him to disclose to complete strangers the “deeply personal information” that he’s transgender, causing him embarrassment, humiliation and fears of harassment and violence.

He was granted asylum so that means he is here legally and all the other legal immigrants the ability to change their names, why? We see in other the states the only reason to be denied a name change is for illegal purposes and he isn’t doing that. He has changed the gender on all his documentation so now he has a female name on all his legal documents with an “M.”

There maybe help coming…

The author of Indiana’s law, former Democratic state Rep. Dave Cheatham, said he would support amending it to avoid difficulties for immigrants who “have legal status and want to change their name.”

Let’s hope that the bill passes so that he can change his name.

Here in Connecticut it all hasn’t been smooth sailing, some of the Probate Judges, who are elected, are refusing to allow hardship cases where the fee is waivered. One judge down in the Gold Coast is rumored to say that a name change is not necessary so he is not granted hardship cases.