Names.

Here in Connecticut it fairly easy to change your name you basically have to swear you are not doing it for any illegal purpose and then the court does a background check. You can even get a waiver of the court fee if you can’t afford it and best of all you don’t have to publish your name change, but in some state there are a lot of hoops you have to jump through.

States sued over transgender name-change laws
My Journal Courier
By Ivan Moreno Associated Press
May 2, 2019

Attorneys sued Wisconsin and Illinois on Wednesday over laws that forbid transgender individuals from changing their names if they have certain criminal convictions.

Both lawsuits argue that the states are violating free speech rights and are preventing people from expressing how they identify themselves.

“The impact on their lives is severe. This is an issue of equality and equal participation in society,” said Lark Mulligan, an attorney who filed the Illinois lawsuit. Mulligan, who is a transgender woman, noted “all the times that people are forced to use their IDs just to access basic services — applying for public benefits, applying for school, applying for a job or an apartment, anything like that.”

The lawsuits, filed in Cook County, Illinois, and Kenosha County, Wisconsin, say eight transgender women in Illinois and one transgender woman in Wisconsin encounter an array of challenges in their daily lives. The suits cited instances in which transgender individuals failed to get food stamps because their chosen name is not on their ID, or times when they were ridiculed in public places after showing identification that didn’t reflect their gender and chosen name.
[…]
Thirteen states don’t require disclosure of criminal history for name changes, according to an article in the DePaul Law Review. Twenty-eight states and Washington, D.C., require criminal background checks, but don’t automatically bar name changes. Illinois is among nine states with more restrictive laws.

The Connecticut form PC-901 instructions are…

1) An individual 18 years of age or older may use this form to petition for a change of his or her name.
2) The petition must be filed in the court for the probate district in which the petitioner resides and accompanied by a) PC-910, Affidavit RE Change of Name, b) a certified copy of the petitioner’s long-form birth certificate and c) two forms of identification, one of which must be photographic identification.
3) The court will conduct a search of the sex offender registry and of the registry of offenders convicted of crimes with a deadly weapon and may conduct a full criminal background check.
4) For more information, see Probate Court Rules of Procedure sections 47.1 and 47.4.
5) Type or print the form in ink. Use an additional sheet, or PC-180, if more space is needed.
[…]
The purpose of seeking a change of name is not to deceive, defraud or mislead any person or governmental agency, nor to avoid the legal consequences of a criminal conviction, but solely for the reason(s) stated above.

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Here in the U.S. there is a battle raging over the census questions about citizenship, and questions about LGBTQ+ people. There were questions that were added by the Obama administration about same-sex marriage and gender identity which the Trump administration stripped from the census questions (we can’t have an accurate count… it might give us more political power and confirm our legitimacy). However, over in Scotland they don’t have a problem with us.

New transgender question in next Census agreed
The Scotsman
By Gina Davidson
May 2, 2019

Transgender people will be able to complete a voluntary question about their gender identity and history after amendments to the new Census Bill legislation were agreed in Holyrood today.

MSPs debating the introduction of new questions to the 2021 Census unanimously agreed changes which would ensure there was no “perceived conflation of sex and gender”.

Government minister Fiona Hyslop told the Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Affairs Committee which has been dealing with the Bill, that her amendments would give “transgender matters” an entry which could be filled out on a purely voluntary basis.

The Bill will also, for the first time, have a voluntary question on sexual orientation.

The bigots here are afraid of us and don’t want us counted.

When we were trying to pass the non-discrimination law for us one of the questions that we heard over and over… “How many trans people live in Connecticut?” and that is a question that Trump doesn’t want answered.