Name Change!

[Guest Jenn348]

Had my court date this morning, and things went 50% well. I was going for a name change and also requested a gender change order, but was only granted the name change.

Still pretty happy, though

I just got done at the SS office and now I'm sitting in the DMV waiting for my number to be called.

Next comes all the professional licenses, handgun licenses, banks, insurance....list goes on and on and on. Lots of hard work ahead, but worth it!

[VickySGV]

Its been over a year and I still have my electric, water, and gas bills in "His" name. They take my money though!! Congrats.

[Guest CassieX]

Congratulations! It's a wonderful feeling finally getting it done. It sounds like your procedures were way more complicated than my states for name change and gender change.

I'm off this Friday myself to get the SS part done hopefully.

Good Luck on the rest of your paperwork quest!

Cassie

[Carolyn Marie]

Big Congrats, Jenn! The name change is one of the most important milestones in the process of transitioning. It really does represent the start of your new life. I wish you luck with all the bureaucratic runaround, too. I found most of it quite easy, except for my bank, but that's another story.

HUGS

Carolyn Marie

[Guest Jenn348]

Pain in the butt, but well worth it. I got an "F" and was happy about it for the first time today LOL

In my state, they require a petition be filed, then you wait for a court date to be set. After that, you publish notice of the upcoming date. Once you publish notice, the newspaper gives you a statement saying that they published it, and you file that with the court before your date. On the date, judge asks questions, makes sure the paperwork is all in order, and then signs the order changing name. You take that to the clerk and then have official copies to send off to the people that need to see it.....phew.

My more rare problem is that I was born in Texas, which requires a court order for gender marker changes on the birth certificate. Unfortunately, judges up this way don't have very many people ask for a court order for that because my state of residence has established gender change procedures for people born here. Lacking an authorizing statute, the judge refused, so I'll probably have to get a lawyer involved to get that done later.

The DL was actually relatively easy....at least until I went to do it LOL. They have an established form for both name and gender marker change that the therapist signs off on. I did that and brought the name change order along and they said I first had to get the Social Security office updated. Two trips back and forth from MVD to SS office later, I had what I needed from them for the MVD office to finish up issuing the temporary DL (pending them mailing me the fancy "secure" one in a couple weeks).

I burnt up pretty much the whole day and half the evening doing this, but so far I have these done:

-Court order

-Social Security

-Driver's License

-Sam's Club membership (I wasn't planning on getting them done today, but they sirred me after seeing my membership come up on the screen. Since I had the papers in my purse, I ensured that this would be the last time they called me "sir" LOL)

-My grad school

-My main bank (got the insurance and checking done, now I need to do my debit cards and the legal department has to look over my order before they'll do it...)

-My handgun license for my home state, got that stuff sent off.

Phew!

Tomorrow I hope to get:

-Birth certificate (at least the name part of it)

-My other state handgun licenses (got Texas half done today, will do Arizona tomorrow)

-My undergrad school

-My professional certifications and licenses

-My business bank

-Health insurance

And then I get to wait for everybody to send me everything and update their systems.

I got a bunch of other stuff listed off, but dang! This is proving to be quite a laundry list of places to notify. I'm probably just barely scratching the surface, but I hope to have my wallet "sir" free in a few weeks and then I'll work on utilities and such.

[Guest]

Hi Jenn,

You're showing your age! Or at least, your age relative to mine - you must be oodles younger, cause that list has taken me years to complete, not days. Just today, I got my Medicare card with the "F" in the right place. 2+ years after the first changes took place.

Congratulations on making the changes, and also on the extra effort you took to get it all done! Best of luck tomorrow...

Love, Megan

[Bulldog1948]

Hi Jenn,

You're showing your age! Or at least, your age relative to mine - you must be oodles younger, cause that list has taken me years to complete, not days. Just today, I got my Medicare card with the "F" in the right place. 2+ years after the first changes took place.

Congratulations on making the changes, and also on the extra effort you took to get it all done! Best of luck tomorrow...

Love, Megan

Hi Megan, shoot, you are lucky that it only took our wonderful govt 2+ yrs to get the F os your Medicare lol................ You know that I'm just messing with you don't you.

Mike

[Guest Carla_Davis]

Hi Jenn,

NY requires surgery to change the gender on a birth certificate also.

Using a letter from my Therapist and my Court Order Name Change I was easily able to change DMV, SS, Medicare documents.

I was also able to change my name and gender on my Law Enforcement and Fire Fighter Training Records.

I am in the process of changing the name on my college degrees.

I enjoy seeing my female name and female gender listed on these documents.

It took me a long time to get to this point.

Hugs,

Carla

[Guest Jenn348]

Hi Jenn,

You're showing your age! Or at least, your age relative to mine - you must be oodles younger, cause that list has taken me years to complete, not days. Just today, I got my Medicare card with the "F" in the right place. 2+ years after the first changes took place.

Congratulations on making the changes, and also on the extra effort you took to get it all done! Best of luck tomorrow...

Love, Megan

29 next month plenty of energy for this crap.

[KathrynJulia]

I probably won't do anything with my birth certificate until after I've had Gender Reassignment surgery. All the rest began with legal name change and my doctors letter for passport Gender change. I took that same letter to DMV and they changed my Gender on my drivers license even though I've not had Reassignment surgery. Missouri requires Reassignment surgery to change gender on the Drivers license. Yet with just the passport doctors letter, court ordered name change, DMV tossed in the towel and surrendered on the Gender change on my Missouri DL. This may be a low key quietly changed policy.

The ACLU sued the Idaho DMV on the question of Gender because the person had a letter from their doctor stating they had appropriate medical and permanent physical changes to transition their Gender. Other State DMV's took notice and I think you are seeing a quiet change to allow gender change without surgery if you are bold enough to take a letter that is worded like the passport letter. There was no challenge to our letters when presented.

My passport, Drivers License, social security all list my gender as female. Be bold, push the envelope and be successful. Kathryn

[Ravin]

Kathryn, do you know the name of that case on Idaho?

[KathrynJulia]

Gosh Ravin

I read about it a month ago. The ACLU filed suit on behalf of a transgendered woman and the DMV decided to change their rules and accept a doctor's letter to change the Gender marker on driver's license. They probably didn't want to fight the lawsuit and it was cheaper to cave. That's all that I remember about the case. Kathryn

[Guest Arbon]

The ACLU did not sue in Idaho. They did negotiate however, and the state agreed to change its policy BACK.

The problem was that in 2010 / 2011 Idaho policy DID allow a gender marker change on state ID without proof of surgery, only a letter from a doctor. However sometime in 2012 they quietly changed the policy to require letters from the surgeon. There were two trans people who were issued new ID's with the gender change that did not have the appropriate surgeons letters. The state then rescinded their drivers licensees. The ACLU took those cases, and there was a third person who also had been denied her gender marker change (me) that had an active complaint against the state through ACLU (my case was not as strong because the state had not issued and rescinded my license).

Luckily it never had to go to court, the state voluntarily reversed its policy back to what it was in 2010 /2011, and I got my "F"

[Guest Rebecca A]

Hi Jenn,

Just wanted to say Congrats! I just had to do the same thing for my name and gender change with the DMV, it was a pain I had to call them and talk to a supervisor after I filed the form and had my counselor write a letter. Now I'm working on changing my name on the rest of my documents, bills, credit cards etc.

[Guest Katey Mctagger]

Congradulations Jenn!

I know it must have been a pain for you to go through all that work just to get your name changed. But it was worth it in the end I hope. Actually, I was also a little curious where I might be able to find the right resources and research so I change my own legal name. Any idea's or suggestions?