After several years of saving funds
for electrolysis, HRT, and hair replacement, I was finally ready to begin my
legal transition. I had a new appearance
that matched what I felt I should have been, but did not match the name my
parents had given me. I feared that if I
lost my job at the chicken plant for whatever reason, finding work would be
almost impossible unless I had my name change.
TG/TS sisters who had seen me in recent days were sometimes amazed that
I hadn’t yet transitioned. It was
definitely time to make my dreams come true.
On Friday, November 22nd,
2002, I had decided that it was time to go for it. Some of my friends had told me that the court
order would not be that important, and that I could just change my Social
Security and driver’s license. But
another friend strongly advised me to get a court order, because she had and it
had kept her out of legal trouble on one occasion. My decision to get the court order would also
save me from a predicament that would threaten to undo my transition just six
months from now in another state.
I drove over to the county courthouse
shortly after getting off of work, and asked where I needed to go for a legal
name change. I was directed to go to a
new building, but when I got there they were closing. I would have to return on Monday.
Monday, November 25th – I
finally found the right room in the right building. But when I asked for the name change forms, I
was told that I would need to get a lawyer for this. When I asked where I could get the forms for
name change, they said that they couldn’t even tell me that because it would be
considered ‘legal advice’.
Now that was really
discouraging. Didn’t some sisters in my
area get a legal name change on their own without a lawyer? After wrecking my car two weekends ago, I was
not in the mood for spending several hundred dollars on a lawyer. I called a friend for help and advice, and I
visited her on Saturday morning.
Meanwhile a couple of friends sent me E-Mails with several examples of
name change petitions. I learned that
Arkansas has no specific name change form.
It is up to the person seeking a name change to compose their petition,
although that petition must contain certain elements.
For more information, go to http://www.namechangelaw.com/
and then click on your state for more information. The elements that you will need for your name
change petition include:
Over the holiday weekend I compared
the several examples of successful name change petitions, and from these I
composed my own.
I have shaded the petition in
turquoise, the verification (to be notarized) in yellow, and the court order in
rose. My former male name is listed as
Yyyyy Yyyyy Yyyyy because I
do not wish to disclose that on the web, and I have also concealed my new last
name by listing it as Xxxxx on these documents.
IN THE
CIRCUIT COURT OF _Benton______ COUNTY, ARKANSAS
19th___ DIVISION
IN RE: _Yyyyy Yyyyy Yyyyy____
The petitioner, _Yyyyy Yyyyy Yyyyy__, hereby states:
1.
Petitioner is over the age of
twenty-one (21) years and is a resident of _Benton____________________
County, Arkansas.
2. Petitioner
wishes to change his/her name because Petitioner is currently undergoing the
process of a gender change. Petitioner
has been diagnosed as a transsexual by a licensed psychologist, has had an orchiectomy (castration) operation, has been taking
feminizing hormones to alter petitioner’s appearance to that of a female, and
plans to continue taking feminizing hormones and commence living a female. _______.
3. Petitioner
states and affirms that this request for a name change is not for the purpose
of fraud, of violating any law, and is not and will not be detrimental to the
interest of any other reason.
4. The
petitioner, by his/her own affidavit, submits to the court that upon first
being duly sworn under oath before a Notary Public, all relevant facts as to
why he/she desires a name change have been revealed herein.
_Sherry Joanne
Xxxxx_.
WHEREFORE, petitioner requests that
this court allow his/her name to be legally changed from _Yyyyy Yyyyy Yyyyy_ _ to _Sherry Joanne Xxxxx , and for
this Court to order such a change in accordance with the laws of Arkansas.
Respectfully
submitted
_
___
Yyyyy Yyyyy Yyyyy, Petitioner
VERIFICATION
STATE OF ARKANSAS )
) ss.
COUNTY OF Benton ___ )
On this
_____day of ______________ , 20 , Yyyyy Yyyyy Yyyyy personally appeared before
me, a Notary Public for the above county, who stated that the statements
contained in the foregoing Petition were true and correct to the best of
his/her knowledge, information and belief.
_____________________________
SUBSCRIBED AND SWORN TO before me this _______day of ______________, 20 .
__________________________
Notary Public
My Commission Expires:
____________________
( S E A L )
IN THE
CIRCUIT COURT OF _Benton_________________COUNTY,
ARKANSAS
_19th_____
DIVISION
IN RE: _Yyyyy Yyyyy Yyyyy___________
On this
date, the petition of _Yyyyy Yyyyy Yyyyy___________ is presented, the petitioner appearing
in person, pro se, and the Court, from the petition filed herein, the testimony
given, and other proof before the Court, finds:
The
petitioner has shown reasonable cause for changing his/her name.
IT IS
THEREFORE ORDERED that petitioner’s name be changed from
_Yyyyy Yyyyy
Yyyyy _________ to _Sherry Joanne Xxxxx________ and that petitioner shall hereinafter be
known as
_Sherry Joanne Xxxxx________________,
and IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that he/she shall sue and be sued, plead and be impleaded, by the name
_Sherry Joanne
Xxxxx______________.
IT IS
FURTHER ORDERED that the petition filed here in and this order be entered by
the Clerk upon the record of this Court.
___________________________________
___________________________________
Date
APPROVED:
______________________________
Petitioner
Monday, December 2nd – I
had the verification sheet notarized by the teller at the bank. Since I was a customer at the bank, this cost
me nothing. Then I took all three forms
to the circuit clerk’s office to be filed.
I was able to file these forms without an attorney, but I did have to
pay the court $100 for the filing. The
clerk told me the judge would look at these forms in a day or a week, depending
on his schedule.
Now I waited, and hoped that this
would go through without too much trouble.
A TS friend told me that she thought I might have more trouble in my
more conservative county. I hoped that I
would not have to take time off work to change my name, or worse yet have to
get a lawyer.
I did not have to wait long. On December 9th, exactly one week
after I had filed the forms, I received two pieces of mail from the court. One envelope was addressed to my male name,
and the other addressed to Sherry. Now
that’s a very good indication! Sure
enough, the judge had signed the court order to legally change my name and sent
back the other two forms. The envelope
addressed to the name of Sherry contained two certified copies of the name
change. The clerk had initially said I
would need a lawyer, but I did it pro se.
Now what I needed was to get off of
work early just once so I could go to the Social Security office to get a new
card, the motor vehicle department for a new license, and then really get my
transition going. It was too late
today. I looked over the kill schedule
at the chicken plant. Tuesday would be a
full workday, but there was some chance on Wednesday if we didn’t break
down. But Wednesday was bad from the
start. We had extra birds that the night
shift didn’t finish from Tuesday night, and then we had slowdowns of our
own. Full workdays were scheduled for
Thursday and Friday. Maybe
next week?
The 13th fell on a Friday,
and I expected to have an uneventful Friday the 13th. But at first break I heard rumors that some
of the birds had been cancelled, and we might get out early. The rumors turned out to be true, and we ran
near full speed until we got off early.
I stopped at home only long enough to get the court order, and then
drove straight to the Social Security office in Fayetteville.
Social Security had recently
established the policy that they would not change the gender marker on their
records until one has had complete genital surgery, but I could still change my
name by showing them my court order. The
gender marker at Social Security is less consequential because there is no
gender designation on the Social Security Card that I would be showing to
future potential employers. They told me
my card should arrive in a couple of weeks, and until then I had a temporary
form I could display to an employer if necessary.
After I changed my name there, I went
to a DMV office which would be open until 6PM.
I would have both my Social Security and Drivers License changed on the
same day! This time I showed the letter
from the Social Security office with the court order. I was the first transitioner
that my clerk had ever served, so she called a superior to see if she could
grant me an ‘F’ for sex designation. She
went to a back office to protect my privacy while making the phone call, and
then she returned and told me she could do it.
Soon I had a license with my new picture, new name, and an ‘F’ marker
for sex.
The process seemed to be initially
difficult, but once I learned how to do it, I found that changing one’s name is
not very difficult in Arkansas. I was
not required to publish a notice of name change in any publication. Just file the forms with the correct
elements, wait for them to be processed, and then show the forms to Social
Security and the DMV. Things seem more
simplified here than in some nearby states such as Missouri and Texas.
My chicken plant processed my
transition once my new Social Security card arrived in the mail and the correct
secretary was present. Her absence and a
snowstorm delayed my transition past Christmas, but I got my badge before the
end of the year. I began to investigate
the process on November 22nd, and went full time as of December 30th.
How much did this cost you?
Of the seven phases of my transition,
this was easily the least expensive. The
court order cost me $100 (would have cost around $300
with an attorney), the Social Security cost nothing, and the new drivers
license was less than ten dollars. There
were a few other minor expenses such as getting new checkbooks in the name of
Sherry, but overall this only cost me around $150. I spent around a hundred times as much to get
facial electrolysis.
Do I really need a court order to
change my name?
Some friends had told me they did not
bother getting the court order, or they started without one and then came back
to get it at some future date. But I
know for sure that many transitioners will need the
court order to change ID and documents, and simply to succeed with their
transition. Although I lived where I
could apparently have started my transition without the court order, it turns
out that I did need it later on and I was very fortunate that I had obtained
the court order. Even if you currently
live in a state where a court ordered name change would not be required for
transition, who knows that you won’t end up in a jurisdiction where one would
be required, which is what happened to me.
A friend in Arkansas had strongly
advised me to get a court order. She
told me that she had once been in an auto accident, which had caused her wig to
fly off and reveal her transition to the police. She stayed out of legal trouble by referring
the police to the Arkansas county where she had
obtained a legal name change through the court there, and proved to the
officers’ satisfaction that she was not committing fraud. When the time came for my own transition, she
helped me put a document together.
Just five months after my transition
I ended up moving to Missouri. The DMV
clerk typed my Social Security number into the computer and discovered that I
had a Missouri license ten years ago in a male name. She then told me she would not issue the
Missouri license in my name unless I showed a court order. If she issued the license in my former name,
finding a job here would have been practically impossible. Very fortunately I had taken my friend’s
advice and got the court order, so I returned to the DMV a while later with a
court document stating that I was to be known as Sherry Joanne Xxxxx. I was able to
sustain my transition.
Arkansas will grant an F for sex
designation on your license (or M if you are FtM),
but Missouri will not do this for pre-ops, and orchiectomy
is insufficient there. Missouri DMVs
will require a surgeon’s letter stating that you had complete sex change
surgery.