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.
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
_Zzzzz______ 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 _Zzzzz____________________ 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 Xxxxx Xxxxx_.
WHEREFORE, petitioner requests that this court allow
his/her name to be legally changed from _Yyyyy Yyyyy Yyyyy_ _ to _Sherry Xxxxx 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 Zzzzz ___ )
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
_Zzzzz_________________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
Xxxxx Xxxxx________ and that petitioner shall hereinafter be known as
_Sherry Xxxxx Xxxxx________________, and IT
IS FURTHER ORDERED that he/she shall sue and be sued, plead and be impleaded,
by the name
_Sherry Xxxxx 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 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 another state. The DMV
clerk typed my Social Security number into the computer and discovered that I
had a license in that state ten years ago in a male name. She then told me she would not issue the new 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 Xxxxx Xxxxx. I was
able to sustain my transition. To read
more about this nasty incident, go to my 2003 page and go to
May 27th.
Arkansas will grant an F for sex
designation on your license (or M if you are FtM), but some states will not do
this for pre-ops, and orchiectomy is insufficient there. The DMVs in some states will require a surgeon’s
letter stating that you had complete sex change surgery.