A cis hetero woman who gets married can easily and cheaply
change her name. She need not spend
hundreds of dollars (or spend large amounts of time applying for fee waivers if
she is impoverished). She does not need
to meet publication requirements. She
need not demonstrate her need to change her name. Nor does she have to face great difficulty if
she has debt or a criminal history. She
does not have to worry about being treated as suspicious if she moved recently
and she will be presumed not to be a fraud.
Yet, to change my legal name so that I no longer have to
have my hated birth name on all of my documents, must do all of these things
(except demonstrate need to change the name, because my current state of
residence is one of the few that does not require strong reason to change a
name, I also have no criminal record, but this is by coincidence the petition
does inquire about these things).
This is one of the many cases where the needs of the
dominant group, in this case cis heteros engaging in normative cis hetero
activities, are deemed perfectly acceptable and convenient, yet everyone else’s
needs are deemed troublesome and as warranting suspicion.
If a cis woman getting married changing her name is no trouble, a trans
person changing their name shouldn’t be either.
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