I did also have a blog (which as of this post is still there under "Madison's Musings" - you can view by visiting the link above, clicking on "Forums" at the top of the page and then browsing down to "Member Blogs" - this can be done as a guest *without* signing in) and while early entries consisted mainly of me discussing/complaining about my transition and my job; later on I did make an effort to "return the favor" and document some of the processes I was going through. One of the posts that stands out to me was the one I made regarding my efforts to get my name (and gender) legally changed. I've decided to re-post that here (with some updates) in the event that anybody who reads this might find it helpful.
This is a very long and detailed entry; but I didn't want to leave anything out. So without further ado, here we go. Again please keep in mind that this was originally posted elsewhere so any references to "other posts" and such are not referencing posts in this blog. I have also updated this with a couple of things that have occurred in the two weeks since my court date. Any "updates" will have a normal white background in lieu of the gray that the copied text from the original post have.
This is probably going to be very long and overly detailed and for that matter contain plenty of things that I've covered in early entries. But I've always really appreciated details that others have posted for things like this and I'm trying in my own little way to return the favor for anybody else that is curious about the process in general; or as it specifically relates to the State of Missouri. And for that matter, I've always considered this blog a "diary" for me and I'm sure that I'll want to be able to look back at this in it's entirety at some point.
Well the big day finally came. I had taken a short - maybe 90 minute - nap last night from about 8pm until 9:30pm or so; but after that I couldn't sleep. So I spent part of the evening/early morning working to pass the time (sometimes it is really nice to work from home) in between taking a couple of leisurely baths to get my legs, etc., shaved and such. Finally about 5:30am I got really tired which was about the time my wife got up.
She had managed to get her work schedule altered enough to be able to go with me and was getting up to get ready since she'd have to head to work after the proceedings. So I decided to try and nap a bit as I was really tired and we were going to have to drive separately so she could go to work after we were done. I probably managed to get 20 or 30 minutes before she woke me up to start getting ready. I settled on the outfit below after much debate both internally and with my wife and roommate:
And as long as I'm linking to photos, here's a second with my WONDERFUL wife - I need to get some lessons from her on smiling <G>:
Once I got dressed it was makeup time. Normally makeup comes first for me; but I felt the top I chose would mess up my makeup putting it on. I was torn as I wanted to be "conservative", but I also still feel that I need all the help I can get and that usually equates to heavier makeup. I tried to split the difference.
Finally it was time to leave, we had to meet the lawyer there 15 minutes prior to court. We got to the courthouse about 10 minutes earlier than that; at which point the first trauma of the day reared it's head. I had neglected to clarify where to meet Susan (my attorney). So we waited outside for the 10 minutes and then decided to head inside. However, before we did another of the circuit judges - one that happens to know my wife and her parents - happened to be walking into the courthouse and noticed her. She came up and they chatted briefly, but thankfully our reason for being there didn't come up as I wasn't really in the right frame of mind to discuss it. Once we got through security we waited another couple of minutes in the foyer before deciding to head upstairs to the court room. Our courtroom was on the fourth floor - normally name changes are heard in family court which is on the fifth floor, but with the gender change it got assigned to a judge who apparently is at least semi-familiar with them so we headed to the fourth floor where trauma number two came up. We couldn't find our courtroom. We went all over the floor until it finally occurred to me that we were looking for "fourth floor, courtroom 1" per the information downstairs; but the rooms on this floor were number 5-8. As it turned out we were in room 5 and for some reason ours didn't have a posted docket or the judge's name on the sign outside the room (hence the reason we walked by it three times).
I still hadn't seen Susan, so we waited outside the courtroom and about 5 minutes to 9, here she came. She was as wonderful today as she's been for the entire process (more on that below). I introduced her to my wife and she went over what would happen. She then went in to see where we were at on the docket and came back out telling us we were fourth on the list. She then said she was going back in and we could come in and wait there or we could stay where we were at; but either way she was going to ask for a "closed hearing" so they'd clear the courtroom. We opted to stay outside and wait. Within a couple of minutes it appeared the judge came in as while we couldn't see her; we did see everyone briefly stand up. By now my phone was going nuts with emails from my boss about this and that and I was trying to answer them. I saw several people exit the courtroom but it didn't dawn on me that it was time for us - it had only been maybe 5-10 minutes so I wasn't expecting us to be up so quickly.
Susan came out and let us into the courtroom. My wife took a seat in the gallery and Susan and I proceeded up in front of the judge. The judge was having trouble getting signed into the court system so that took a couple of minutes, but once she did, she swore me in and offered to let me stay where I was at (standing in front of her next to Susan) or to have a seat in the "witness box". I elected to stay where I was at and Susan started going over the petition. She basically went through each point one by one; but in the form of questions to me which I answered. Once we completed that the judge started to go to part two which is the gender marker change; but Susan asked her to deal with that separately (which I'll also cover below) so we stopped at that point and the judge signed the order for my name change and explained that I'd have to have it published (which I knew, but again I'll touch on this below since it wasn't the same as I had read about).
Susan then started on part two and repeated the process from the first time, turning each point of the petition into a question to me. As we got to the "remedy" portion, she started to cover the state statute, but the judge said she was familiar with it, but that she had a few questions. One of the points was that this wasn't going to be "detrimental" to myself or anyone else; and she asked about my wife who was in the gallery; as well as my daughter who I had not brought with me. Specifically she said that since my wife was here she assumed she was supportive, so Susan specifically asked me about that (I was surprised they didn't just ask her up there herself); then we repeated the question with regards to my daughter and then she asked would my wife also say my daughter was supportive.
At this point the judge was satisfied so Susan provided a "suggested" order for her to sign; but requested she hold it for 30 days. She had mentioned this to me previously and I'll get into this more in the post court summary below. The judge agreed to do so and asked Susan to fill out an "order" specifying the date to process it and how many copies/certified copies to send out and where. The judge then asked how many copies/certified copies of the name change she had already ordered so the clerk went to get those for us. At this point, Susan told me I could go sit in the gallery while she took care of that "order" and they reopened the court room. I'd say less than 10 minutes total and it was so much easier than I thought it would be - just like Susan had said it would be.
The other lawyers, etc., came back in and actually another case was finalized while she was filling out the order. Once she was done she brought it to me to sign and I started to sign my given name and she corrected me and said once the earlier order was signed I was officially "Madison" now. I had thought I would have to wait for the announcement to be published three times over the three weeks for this so I was pleasantly surprised. My first official act as "Madison".
Susan then waited a couple of minutes until there was a break in things and returned the order to the judge and got the copies of the name change order for us. We then proceeded outside and she explained a few things for me:
1) Yes the name change has to be published; but at least in this case (or perhaps all of county I'm in - St. Charles) - the change itself is immediate. Additionally, she said she would take care of getting it published in the appropriate journal and I didn't have to do anything.
2) She then went back over the 30 day wait on the gender change. I was a little bit in the clouds so I think I missed something so I'm not sure if it's actually a state thing or just her suggestion; but she is having me file the name change with the state first and update my birth certificate (I also plan on doing my license, also more on that below); and then in 30 days we'll update the gender marker as a separate order. It'll be an extra $30 to the state; but since I was able to file the cases together and have them heard together I've already saved money there.
3) She then gave me two certified copies of the name change order and told me by this evening (which as I type this I already now have), she'd send me the document to send to the state along with instructions on it for getting my birth certificate amended.
With this she headed upstairs to get some paperwork - as I said earlier normally these are done in family court which is a floor up; and my wife and I headed out. Since we were done so early, we had time to go to a late breakfast - my first time out as "Madison" officially.
So that about sums up the process of the day; below I'm going to share some back ground and such again for those that might care later on.
1) The above process was for St. Charles County, Missouri and obviously may/will be different for other counties/states.
2) A *HUGE* thank you to another Transgender woman for her assistance in this. If not for her going through this process earlier this year and sharing that process here (along with her documents) I would not have even considered trying this. I am incredibly grateful to her for this.
I've redacted the person's name I was referring to above. A quick Google search will probably turn her up; but I didn't feel comfortable sharing that here - if someone needs/wants the information feel free to email me and I will provide the information.
3) I chose to use a lawyer for this. The other Transgender woman did her's Pro se and even during the consultation with the attorney I chose (Susan); she even said I could do so as well; but I was more comfortable with her helping. I believe her fees have been very reasonable and she's been so kind and reassuring during the process, I know I made the right decision to go with her. If anybody in the St. Louis/St. Charles area is thinking of doing this and would like her contact information please PM me and I'll send it along.
Again, I've redacted the name of the person I was referring to above, same goes as my above comment. Additionally, on an earlier entry in this blog I've posted some comments on Susan and her website address is there with her contact information - that post is here: http://stltg.blogspot.com/2013/10/st-louis-area-tg-experiences.html
4) While my legal documents weren't quite the same as the ones that the other woman graciously supplied they were reasonably close; most of the differences appeared to be subtle wording changes and formatting that I'm assuming were specific to the way this court likes things or perhaps Susan is comfortable with. That being said, in the spirit of the other woman's generosity, I can provide examples of mine to anyone who might need them, again simply PM me.
Another redaction, same goes as above.
I'm sure I'm missing plenty of details; but I've been typing for some time now and frankly I doubt if anybody would still be reading this anyway.
Madison
Some updates since this original post.
1) As I mentioned above I got the "paperwork" that evening for getting my name changed with the state. It was simply a matter of me signing it, and putting a copy of the paperwork, the court order, a SASE, and a check for $30 into an envelope and sending it off which I did the next morning (Saturday October 5th). As of last night (Friday October 18th), I still have not gotten a copy of my amended birth certificate. I'm not sure if this is due to the state simply moving slowly *or* if it has to do with an issue with my court order (I'll get to that in the next point).
2) I was able to get my license changed. I had to travel for work early the following week and couldn't get to this right away, but the following Thursday I went to the local license bureau. I happened to go around lunch time and there were only two people in front of me, so after about 5-10 minutes my number was called. As it turned out, there were typos in my court order. Name new name was listed backwards (middle name first, first name middle). This was *my* fault as I had initially considered doing that; but I changed my mind right before the Susan filed the paperwork. Unfortunately the "suggested judgment" was the one piece of paperwork that Susan hadn't sent me in advance to review or I might have caught this. Well the judge did and Susan manually corrected it on the suggested order and the judge signed it. However, the DMV had "concerns" about it. A supervisor finally okay'd the change and from there it was fairly quick - so 10 minutes (and $12.50) later I had a new license - albeit a paper one. As of today (9 days later) I also do not have my official license either; but I simply chalk this up to the state being slow with those. Back to the first point above, I do wonder if the holdup on my birth certificate is actually the state moving slowly or if they're having an issue with the court order as well. I will note that in "Case.net" the copy of the order is as mine appears (with the manual change); but the actual docket has it correct; so I guess worse case Susan may have to go back to the judge to get a corrected order; but I'm hoping it won't come to that.
3) As far as the "newspaper publication", Susan did handle that as well. I initially misunderstood and thought it would be in the "St. Charles Journal" which is a part of the Post-Dispatch family. We went looking for a copy and I could not find the "ad" that was to be placed. Upon going back to the copy of the receipt that Susan had sent me, it was actually published in the "St. Charles County Journal" which is actually a different publication (not affiliated with the Post-Dispatch) and it appears to be mostly (if not all) centered around legal notices and the like. While it appears that you can subscribe to this paper, I did not see any references to it being readily available outside of a subscription which was a plus to me since the chances of anyone reading it that I preferred didn't know is significantly decreased.
2) I was able to get my license changed. I had to travel for work early the following week and couldn't get to this right away, but the following Thursday I went to the local license bureau. I happened to go around lunch time and there were only two people in front of me, so after about 5-10 minutes my number was called. As it turned out, there were typos in my court order. Name new name was listed backwards (middle name first, first name middle). This was *my* fault as I had initially considered doing that; but I changed my mind right before the Susan filed the paperwork. Unfortunately the "suggested judgment" was the one piece of paperwork that Susan hadn't sent me in advance to review or I might have caught this. Well the judge did and Susan manually corrected it on the suggested order and the judge signed it. However, the DMV had "concerns" about it. A supervisor finally okay'd the change and from there it was fairly quick - so 10 minutes (and $12.50) later I had a new license - albeit a paper one. As of today (9 days later) I also do not have my official license either; but I simply chalk this up to the state being slow with those. Back to the first point above, I do wonder if the holdup on my birth certificate is actually the state moving slowly or if they're having an issue with the court order as well. I will note that in "Case.net" the copy of the order is as mine appears (with the manual change); but the actual docket has it correct; so I guess worse case Susan may have to go back to the judge to get a corrected order; but I'm hoping it won't come to that.
3) As far as the "newspaper publication", Susan did handle that as well. I initially misunderstood and thought it would be in the "St. Charles Journal" which is a part of the Post-Dispatch family. We went looking for a copy and I could not find the "ad" that was to be placed. Upon going back to the copy of the receipt that Susan had sent me, it was actually published in the "St. Charles County Journal" which is actually a different publication (not affiliated with the Post-Dispatch) and it appears to be mostly (if not all) centered around legal notices and the like. While it appears that you can subscribe to this paper, I did not see any references to it being readily available outside of a subscription which was a plus to me since the chances of anyone reading it that I preferred didn't know is significantly decreased.
4) Regarding the gender change, when Susan followed up with me she confirmed that the Gender Change order would be processed in approximately a month from my court date (so two more weeks give or take) and at that point I'll perform another amendment to my birth certificate as well as my drivers license. Again, I'm not totally clear if it had to be done this way or if it was simply Susan's recommendation; but I trust her judgment so I'm following her advice on this. Yes it will be an extra $42.50 (another $30 for the second birth certificate amendment and another $12.50 for another drivers license change); but considering she was able to file the name and gender change requests together she saved me far more than $42.50. Once again I can't speak highly enough of Susan Jacobsen and would recommend her to anyone looking for a name change or to pursue a gender change.
With that I'll wrap things up for now - I'll update things once I get my birth certificate and/or physical license. Thanks for reading.
Madison
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