The Unbelievable Events of Changing My Legal Name - Part IV
The Final Chapter
As I'm writing this, one year ago today I legally became Veronica. I've written a lot about my name change (Veronica Day, Part 1, Part 2, TDOV). However, I have never really pulled the pieces together to wrap up what happened here, and I think on the one year anniversary of the trauma of this process being complete, it's a great time to wrap all this up.
Trigger warning for ideation
A brief recap to remind folks of what has been covered so far. In January 2024, only weeks after I socially transitioned, I filed two motions to change my name. The first was the name change motion itself and the second was a motion to waive public notice under a new Illinois law in 2024 so that I would not have to out myself to change my name. For my mental health, I realized that I needed to rid myself of the old name as quickly as I could, which is why I filed for a legal name change only six weeks after I socially transitioned. The motions get heard together, so first up was the motion to waive my name. The judge was not operating off the new standard and seemed to expect me to show imminent harm from having to publish notice. That wasn't the law, but the judge shifted the rules anyway. She also speculated in open court that I could be looking to waive public notice to avoid creditors, a bigoted stance as so many in the trans community face financial hardship. She denies my motion to waive public notice and orders me to publicly out myself. It's the most humiliating moment of my life and it takes place in front of my wife and my two teenagers, who we had pulled from school so we could all be together as I became Veronica in the eyes of the law. I couldn't even let the judge finish this proclamation without being flooded with sorrow and tears and walking out of the courtroom sobbing. The emotional weight of knowing that you need your name changed as quickly as possible for your mental health, needing to do that safely, and having a judge rule that you need to out yourself was an amount of weight that almost crushed me. I was in active ideation for most of that night.
My way through this was that I reached out to my Illinois State Representative, Anna Moeller. That was who I heard about the new for 2024 law through about not needing to out yourself to change your name. I contacted her office to ask for a meeting and let her know the law was not working as intended. Her response was so much more than I expected. She personally responded in less than 30 minutes and offered to assist, starting with bringing in the ACLU. I have to admit that before this incident, I had always cheered when the ACLU got involved to assist with supporting someone's rights. However, I had not really pondered the emotional weight that someone felt when the ACLU was brought into assist. No amount of preparation could possibly prepare anyone for the weight that I felt. From there, other organizations were brought in, such as the Transformative Justice Law Project of Illinois (TJLPI).
We set a date for the group that my state representative's office organized for us to get together. But we also realized that we couldn't wait for everyone to get together to start planning the strategy. So I had a call with an attorney from TJLPI and we started to discuss the process. I went over details of what I submitted and the attorney walked me through strategic options. Unfortunately, my case did not appear to be an isolated incident. It seems that it was common in my county to get a rejection to waive public notice, despite the new standard. Earlier this month I wrote about trans attorney Joanie Wimmer, and she had taken an hour of her time to talk to me and outlined a potential strategy to get a different judge. I ran this potential strategy by the attorney from TJLPI. They thought the strategy was ingenious if we thought this one judge was the problem and that others would rule in the spirit of the law. However with TJLPI's knowledge of the judges in my county, he did not believe this one judge was an outlier. They believed that if we tried a tactic to have a different judge hear the case, another judge in my county would rule the same way. It was absolutely heartbreaking to hear that the county I lived in made such a difference in how judges would rule.
The attorney from TJLPI laid out what he thought the plan with the best chance of success was. That plan was to file a motion to reconsider where we tell why it was dangerous to for me to post public notice. This process required that I go into detail about challenges associated with being trans. Basically, not only did I experience trauma from transitioning, but then I needed to go into detail about that trauma for the motion to reconsider. It absolutely sucked to have to do this, as the act of organizing my thoughts required that I relive these traumatic moments over and over again. The process was so unnecessarily cruel and it was so unfair that I had to lay all of this bare to maximize my chances. The attorney recommended that I get them everything in a condensed time period and that if there were any challenges with my family, that needed to be brought forward to maximize my chances for success. We were going to meet with the larger group that Rep Moeller's office brought together, and it would be good to have that strategy finalized for the meeting.
So I started writing to put these challenges I dealt with into words. I detailed incident after incident of bigotry that I had faced in the short time that I had been out. I found documentation and sent it over. Lots of it. The attorney reviewed it and said it would take them time to put it together. After seeing the amount of stuff I sent over, they confirmed that they believed that this was the route that would give us the best chance for success. So we used this information as the basis of our recommended strategy at the larger group discussion that Rep Moeller's office organized. We had people from the rep's office, the ACLU, another nonprofit, and my attorney from TJLPI on and we all agreed to follow the advice of TJLPI to give me the best chance at the best outcome. At the same time, this was by no means a slam dunk that this would be successful. I could go through this whole process and the judge could still say no.
We also used the call to come up with options for a plan B. I absolutely could not go into the hearing for the motion to reconsider without a backup plan if things went wrong. There were three options. One involved moving to a different county, even though that really was not practical. The second involved waiting to change my name and see if the law changed. There was a law that was already proposed that was working its way through the legislature that could be an option. If the law passed and it took effect by July 1st, this would be a path worth considering. But as the country was staring at the possibility of a second Trump term with a Project 2025 blueprint, waiting an unknown period of time on the hope that a law would be passed would be incredibly unnerving. That left outing myself. Knowing what had gone down and the bigotry I'd already faced, if I had to go down this path it would have been truly heartbreaking. But if I had to out myself, there would be no reason to attempt to do so quietly. I offered that the ACLU could use my case as an example publicly if we needed to go down this path. At a minimum if I had to out myself, there would be no reason to keep this judge's actions out of the public record. I had the direction I needed exiting this call in the event I faced another no.
Meanwhile, I was the volunteer President of a nonprofit theatre company for youth and teens. I transitioned while I was President. I was out to everyone associated with our company. On our website I was stealth and appeared as any other woman as a safety precaution. We had a social media post for Transgender Day of Visibility, recognizing the contributions of trans people. It did not say that the President of the company was trans herself, the post just recognized that trans people exist. The company received blow back from a small but vocal minority and we saw evidence of these people moving to offline discussions while calling the adult volunteers and staff "a nest of perverted groomers". You can read more about how this was navigated in this link to last month's article on Transgender Day of Visibility. All through the process I was so concerned that these people coming for us would organize and magnify potential actions if they realized the President of the organization was trans. I was concerned for the company, I was concerned for our performers, staff, board, and volunteers, and I was concerned for myself and my family.
This situation kept escalating. Here's part of an email that I sent to the venue for our next event after bringing them up to speed about what was happening. The below statements immediately followed my recalling of the events with step by step documentation on the threats as they escalated.
"With all of this background, I have concerns about the safety of those involved in our public performances. While there is no documentation of a specific threat, the hyperbolic language being used against our organization resembles the language typically used before stochastic terrorist events. I'd like everyone (with the venue) coming into our performances to be aware of the potential for heightened danger from a typical performance. Security officers should have direct contact with our producer or someone otherwise empowered by our producer please.
As both the President (of the organization) and a transgender individual, I will be taking on a more subdued public role in the upcoming show, prioritizing everyone's safety. Due to the State of Illinois requiring public notice for a name change, which was not feasible at my recent court date, I believe it's crucial to minimize any unnecessary risks associated with our company. While my presence as President should not inherently pose a safety threat, navigating this situation with full visibility of my legal name could potentially endanger those involved. Thus, I'll be adopting a more understated role to mitigate any potential risks. However, this does present a challenge as I cannot proactively engage with law enforcement without risking exposure of my legal name, which has yet to be updated.
Thank you for your attention to this, and please reach out to us if you have questions, or if we need to amend anything from our contract to have the proper resources in place."
After putting all this together for the venue, I sent it to the attorney for TJLPI. Additionally, I added these statements:
"I am so thankful that I did not publish public notice, despite my initial application being denied, as doing so would have made me much more fearful than I already am. I cannot imagine the hardship that I would be feeling right now if there had been current public notice posted on (these dates in the local paper), while transphobic bigots are digging into things for our organization. With that said, the judge's decision to not waive my public notice so that my name change can go through HAS put the lives of (over 100 youth and teens) in our show in danger…The judge's personal biases have increased the risk of something happening at a public event that over 1000 people will attend and it is unconscionable. It seems she believed that a transgender woman would not be capable of being in this type of a leadership position in the community and thus thought it was OK to make me out myself. But no transgender people should be treated this way, community leadership or not."
As I read this back, it's absolutely ridiculous that we were at this point. Literally being concerned about stochastic terrorism because I volunteered as President of a children's theatre as a transgender person and we had a single social media post acknowledging that transgender people exist on transgender day of visibility. It's such a way to put into perspective what is so wrong in the world today. Our venue did a great job of working with local police. They increased security for the performance and it went off without a hitch.
The motion to reconsider was filed and accepted. Our court date was coming up, and the attorney for TJLPI and I met the day before to go over the strategy. The motion (a redacted version can be viewed here and here) included four main points of why my safety would be compromised if notice was not waived. They were: 1) The children's theatre, 2) Family risks, 3) Credit theft, and 4) Ideation. Then the lawyer walked me through things to think through if there were questions. After all this with the ridiculous risks I had to bear, he stated that he believed our chances to be successful were about 50/50. There was so much riding on this second attempt, and no good paths forward if this motion to reconsider was not successful. I was so afraid that the motion would be denied and I'd be thoroughly and completely broken from all of this.
Let's move ahead to the next day when it's time for the hearing. This time it's over Zoom. I put on a white polka dot blouse and a purple pants suit. I dial in fifteen minutes early to ensure that this isn't the moment that a Zoom update needs to happen on my computer. My kids are at school this time, but my wife comes down to keep me company off camera. I'm so full of anxiety because so much is riding on this. The judge comes on and because I have representation this time, my case is up first. The judge and my attorney talk and the judge acknowledges they got our supporting documentation where the threats were outlined. The judge then asks me if everything submitted is truthful and I respond "yes". There were no further questions and the motion to waive public notice is granted. We move immediately to the name change itself and the judge asks if everything submitted is truthful. Again, I say "yes". After all the challenges, this motion is also granted and my name is changed. I'm Veronica at last! I'm officially on the second act of my life!
I exit the Zoom call and my wife and I embrace and I’m pretty sure I bawled with the relief of it all. I needed to wait until the following week to get the official documentation. There's no family photo opportunity at court, so I have my wife take a few pictures of me in front of our transgender flag to celebrate.
Almost every trans person has a story like this, where things are so much harder than they should be because being trans subjects us to unspeakable discrimination. For me, it was my legal name change. For others, it's something at work or school, housing discrimination, something in the medical establishment, or many other factors. So many of us are forced to carry the extra weight of these stories. It's unconscionable and with bigotry on the rise it continues to get worse.
If you'd like to help fund a trans person get their name changed or their documents updated, you can give to the Transformative Justice Law Project of Illinois here. Or you can donate to the American Civil Liberties Union by clicking here. Neither of these donations are tax deductible, but they are so needed.
Postscript: After hearing about my name change debacle, my Illinois State Representative, Anna Moeller, signed on to co-sponsor a bill that would permanently remove the need to declare public notice when you change your name in Illinois. She signed on before the date that my name change went through, as no one should have to deal with the things I dealt with. The bill was signed into law by Governor JB Pritzker in February and went into effect on March 1, 2025. I am so glad that my traumatic experience was not for nothing, as it had a tangible role in getting the archaic and dehumanizing practice of public notice for a name change retired in Illinois!
Inspiring. Thanks so much for sharing.