Veronica Day

Can I really step into joy as I legally change my name?

Friday March 15th was all set to be among the happiest days of my life. The date had been circled on the calendar for more than eight weeks, as there was a required eight week waiting period. I was up early and wanted to look my best. I chose a black dress with white polka dots and open toed sandals. I had ensured that I had my hair and nails done the week before and my fabulous nail artist had the perfect design, with the nails done to echo the transgender flag with nail art on the middle finger.

I had nerves and was up early. I did my hair and spent a little extra time on my makeup to ensure I was happy with the results. My wife and our two teenagers joined us for this occasion and, after an address mixup, we pulled into the courthouse early and took our seats more than 20 minutes before the court proceeding was to begin. At age 50, I was changing my name to finally reflect my authentic self. I was going to become Veronica everywhere including in the eyes of the law, a monumental milestone.

Could it really be? So often during this process, I've been holding part of myself back, almost like I'm expecting the other shoe to drop. I had a wonderful therapy session earlier that week and we seemed to get over a hurdle that I've had for a while. There was a component of wanting to ensure that I was still moored to safety, especially as I more fully embrace my transfeminine identity, and this was what was holding me back. I know that in order to be authentically me, this reduction in safety goes with it as women and especially trans women have less safety in public.

Maybe I am one of the lucky few who can actually conclude what I considered my coming out phase with the updating of my name legally without any major setbacks. That would be a unicorn in transgender spaces and something most trans and nonbinary people never dream of achieving. Maybe I could show it was actually possible.

I have support at home. My marriage, while under significant stress, is good. My relationship with my kids has improved since I've come out. Most of my next layer of family has been supportive, with my mother and father in law on board, my brother (T) and his family on board, and my sister-in-law (A) and her family on board.

At work, other than some systematic issues, it's been going great. The people are supportive. I lead a team of sixteen people at a fortune 200 company. Previously, I had read about people being able to bring their authentic self to work and the stats about how much better those companies had performed (something like 35% better, but I don't have the stat in front of me). I had assumed that these improvements were based on selection, as people from marginalized communities were more likely to self-select into a company that values them and it was a natural side effect of having full access to the full talent pool. I never dreamed it actually helped performance of teams that were in place. But my team has performed better since I came out, and coming out helped cause the better performance. I completely missed that if your boss comes out as transgender at age 50, you will be more likely to be able to tell them the real things that are going on at work and not sugar coat them, as you've just seen a portion of their soul that they had hidden for so long. You are now fully authentic and of course people have their trust increase and will perform better. Then add in that my boss is very supportive and my peers have been great and for the most part, work has been good.

In addition to those areas, I'm also the volunteer President of a non-profit. The organization's mission is around serving kids and that has gone amazingly well. I've had great support from other board members, our Managing Director, and the organization as a whole.

I also worked hard to build a support system to help me be ready to come out. I had not less than fifty people in my network that I can count on, and having this network was a major source of my strength to move forward at every step. While no transgender or nonbinary person will ever be able to fully complete the coming out process, I was almost there and ready to retire phase one. Just one more step - updating my name. My family was in the courtroom with me, all in shirts with the transgender flag.

I had in mind all the pictures I wanted to take at the courthouse with my family. While we have a ton of family photos over the years, this would be the first milestone we are celebrating together with me as my authentic self. I even set up a low key party that night with trusted family members.

My name is called, and I step up to the podium. Time seems to spin out of control. I tried very hard not to visualize how things would go, but I know I didn’t visualize it going like this. My motion gets denied, and the judge rules that there was no name change happening today, or soon after. I will say that there were no clerical errors. Additionally I had done hours of research into how the process should work, and the ruling was ridiculous.

I couldn't even make it out of the courtroom without being a sobbing mess. My family was here in anticipation of it being one of the happiest moments of my life and the first such moment with me as my authentic self. Instead, they had a front row seat for the most humiliating moment of my adult life. It began as soon as I heard the judge say "motion denied" and I continued wailing for at least the next five minutes outside the courtroom. Here I thought I'd be creating a core memory for my kids of joy, but it turned into a core memory of a different kind. I took until after 5 AM for me to stop having waves of tears. The injustice of the ruling just did not make sense. The feeling that the state is asserting it's control over your autonomy is so far beyond what any reasonable person should have to deal with.

Since beginning my journey, I have met a number of trans and nonbinary people, either in person or online. Everyone who has come out as an adult that I have met has had catastrophic losses in their life from coming out. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. I was close, so close to being that unicorn that could have been an example to so many people fearful of coming out that it is possible. This would have happened at a time of extreme darkness and vitriol toward the transgender community, both in the US and abroad. But I, too, suffered a catastrophic loss on Friday. I will never get that moment or opportunity back, because even if or when my name does change, I will have to hold a large amount of myself back, fearful of being on the receiving end of another ridiculous ruling. We took no photos of us on Friday as a family, so I still have no celebratory moments that I want to display. The party was canceled. I do not have a government ID in my name. The State of Illinois took a piece of my soul on Friday and my soul, which has already suffered so my from being transgender and closeted for fifty years, suffered a new indignity. I will never be the same again.

(Note: Because this is a legal proceeding, and I don't want to intentionally do anything the endanger my ability to change my name in the future, I am not going into details about the proceeding at this time As soon as I know that I can say more without it impacting future proceedings, I will say it, but that's not today.)