Michigan House Democrats pass bills to ease name changes and codify changing gender markers

[marmar]

(Michigan Advance) It is not a criminal act to try and get a name change in Michigan, but if you are a transgender or gender-nonconforming individual, it’s treated as such, Mel Hartman, 38, said last week during an advocacy event at the Michigan Capitol for legislation to remove hurdles on name changes.

On Friday, Michigan House Democrats passed legislation through the chamber to remove certain requirements for individuals seeking name changes on government documents for reasons outside of marriage. Among the changes, Michigan residents petitioning a court for a name change for non-marriage-related reasons would no longer have to be fingerprinted and mandated to publish name change court dates and fraud would no longer be assumed as the reason for the name change.

Hartman, who recently went through the process as a trans person to have their name reflected on their driver’s license and government documents, called the process “grueling” and not one a transgender person would go through if it wasn’t so important.

“I think a lot of conservatives and Republicans, they don’t recognize the difficulties that trans people go through every day just moving through the world as ourselves,” Hartman said. “There’s an idea that we’re doing it on a whim or for fun, when the process is so difficult…it isn’t humane for trans people to have to it’s assumed that we change our names because of criminal reason, deviant reason, when we’re simply trying to just live our lives, just live our lives in a normal way.” .......................(more)

https://michiganadvance.com/2024/12/13/michigan-house-democrats-pass-bills-to-ease-name-changes-and-codify-changing-gender-markers/