Sure, you do.
Well, I did not know that and that is very interesting. Nonetheless, waiting until his sentencing to go public with it is a pretty bold-faced attempt to distract people from the reason he was being sentenced in the first place and re-frame the story as “Look at this poor transgendered person being oppressed by the military”.
Manning’s in prison. I know in NY, prisoners are not allowed to change their name on their own. The state only recognizes a name change if it’s done through a judge.
Speaking as someone who has been through the name change process three times (marriage, divorce, then marriage again)… Yes your name is whatever you say it is (unless you’re doing it for purposes of fraud or evasion) but the tricky part is getting the government to accept your name. The exact process varies from state to state. Yes, there is almost always an exception for marriage. However, the exception usually only applies to females. Generally speaking, if you’re female and all you want to do is start using your husband’s last name as your own last name when you get married, this is very easy. Typically, all you have to do is show a copy of your marriage license at the DMV and they issue you a new driver’s license and then you can get a new Social Security card, new passport, whatever. But if you’re male and/or if you’re changing it to something other than your spouse’s last name, or if you’re doing it for a reason other than marriage, you will almost definitely have to petition the court, pay a fee, and get a judge to sign it.
When I got married in NJ the DMV told me I would need a court order to hyphenate my last name and my spouse’s last name together because I’m male but my spouse didn’t need a court order because she’s female. But a few months later when we moved to Oregon, the DMV there said a court order wasn’t necessary, just show them our marriage license and tell them which name we wanted hyphenated in front of which, gender doesn’t matter.
So, as I said, it depends on the state. If you ask me, this might be a good litmus test for how seriously your state takes the whole “equal protection under the law” concept. In many states, it seems some genders are more equal than others.
So yes Chelsea Manning needed a judge to approve the petition in order to get the government to recognize her name change, because it has nothing to do with getting married.
Yeah, because when you’re being held in a male prison, the way to improve your life is to declare that you’re really a woman. :rolleyes:
35 years, not 20.
I’d take **Smapti **at his/her word on this, that s/he has been under the impression that this was some sort of playing of the opressed minority card. Not that it would make much sense when you look at it closely, but I can see the thread of reasoning.
In any case, Manning’s actions earned her punishment and that’s entirely separate from her transition issues. That she has to go through court to do the legal name change is just the normal and customary course of things for anyone in this situation.
Yes, you did, because it was pointed out to you the last time you used the Manning case to indulge in a bit of tranny-bashing, too.
I’m given to understand that conditions in a military prison are far different than that of a civilian prison.
Or you get married. At least, it didn’t require judge when I got married in Chicago 25 years ago.
You can go by any name you want, but that doesn’t make it your LEGAL name, which is a specific thing. Changing your LEGAL name requires a judge (or marriage license).
I suspect the fact that Manning wants to change the gender of his/her LEGAL identity having it go through a judge makes it public record and clarifies that this is not being done for fraudulent purposes. Then again, I’m not a lawyer (just someone who has actually gone through a name change).
So what gender of prison will he be in? I assume he’s in the male prison currently.
At a male prison and not being considered for a transfer to a women’s facility. Guess the Army still considers him a guy.
I’m going to ignore the people who are deliberately misgendering Manning here, and state that my experience is that most transgender prisoners get or attempt to get their legal name changed so they will have less “official” use of a male name which is painful to them. Assuming Manning is transgender, it makes sense to my experience that she would be going this route.
Really, it’s not going to change her sentence by one minute, nor her notoriety, so I am baffled to see how this is some sort of way to game the system. Even the transgender community is highly divided on whether to show any visible support or to shun her.
Agreed. Prisoners certainly bring suits all the time to harass prison officials, but I fail to see how Manning’s request for a name change has anything to do with her conviction or sentence. In fact, I think that most prisoners would be reluctant to make such an admission. This seems very personal to Manning.
I agree it’s unlikely to change the sentence at all, but it’s not an unheard of ploy. There’s a certain amount of hullabaloo going around about Yordy Cancino, who is a LGBTQ activist, and also an illegal immigrant. He’s currently being deported (see the note about his status as “not a legal immigrant”), but much (for some definition of much, I’m not closely following the story other than it popped up on my news feed the other day) has been made of his activism, and how supposedly he should be allowed to stay due to his status as an activist. The reality is that his status as an activist has nothing to do with his immigration status. Now, the immigration policy might be dumb (I think that policy needs serious overhaul), but this is not exactly an isolated case. Manning wouldn’t be the first person to play the “race/sex/orientation/gender/religion card” during legal proceedings.
Now, I don’t believe Manning is doing that, but I think a casual observer could be forgiven some skepticism.
She’s still a soldier. She can’t be dishonorably discharged until she completes her 35 year sentence. I can understand some uninformed person thinking Manning is trying to game the system to get Sexual Reassignment Surgery and/or Hormone Replacement Therapy, but whether for good or ill, the U.S. Army does not provide SRS or HRT for transgendered soldiers. Though I suspect if a cisgendered female soldier in a U.S. Military Prison was going through menopause, she could receive HRT.
As far as what gender prison Manning will be in, I suspect the most logical choice would be of ‘‘The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or one’’ type, where the “many” are all the female inmates in a woman’s prison who might be made uncomfortable for a physical male fellow prisoner and the “one” would be Manning.
Are “I don’t like my name” or “My father is a jerk and I don’t want his name” or “I think … is a cool name” valid reasons?
The prevailing wisdom in most common-law jurisdictions is that you have the right to be named whatever you want, within reason. So if you want to change your name to Throckmorton Q. Barfpillow because your psychic said it would bring you luck, that’s your deal. If your name was something un-spellable or un-pronounceable, or contains profanities or would otherwise be a pain in the ass for people to deal with, then the judge might raise an eyebrow.
Yes.
From an overview of the comments sections on almost all news sites and blogs and newspaper comments sections, all this has done is bring out the transphobic trolls who want to find any “wedge issue” to try to depersonalize me and my people. But all the while there’s no real indication that Manning is trying for any sort of ploy.
If, I repeat if Manning is truly transgender, then I fully expect a series of court battles to get hormones, get counseling, get female clothing, and even SRS. I doubt she’ll win most or even any of those cases, but she will try to her dying breath. Because when you are in the grip of full-on gender dysphoria (again, assuming she is transgender) then sometimes you would rather die than live as the wrong gender. I know because I’ve walked that road.
In the US yes it is. If you want to change your official/legal ID these days you still have to go to court (outside of marrying) but I’ve known several name-changers who went in front of a judge an used exactly those reasons.