A little bit before nine o’clock this morning, a friendly bailiff unlocked a courtroom door and peeked out at me, and the stranger standing beside me.
“Y’all can come in and sit down if you like,” he said, then turned around and went back to the business of preparing the bench and chatting with the two women — one stenographer, one clerk of some sort — seated at their own places below the judge’s bench.
The stranger (a young, dark haired woman in a light blue skirt and top just shy of being worthy of a back yard tea party with dolls) waited. “I’m not sure what to do,” she said. “I’ve never done this before.”
“Me neither,” I said with a shrug. I didn’t see my attorney. Was it polite to wait and enter together? Should I just go in and wait for her? What if she didn’t arrive?
Nine o’clock ticked closer. I went in.
The civil courtrooms in my county are small affairs, well-lit by hanging fixtures that give off a warm gold glow. The doors are heavy, dark wood, and the seating galleries are comprised of rows of wooden benches that resemble church pews more than anything else. In front of those is an area with two tables, and wooden chairs along the side walls for the attorneys. Among them, the men look bored, go through their files, and make hand-shakey chit-chat with one another. The women aren’t invited, and sit alone instead of together.
I sat in the second, left-hand pew (12 years as a Southern Baptist ingrained in me that sitting in the front looks suspect, or that those spaces are for people More Special Than I Am) and waited. I watched the clock tick ever-closer to 9 AM, my time on the docket. I worried again about what to do if my attorney didn’t show. My palms began to sweat. And, I confess, I prayed a little.
(To Gwydion, if you’re curious. I revere him as my divine Good Uncle because of the way he helped Lleu secure his name, his means/manhood (technically arms and armor), and his right to love. I also like to joke that he’s the god of pork chops on account of that time he started a war by stealing pigs, but that’s a bit of a nasty affair, and an entirely different and much longer discussion.)
At five to nine, my attorney came in. I stood and shook her hand.
“Are you excited? How are you feeling?” she asked.
I smiled, laughed a little nervously. “Aside from the fact that I’m wearing white socks with dress pants and my jacket’s at home because it needs buttons and a dry clean? Pretty good.”
She explained to me that when my case was called she’d take her place at a table, and that I should come stand next to her to be sworn in, and then they’d have me take a seat on the stand. She’d run me through a list of questions, then the judge might ask me some questions, and otherwise everything should be pretty easy.
I took a breath. “So basically go up when I’m told and behave?”
My attorney laughed. “Yes. Do that.”
She found herself an island in the attorney corral. I sat back down in my pew. A couple of minutes later, the judge arrived and the business of the court began.
We entrust judges to be the voice and hand of the Rule of Law. They bind, dissolve, and change things with a word and a signature. They shape reality for a living because somebody has to, and that’s powerful and awe inspiring, but judges don’t cease being human when they don their robes and assume the bench. A wise, just, and knowledgeable judge (and the system that judge works within) is still imperfect. Sometimes, all that can be done is to choose the least worst thing, or to try and tease out best and most useful thing of a field of reasonable outcomes.
When I came out as FTM in 2006, one of the first things I learned was that that my own will and self-determination are insufficient under the law. Certain other people and institutions have the power to tell me who I am, and I can be compelled by law to comply. For the last four years, every time a person in authority has asked my name, I’ve had to choose which lie to tell: the one the state calls truth, or the one my heart does.
This, to me, is what transition is. It’s an affirmation of the heart’s truth that brings it into alignment with the world. How one does this, what must be done, and the destination is just details.
About ten minutes after nine o’clock, the judge called my case. I swore an oath to speak truth, and took the stand. As promised, my attorney asked me a series of questions: my legal name, my address, my parents’ names, my birthplace, whether I have children, my reason for seeking a name change, and whether I was being sued or trying to evade a debt. There was a slight hiccup with marital status — I’ve been married and divorced, and my petition read that I had never married — but that was easily corrected in the moment.
(I confess, in that moment, I prayed again. Possibly so fervently that there are people craving pork chops and Riesling around a bonfire six counties over.)
The judge asked me some questions that day-to-day I’d find invasive or crass — my surgical status, my plans regarding that status and any current medical intervention, what my family thinks about all this — and I answered them to the best of my knowledge, and with my best intention of telling the truth. To say I was frightened and uncomfortable would be an understatement.
I felt my body remember the last time I was in the stand, the prickle and nausea as the judge refused my petition. That must have been the moment my adrenal glands kicked in because everything at that point gets a little bright and blurry and all I can remember is thinking “Oh gods please let me have my name, let my Motherland give up or slip up so I can be one step closer to feeling like a human being instead of a freak.”
I remember there must have been a pause at that point, or perhaps some legally required statement by the judge that I have blanked on, because when the world quit grinding and spinning I was released to the stand and I heard the judge approve my petition. The whole walk out of the courtroom and into the corridor is that same bright adrenaline blur.
My attorney was kind and gracious when I thanked her, though I expect she was still having her “strangle the client” moment on account of the marital status thing. She shook my hand anyway. She is good people. If you are in Boone County and need an attorney, I would happily recommend her. Just ask.
I walked to the car. My dash clock said 9:17. My eternal, defining, harrowing moment under the gaze of somebody who can decide if somebody lives or dies was the work of perhaps five actual minutes.
Since then, I haven’t quite come down. It’s hard to process, after years of discomfort, fear, and sometimes outright humiliation, that this battle is won. I’ve spent four years on the front lines having to find ways to cope with every bit of mail, every legal document, every agreement, my taxes, the census, etc. Now all I have to do is wait for my copy of the judgment to arrive in the mail.
I can fix my ID. I can fix all the shit at work that I have to see every day that gets my name wrong. I can update my details with my bank and my mortgage lender. I can apply for things without wanting to throw up. What’s that even going to be like? I’ve never quite known what that feels like. It’s probably dead boring.
Great. I’m all for boring now and again.
But here it is. One failed attempt, four years, and nearly a thousand dollars later, I have won the day, and I have done it whilst wearing white socks with dress shoes, for which I apologize to the gods of good sense and fashion.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got an eye appointment, and some offerings to make to the god of pork chops.
This post has been mirrored from Christian A. Young's Dimlight Archive. To see it in its original format, visit dimlightarchive.com
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