About a month ago, I received my letter confirming that I had completed appropriate medical treatment, so we ran immediately to the courthouse to book a court date to change my name/gender. It was today, Jan 20th at 8:30 am. We got there early, and watched as a few people before us got chased away for not properly advertising their name changes (not gender-related) and listened as the judge poked at each person as to their reasoning.
Finally, he called my name (only my new name), and I stepped forward to face him. He leafed through my file, looked up and asked if anyone had an objection, immediately following that with "Approved." That was the whole thing. Since we were done so fast, and had some time to kill, we checked out whether the Social Security office took walk-ins. They said yes, so we headed over there in the middle of torrential rain, finding the place almost deserted. Within about 15 minutes, they had updated my social security records with my new name/gender and sent us on our way. I had anticipated we'd be booking an appointment there weeks after the court hearing.
Emboldened, we checked into the local DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) and they were taking walk-ins as well. So we waited about an hour total, and got my new license ordered and photo taken. This was another task I had projected out into weeks from now. When we got home, my wife took a few passport photos (since I was looking about as good as I've ever looked, if I might be so bold). Those will go into the passport request, along with a birth certificate change request, to be mailed out tomorrow.
So here I am, with documents in hand or in the mail, that I had expected to receive months from now. All that's left for me to do after that is to figure out how to break this to my family, and then to my company, so I can go full-time.
I'm still a little shaky after all of the day's goings-on, but my life just got a whole lot better in the last 24 hours. Thanks to all for the encouragement, guidance and inspiration.
Erin
