Of course I am planning on changing my first name and middle name, but I am undecided on whether to change my last name or not. Social Security will not issue a new number after a name/ gender marker change and any employer can run a social security number and find out who you were originally so is there a benefit to changing a last name when transitioning?
It's really a personal preference on the last name. I kept mine the same. My younger brother and I are the only ones left with the name in my family (except for my unsupportive father and parents are divorced and remarried) and I didn't want him to feel abandoned. Plus professionally, I wanted people to know that I was the same person since I dealt with many clients and had contact with many 3rd party vendors of software technology. (Had zero problems professionally with transitioning.) My field tends to be fairly liberal anyway, but 2 or my clients are pretty religious, but they were OK with it.
Also just a thought if you change your last name it could make it harder if you ever get Social Security benefits or become disabled
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I plan on keeping my last name for now, but will take a new last name if my parents do not accept me. I am going to change my middle name from "Lee" to "Leelah" and my first name will be Rachel.
Quote from: Kassie on July 09, 2015, 10:19:57 PM
Also just a thought if you change your last name it could make it harder if you ever get Social Security benefits or become disabled
Not really. Women change there last names all the time and no issues (normally.) It would only be a problem maybe if you changed your name in the middle of submitting SS benefits. You SSN is how they track you. I've already received a statement from Social Security that I requested it online to be mailed to me to verify my history was correct, and everything from my history was still there just showing only me new name. My old name still shows up on credit reports though as an alias.
Thank you for your responses. I am lean toward keeping my last name at this time, I was just curious how others had worked through this situation.
Quote from: Kassie on July 09, 2015, 10:19:57 PM
Also just a thought if you change your last name it could make it harder if you ever get Social Security benefits or become disabled
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Isn't that why you're identified by a social security number and not solely your name? When you do change your name (and gender marker) you go to the social security office and change it too.
Quote from: Kristen8 on July 10, 2015, 11:06:59 AM
Thank you for your responses. I am lean toward keeping my last name at this time, I was just curious how others had worked through this situation.
I hemmed and hawed about it and I'm keeping my last name so I can be close to my kids.
I wasn't planning on changing my last name, but I may end up changing it to my husband/wife's name if I get married.
I'm still stuck on the first/middle name part. Nothing has really resonated with me like I had hoped something would.
I'm changing my last name, but to my step-dads last name. I have no attachment to the person whose last name I currently have, and my parents had been trying to change my last name since I was a kid. They just didn't know it would be my whole name that changed. :P
This is an interesting topic for me. For years, I've been thinking about names, and fantasizing what I would like to be called. Every so often, I would get on the internet and search for girl names of my ethnic background. There is also the fact that my mother has told me she had both boy and girl names picked out for me, because they didn't know my biological sex until I was born. I would have loved to use the girl name she had selected, just to have a bit of an emotional bond with her, using something she had intended for me. But I really dislike like girl name she picked! I mean objectively. I also knew a girl in uni with that name who was a real piece of work.
It's funny, the names I had thought years ago as being an almost certainty don't appeal to me any more. Lately, I've been leaning more and more towards a different name, but still not fully decided yet. I like the sound of it on my tongue though.
But that wasn't your question, you were asking about last names. At the moment, I have no plans to change my last name. I can't think of any reason I might change my mind, but you never know what the future holds. In a worst case scenario, if my family is not supportive or overly venomous when I come out, I would consider changing it.
The only thing I'm waffling on at the moment is whether to take my father's given name as my middle name. In my culture, boys are typically given their own name, and the family name is the last name. On the other hand, girls are given their own name, take the father's given name as a middle name, and use the family name as the last name. For example, I'm "MyName FamilyName" whereas my sister is "HerName Father'sName FamilyName". I'm undecided whether I want to change to "GirlyName FamilyName" or "GirlyName Father'sName FamilyName". Maybe I'll ask him for his opinion when the time comes :)
When you change your name, the powers-that-be can always trace you back to your old name.
There isn't an escape. Otherwise I could run away from my debts. But they tracked me back down :~p