The wait isn't the problem. I usually go to Newton (I live in Sussex County). I just hate taking a whole day off and I don't like to go on Saturdays. I'm going to try to do mine in one day as well.

Check the NJ MVC website, usually each office has one night a week they are open till 8pm.

Quote from: Sydney_NYC on December 11, 2014, 11:01:48 AM
Check the NJ MVC website, usually each office has one night a week they are open till 8pm.

All MVC agencies do late hours on Tuesdays until 7:30. I'll probably take a day off anyway. Want to make sure I get a nice picture.

Hello,

The situation with my name change has been very frustrating to say the least. Due to the circumstances surrounding my transition I have to wait until after my transition is finished. I am currently 31 years old. I began my transition just over 3 years ago at age 28. Around age 24 I started out with 11,000 dollars in debt which included student debt, being unemployed without unemployment benefits and credit card debt. I've been paying it off and on whenever I was employed. Due to being unemployed twice within the last year and a half I have been unable to finish paying off the last 1,428 dollars left.


I live in the state of Minnesota. The state won't let you change your name if you have any debt at all. You have to wait until its all paid back including debt you didn't know you had. Their reasoning is that you are really changing your name to get out of paying debt. That's not the case with me and other trans-women. Unfortunately there is no loophole for trans-people who want to change their name while still gladly be willing to finish paying off their debt. I have been full time and on HRT for 2 years and 2 months. I am currently a non-op.


My sister and brother, my friends, and my co-workers call me Ida. Even though I haven't changed my name yet my employer calls me by my preferred name and pronouns, and my name badge says Ida. Any official letters/documents still address me with my old name as do my paystubs. Everyone addresses me by my preferred name and pronouns except my mother and father. Even after 3 years they are still having a tough time with my transition. I've been employed for 8 months but haven't been able to save anything to start paying off the rest of my debt. So I  have to wait until my transition is complete.


Eventually I will change my first name to Ida and my middle name of Alexander will be changed to Alexandra, the last name will stay the same. Even though I haven't legally changed my name yet,  I truly feel that I became Ida the moment I decided that Ida was the right name for me.

I myself waited until I'd been out full-time for three months before changing my name.  The reason for this is that I wasn't 100% sure that I wanted to be out full-time.  Once I was sure of that, then I changed my name.  It's certainly awkward being full-time female with a male name.  I'm not sure it would be any less awkward still presenting as male with a female name.  Since I don't have any experience with that, I can't say.  But if you're 100% sure that you do want to change camps, then it might be more convenient to change your name beforehand.

Quote from: Brenda E on December 10, 2014, 02:08:50 PM
Given the fact that pretty much everything in my life is stable (work, etc.), is there anything stopping me from changing my name now but not actually using it in the workplace until I need it after going full time?  For work, I'd stay as "Brian" even though my legal name would have changed to "Brenda" because I'd still look like Brian to begin with, and I don't see any situations on a regular basis where I'd have to show my ID to anyone for name confirmation purposes.  The liquor store?  They're hardly going to complain if I'm a guy with a girl's name; they're interested in the birthdate of the guy in the picture and checking whether it looks like me.  A cop who stops me for speeding wouldn't care either - just explain the difference if he asks, then move on.  Legal paperwork, well most of that's private anyway, so I don't really care if I'm required to use my new legal female name instead of my old male name - nobody other than me will know.

How private can a name change be kept for daily life, and is there any advantage or disadvantage to having it changed before changing one's outward daily gender presentation?

So you will only change your ID? What are you going to do when the ID you present is different from the name on the credit card? When  its different than the name on your car insurance or car registration? It might raise some red flags if you wait too long, I don't think this is what the legal process is meant for. You should really do it when you're ready to assume that identity.

Also, I'm full time and awaiting my name change, and it sucks. When I'm at the bank, pharmacy, or department store and they ask to see my ID they're always like  "your name is [boy name]?" and then it takes them a while to figure it out. So time it to change your name at the start of transition. Otherwise its just awkward.

I changed my name less than 2 weeks after starting full time, but I would recommend timing the going full time with the name change even more close together than that. The only difficultly that resulted is when it came time for the notary to notarize the court document that I need to submit she had a hard time believing the person on the ID and the person in front of her were in fact the same person, which is why I would recommend completing anything you can coming into full time and then right around that point changing your name.
Mariah

I did it very early on, it made things a lot easier for me once I had a legal name change.

Quote from: Cute Ida on December 11, 2014, 12:50:38 PM
Hello,

The situation with my name change has been very frustrating to say the least. Due to the circumstances surrounding my transition I have to wait until after my transition is finished. I am currently 31 years old. I began my transition just over 3 years ago at age 28. Around age 24 I started out with 11,000 dollars in debt which included student debt, being unemployed without unemployment benefits and credit card debt. I've been paying it off and on whenever I was employed. Due to being unemployed twice within the last year and a half I have been unable to finish paying off the last 1,428 dollars left.


I live in the state of Minnesota. The state won't let you change your name if you have any debt at all. You have to wait until its all paid back including debt you didn't know you had. Their reasoning is that you are really changing your name to get out of paying debt. That's not the case with me and other trans-women. Unfortunately there is no loophole for trans-people who want to change their name while still gladly be willing to finish paying off their debt. I have been full time and on HRT for 2 years and 2 months. I am currently a non-op.

Would they let you change your name IF you were to provide an official notice of the name change to everyone you're indebted to? In most states if the judge is worried about you trying to hide debts you could do that, which solves the possibility that you could get out of the debt by saying that (Oldname Person) doesn't exist anymore.

Hi tgchar21,


Thanks for replying to my reply. I actually asked something similar to what you suggested and they told me no and that its just state law that has to be followed in order to get your name changed. They also cited two other reasons why it wouldn't work.  One, that because the debt has been sold at least 10-15 times in the last 7 years we don't know who it was sold to. We know the first creditor and who it was sold to the second to last but we are unable to find out who its been sold to again. I've had no calls or correspondence from them to pay them directly. So the debt just sits and waits to be paid, not that I have any money I can pay anyway.


I was using a credit counseling agency but they have to go through months of red tape to eventually find out who the creditor is and make payments from me to them. The other reason: I could file a name change and pay the 350 dollar filing fee, go through the entire name change process save for going before the judge and if the judge sees that I still have debt that I am paying off he will automatically throw out the name change and I have to start the name change process again and pay the 350 fee again once I do have the debt paid off. Basically I'm screwed until I have every penny paid back.  I appreciate your response and suggestion though. Thank you.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I think it makes sense to wait until after going full-time before applying for a name change. As long as I still need to pretend to be male for any purpose, I would like to avoid the risk of being 'outed' by my records. It is just a document, anyway. I face many obstacles along my path toward a feminine future, and an "M" on my documents is a rather small one. My dysphoria comes from my body, anyway, not from others' perspectives or from a piece of paper. My feelings do get hurt easily, but I bounce back quickly. With that said, I can totally understand how seeing the wrong name on documents would be a set-back to someone who is already full-time, how that too can "out" you or cause dysphoria. As such, I think it makes sense to apply for a name change whenever the benefits exceed the risks, which for me will be shortly after going full-time.

I did the reverse - legal name change six months after I'd started living full-time as female, including at work. (It wasn't by choice; unrelated legal issues tied up the name change.) I can attest that it was a giant pain in the butt, and yes, people did notice if the credit card/ID/library card/car registration/etc. didn't match up with my presentation. I basically spent that six months having my wife do anything that was otherwise going to involve showing my legal name, including one time she had to leave work to come use *her* credit card to cover a home emergency repair, because otherwise I was either going to be outed or have the person flat-out refuse to accept that these were my documents.

Oh, and people at work tried very hard, but I ended up with one name in one place and the other in others, which was confusing and a giant hassle.

I will do all the legal stuff during my recovery from FFS, both of which will allow me to go full time.

Quote from: Cute Ida on December 13, 2014, 11:25:00 AM
Hi tgchar21,


Thanks for replying to my reply. I actually asked something similar to what you suggested and they told me no and that its just state law that has to be followed in order to get your name changed. They also cited two other reasons why it wouldn't work.  One, that because the debt has been sold at least 10-15 times in the last 7 years we don't know who it was sold to. We know the first creditor and who it was sold to the second to last but we are unable to find out who its been sold to again. I've had no calls or correspondence from them to pay them directly. So the debt just sits and waits to be paid, not that I have any money I can pay anyway.


I was using a credit counseling agency but they have to go through months of red tape to eventually find out who the creditor is and make payments from me to them. The other reason: I could file a name change and pay the 350 dollar filing fee, go through the entire name change process save for going before the judge and if the judge sees that I still have debt that I am paying off he will automatically throw out the name change and I have to start the name change process again and pay the 350 fee again once I do have the debt paid off. Basically I'm screwed until I have every penny paid back.  I appreciate your response and suggestion though. Thank you.

The only way I can see debt affecting a name change is if you've been sent to collections and there's a judgement against you. If debt was a problem no one could change their name... I have a mortgage and credit cards, student loans etc. I guess as long as it's current not a problem?

I waited until I decided to go full time to get that ball rolling, though it's a bit slow going, so getting started on the process might not be a terrible idea, though if you do do it before you're ready to go full time, you might run into snags or awkward situations at some point. But I think as long as you are just  sticking to the normal day to day, you shouldn't run into many issues.