The Trevor Project filed an amicus brief today with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio to support transgender youth who have been denied access to a legal name change because of their transgender status. The amicus brief provides the Court and the public with The Trevor Project’s unique insights into the vital importance of respecting a young transgender person’s name and identity.
As argued in the amicus brief, many of the trans youth who reach out to The Trevor Project in moments of crisis describe concerns or stresses associated with the use of their chosen names, trying to obtain legal name changes, or being outed by documents listing their names at birth. Supervisors for The Trevor Project’s crisis services, such as TrevorText and TrevorChat, report that name-change issues come up on a daily basis, multiple times a day. These impressions are borne out by data collected on TrevorLifeline, TrevorText, and TrevorChat, as terms like “name change,” “wrong name,” “dead named,” and “legal identification” have appeared almost 3,000 times since 2010.
The Trevor Project was represented in this matter by pro bono counsel from Tucker Ellis LLP, including Chad Eggspuehler and Brandon Cox.
