From an article in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle:

A transgender Rochester man must provide medical evidence to justify his request to change his first name from Sarah to Evan, a local judge has ruled.

Let's pause there. For what reasons can the court legally deny a name change request?

Denial of a name change can be made when someone is intending to commit fraud, escape criminal prosecution or evade child support. Two convicted murderers from Monroe County also were denied changing their names while in prison.

Okay, that makes sense. And what's the judge's rationale in this case?

Allowing Sarah Rockefeller to change his name without evidence "would be fraught with danger of deception and confusion and contrary to the public interest," State Supreme Court Justice William P. Polito, citing a 1976 law journal article, said in his ruling.

Say what? It would be "fraught with danger of deception and confusion and contrary to the public interest"? Bullshit, you fucking tool. Let's just say for a moment that Sarah/Evan doesn't have a penis. Exactly what danger is posed by calling this person Evan? We presume that the "danger" perceived here is that someone with a vagina could be mistaken for a man. Oh, horror! Next, we fully expect Judge Polito to outlaw short hair on women, and long hair on men. What a fucking tool.

And what is the judge asking for in order to grant the name change?

...[Judge] Polito denied the name change, saying the application "lacks any medical, psychiatric or psychological corroborative support concerning the petitioner's alleged psychological/anatomical sexual conflict."

So he's essentially asking the petitioner to drop his drawers and show that he does, in fact, have a penis and hence that he does "deserve" the right to use the name Evan. No penis, no Evan. Keep in mind:

"If a man wanted to change his name to Sue, under New York state law, it's perfectly fine for him to do so with no requirement that his name correspond to his gender," said ACLU lawyer Paul Cates.

Indeed. But then again, "A Boy Named Sue" aside, the Sue in the example is a man, and not a "freak" like Sarah/Evan. And as we just got done saying in our previous post, there's a general trend around these here parts (by which we mean the world), if you don't like a group of people, to just declare "fuck 'em" and all of their rights.

Since when does the court get to decide what names are "appropriate" for certain groups of people? Hell, if they could do that, half of Hollywood would have to rename their kids. Not to mention the fact that the line between names when it comes to gender is incredibly gray in places, and completely nonexistent in others. Is Leslie a male or female name? How about Pat? We can point to examples of both. And what about Stacy and Tracy? If we can show precedent of the name applying to someone of our gender, will Polito then say we can legally use it? Do these rules apply at birth, or just upon a request to change your birth name? So, if this genetic female had been named Evan by her parents, would that have been okay, or will we be policing the hospitals now? Do middle names also apply? What about names with no gender history, like Apple? Or would the petitioner have to prove to the court that they were actually a small red fruit in order to take that name? And fuck, what if you want your name to be Prince? Is it necessary to prove royal lineage? (We won't even get into changing your name to a weird symbol.) What if you're given a name that sounds like an old person, and you're not really old? You know, like "Ethel." Can you change it with a provision that it will change back once you hit 65 or become a grandparent (whichever comes first)? And while we're at it, perhaps we should mandate that all those of Middle Eastern descent choose from stereotypical Middle Eastern names — you know, Ali, Mohammed, Osama. That way, you could tell just from looking at someone's name if they were a terrorist. No more turbaned terrorists calling themselves "Joe" or "Steve" or any other regular names.

What we have here, folks, is the oft-reported but seldom seen "activist judge." No, really! Most of the time, that's a label that the religious asshats use to point to judges who uphold the law and, in so doing, fail to give Christianity the unfair advantage it's looking for. They wrongly claim that the judge is ignoring the law and "legislating from the bench" to advance a personal agenda, but then they are completely unable to point to the law or laws that are being ignored (since said laws don't really exist). The people who regularly make these claims are either ignorant, or just plain lying. However, in this case, we actually do have a judge who is demonstrably ignoring an identified law in order to advance his own agenda, namely a bias against transgendered people. Thanks, Judge Polito, for allowing us a glimpse of a real-life activist judge. Despite all the hype and the false sightings, they've been as elusive as Bigfoot, and we thought we'd never see one.

What a coincidence - my older sister and brother (twins) are named Stacy and Tracy. I guess Mom and Dad had a sense of humor. ANYway... ;-)

The judge, Polito, has been formally admonished in the past. This guy sounds like a real... erm... jerk.

A little surprised at this, after all, us out here in the rest of the world have got used to Americans with names like:

Cameron Diaz (chick)
Kelly Slater (bloke)
Courtney Love (chick)
Stacey Keach (bloke)
Marion Morrison (bloke) aka John Wayne

It's funny, because all of these names gave me the distinct impression that the USA was one up on the rest of the world in assigning a sexual identity to certain given names.

Did any of this lot get queried about their packages? I'd be kinda upset if Diaz turned out to be a bloke.

You misspelled my name. It's Lesley. ;-)

Hmm...we'll have to run that spelling by Judge Polito and his Name Police for you, Les. We'll let you know if you have to change your name, or if "Lesley" is okay. You know, "Apple" is always available. Or "Kal-El."

Troy — yeah, we've read some interesting things on Polito, including the admonishment you mentioned, and some blatant anti-abortion angling on his part. He sounds like a real peach.

dikkii — Hey, Norm Peterson's real first name was Hilary. How's that for ahead of the curve?

Hey, Norm Peterson's real first name was Hilary. How's that for ahead of the curve?

Very impressive.