Necessary legalities and injection!

Figuring out how to get my name changed legally was a bit challenging, but do-able. But finding out how to also change my gender? Now that was confusing. I couldn't find instructions or forms for it on the Utah State Courts site. Fortunate for me, a friend of mine who has been through it before forwarded me the following forms to file prior to a hearing:

1.  "Certified Order of Change Gender And to Amend Birth Certificate"
2. "Petition for Name Change and Gender Classification"

and then to file after the hearing:

1. "Motion to Seal Case"
2. "Order Sealing Case"

Along with all of the various other paperwork involved in a name change and fee waiver for those of us who have no money.

The Utah statute involved is 26-2-11 of the Utah Vital Statistics Act.

Name or sex change -- Registration of court order and amendment of birth certificate.

(1) When a person born in this state has a name change or sex change approved by an order of a Utah district court or a court of competent jurisdiction of another state or a province of Canada, a certified copy of the order may be filed with the state registrar with an application form provided by the registrar.

(2) (a) Upon receipt of the application, a certified copy of the order, and payment of the required fee, the state registrar shall review the application, and if complete, register it and note the fact of the amendment on the otherwise unaltered original certificate.
(b) The amendment shall be registered with and become a part of the original certificate and a certified copy shall be issued to the applicant without additional cost.

I intend to head down to the court house ASAP with my massive pile of paperwork where I will then bumble along asking whoever looks court savvy questions when I get lost.

I'll also follow the input given from a local woman who went through this whole shindig in 2007:

The court clerk's counter is on the first floor of the building, and there are actually a few clerks on duty at any given time. The clerk for name changes is the very last line, under the "probate/adoption" sign. The process felt like being in line at the supermarket, you basically just wait in line until it is your turn, then tell them you are filing for a name change and give them your picture ID, the cover sheet, petition for name change, and sex offender registry certification, and pay the filing fee which is $155.00. The clerk will then have you sign the petition and will notarize it--the SL courts website recommends having it notarized before you come to the court to file it, but this is truly unnecessary as it is a formality which takes two seconds more to have done by the court clerk next to how long it would take to go to an outside notary to have it done at the cost of an additional fee.

After the clerk looks over and notarizes your petition he or she will give you a business card with the court's address on it, and will write on this card the name of the judge who will preside over your hearing, and also a phone number to call to schedule your hearing. I called later that day to schedule my hearing, and was given the date of February twelfth, only two weeks away, and told which courtroom it would be held in and at what time, and told to "just go on right into the courtroom" at the scheduled time.

Doesn't sound too awful.

I can't wait to have this all legalized and to be over the nitty gritty paperwork and fees and court visits.

Hormone Therapy & Health Concern Update

I'm a bit concerned because I haven't had a hysterectomy yet. Assuming that I get health insurance at some point in the near future here, insurance companies will have me automatically flagged as trans seeing a legal "M" seeking a much-needed hysterectomy. Or maybe they'll just assume I have Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia. Probably not.

p.s. today was injection day! It was my last dose of my prescription where the doctor upped my injection from 0.5 mL to 0.7 mL due to how quickly my liver had been metabolizing the testosterone.

I'll be calling in my next prescription next week and will also be scheduling an appointment with my hormone doctor to make sure my hormone levels are where they're supposed to be and if 0.7 mL is working out. This past month or so I've gone back to feeling lethargic again a few days prior to injection day and requiring about 10-12 hours of sleep to just function - and barely, at that. Brain just goes kaPoot! and I feel like the walking dead, whose only recourse is delicious acid reflux spurring coffee.