Chosen Family of Michigan stands in support of House Bills 5300-5303, which seek to improve the Legal Name Change process and other updates that will benefit the LGBTQ+ community.
HB 5300 will make the Legal Name Change process more seamless. The Legal Name Change process is currently costly and burdensome, even requiring the person seeking the name change to publish a Notice of Hearing in the local paper, potentially outing members of the transgender community. Publication in a local newspaper is not a requirement in many other types of court proceedings, and this bill seeks to eliminate this requirement, in addition to other burdens.
HB 5303 will eliminate the requirement that transgender people need to have sex reassignment surgery in order to establish grounds for the change of the sex designation on a birth certificate while also adding a non-binary sex option.
HB 5301 and 5302 codifies current Secretary of State policies that allow gender marker changes on State IDs and driver's licenses, as well as providing a non-binary gender marker option.
In 2023, CFM‘s Policy Squad published a name-change guide, serving as a tool to assist the transgender community in navigating the current burdensome system of the name change process. We are excited about this bill package, and encourage it to be passed into law swiftly.
Help us continue to fight by making a tax-deductible donation at chosenfamilyofmichigan.org