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A second transgender candidate running for a seat in the Republican-majority Ohio House is at risk of being disqualified from the ballot after omitting her former name on circulating petitions.
The Mercer County Board of Elections is set to vote Thursday on whether Arienne Childrey, a Democrat from Auglaize County and one of four transgender individuals campaigning for the Legislature, is eligible to run after not disclosing her previous name, also known as her deadname, on her petition paperwork.
A little-used Ohio elections law, unfamiliar even to many state elections officials, mandates that candidates disclose any name changes in the last five years on their petitions paperwork, with exemptions for name changes due to marriage. But the law isn’t listed in the 33-page candidate requirement guide and there is no space on the petition paperwork to list any former names.
But that doesn’t fulfill the stated reasoning i.e. the law makes sense because voters need to be able to research candidates. Do married women not have lives before marriage? Of course they do, but the law seems to treat their premarital life as completely separate.
Here’s what I think: the law may not have been intended to exclude trans folk, but it’s definitely sexist, and the intersection of transphobia and sexism can’t be ignored.
The law doesn’t make sense either, because name changes are public record anyway.
Well, when voters see that her husband has the same last name, it becomes pretty obvious she changed her name at marriage.
The law was passed in 1995, before anyone knew what a deadname was. And I do not see it as sexist, especially when the only reason women change names more than men is specifically excluded.
Just because it’s public record (and even then sometimes you can get records sealed) does not mean the information is easily accessible.