A transgender woman running for an Ohio House seat has been disqualified for failing to disclose her former name on petitions circulated to voters, in violation of a seldom-enforced state law.
Local election officials informed Vanessa Joy, who hoped to run as a Democrat for Ohio House District 50, that she was not eligible to do so, despite having collected the signatures necessary to run.
Joy sought to run in a firmly Republican district covering Stark County, just south of Akron.
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To clarify:
It’s an old ass law that’s not enforced.
To the point where the petition she had to use didn’t have space for it, and the 33 page guide for candidates has no mention of it.
The other article I read on this said they couldn’t find anyone that knew about this or candidate that included a prior name.
It’s not like she just refuses to follow the rule, literally no one knew about it
That other article mentions her step father is a vical anti-lgbt Republican in Ohio, pretty safe bet he researched weird rules to keep someone from running.
Not just because he doesn’t want her to win, but because other Republicans will use it in the primary against him.
If it was a random person, they would have done it to other trans candidates as well.
That’s pretty messed up if there isn’t a valid way to disclose it on the official paperwork.
One of the legitimate reasons I can see for this law would be cases where someone changed their name to be similar, or the same, as someone else who is much more likely to win.
So if someone changed their name to Joe Biden recently, I would absolutely want it disclosed that they had done so.
One of the legitimate reasons I can see for this law would be cases where someone changed their name to be similar, or the same, as someone else who is much more likely to win.
Like the sherriffs Roy Tillman from Fargo?
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Did Ted Cruz have to put his birth name (Rafael) on ballots?
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It’s all Ohio. Always has been.
I don’t think Ohio is in Texas.
BIG if true!!
Not as big as if Ohio was in Texas. It’s the rule.
America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland.
Would have picked Los Angeles over New Orleans
Take it up with Tennessee Williams.
How in the heck does this work for someone who had their name changed for any other reason? Heck, what about married people who took their partner’s last name?
Name changes by marriage are specifically exempted… because this kind of disclosure is totally unnecessary and serves no purpose.
As I noticed literally right above your comment:
If the reason for this law is to not have someone change their name to hide some negative past from voters, a marriage name change is still just as concealing. Sally Smith to Sally Michaels when there are thousands of Sally’s out there is just as much hiding as anything else.
All retroactively disqualified!! Ohio is an autonomous zone now with no leaders.
They claim in the article an exception for marriage name changes, which is nonsense. If the reason for this law is to not have someone change their name to hide some negative past from voters, a marriage name change is still just as concealing. Sally Smith to Sally Michaels when there are thousands of Sally’s out there is just as much hiding as anything else.
This is actually a really interesting point I hadn’t thought about, would people in witness protection or those who had to change their name to hide from dangerous people be disqualified?
I don’t think people in witness protection want the publicity of running for office? On the other hand, Donald “My properties are both over and undervalued” Trump ran for president, so maybe?
Didn’t read the article, I take it?
Why would there be ANY exceptions? I wouldn’t have a problem with it as long as everyone had to follow the same rule. Putting exceptions just seems silly.
You know why.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A transgender woman running for an Ohio House seat has been disqualified for failing to disclose her former name on petitions circulated to voters, in violation of a seldom-enforced state law.
Officials said Joy violated a little-known Ohio law requiring candidates for public office to list any name changes over the previous five years on their signature petitions.
Joy, who has legally changed her name and her birth certificate, told News 5 Cleveland and the Ohio Capital Journal on Wednesday she had not been aware of the law before being removed from the ballot.
Joy said that, as a transgender woman, she should not be required by law or expected to publicly disclose her deadname, which is the name she used before transitioning.
The law’s enforcement also comes at a pivotal time for transgender people in Ohio, as the state legislature gears up to override Gov.
The legislation would ban minors from obtaining gender-affirming health care and prevent transgender athletes from competing on school sports teams that match their gender identity.
The original article contains 440 words, the summary contains 169 words. Saved 62%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Well if your dead names are dead, then that means she was less than five years old. That’s too young to run for office. jk
I totally get not wanting to disclose your deadname where a ton of conservative assholes will get ahold of it, but you probably should still have to report any other names you’ve gone by to get into public office.
Why? Many of the cisgendered people don’t, so why should she?
This is the important question. I have no sympathy for the candidate not wanting to disclose the previous name - just because some people might react negatively doesn’t mean they get to hide their past
…… assuming it’s equally applied. If it’s true that other are not held to the same standard, that the requirement wasn’t communicated or known, or there is no chance to fix it before the election, that’s BS
Again, who’s hiding? Legal name changes are public records. No one is hiding. You have a solution in search of a problem.
I would never seek to justify every law. I’m sure many are bogus.
However if it only applies to one person, or is some ancient thing long forgotten brought back for one person, it is clearly discriminatory and should be invalid, regardless of whether it had any merit to begin with
A law that cannot be justified is definitionally unjust.
Anyone should have to to get into public office imo, not just her.
She’s definitely not who I’d start enforcing that rule on tbf, but everyone should have to I think.
Why, though? You have a solution in search of a problem here.
No deception is occuring in a legal name change. No identity is being hidden.
The rule is very old and never enforced. She’s the first.
People need to follow the law or change it. While its on the books, it needs to be engaged with in good-faith. A 30-minute free consultation with a lawyer could have cleared all this up
She should push for it being applied to all the other politicians in the Ohio House. Any single one of them that had any form of name change for any reason or took the name of their spouse. They all need to be disqualified and kicked out, if we’re going to be enforcing this old ass law.
The law doesn’t apply to changes due to marriage.
There probably aren’t too many others who have had a name change.
If the reason for this law is to not have someone change their name to hide some negative past from voters, a marriage name change is still just as concealing. Sally Smith to Sally Michaels when there are thousands of Sally’s out there is just as much hiding as anything else.
Honestly, it’s really not. It’s rather trivial to find marriage records to find the original name.
Maybe it’s the same for legal name changes, I don’t know. I’ve never searched for it before.
But anytime I’ve had to find out someone’s maiden name, it’s been trivial for me to do so.
Maybe it’s the same for legal name changes, I don’t know.
It is, I’ve done it. Any form of name change is just as easy to look up as marriage records, since changing your last name in the latter uses the same legal process as the former. Since it’s still just a name change.
The first approach should be to make sure the law is applied equally. If it exempts marriage, then there’s a good chance it is being applied “equally”, if there’s no other candidate it applies to
THEN you might argue the law is invalid because it’s discriminatory…. If there’s no other candidate it applies to, then you should have a good case to invalidate the law. You probably won’t help in time for an upcoming though
So we agree? I’m not so naïve to totally discount bad-faith on the part of “the system” but yeah, I disagree that anybody is exempt from revealing publicly who they were on the way to who they are today, both in life and candidacy.
Joy said that, as a transgender woman, she should not be required by law or expected to publicly disclose her deadname, which is the name she used before transitioning.
No, I don’t think so.
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Yeah, i get the fraughtnrss tied to it when you’re trans, but the purpose is to make the clear history of the person accessible- you can identify everything they publicly did under any moniker within a reasonable time period. Sucks, but her life didn’t start when she name changed.
Amazing how people downvote you.
Regardless of gender anyone who change their name should disclose their previous one so people can look them up.
The rule is only enforced for transgender people, though, and specifically exempts some other kinds of name changes that are considered more ‘socially acceptable’ to these fuckwits.
So no, if the cisgendered people do not need to disclose, neither do the transgendered people. That’s called discrimination on the basis of sex.
Disclose previous names, please. There were full records of the legal name change. Nothing was hidden. The forms didn’t even have the fucking disclosure requirements on them because no one gives a shit about this law.
This is strictly an anti-trans rule at this point and you’re here rushing to its defense based on some law and order conservative bullshit.
Lets be clear, this incident can be anti-trans or anti-democrat. Regardless, the rule is not enforced by good faith as it never been enforced before.
However, in general, anyone who changed their name should disclose that, not necessary the name but knowing someone change their name is important specifically if such person want to hold a public position.
The legal name change is all the disclosure you need. That’s a matter of public record. No one is concealing their identity if they’re using their full government name.
The idea that some kind of subterfuge may happen without this law is plainly preposterous. You’re steelmanning it for no reason.
Not to mention anyone can change their name, and hide a really sketchy or dangerous pasts.
I’m a supporter of lgbtq+ —edited—
Willing to discuss with people I have an open mind regarding techniques to get us to our goal, even if that means without a dead name. Wanna hear your ideas and solns.
Edit: you know, it is a safety thing, for both the trans person and vice versa.
I have a lot of questions now that I’ve been thinking about this more, do people’s criminal records stick past a name change, and if so how? Could you not use the same way to determine someone’s crimes without having to use their dead name? Obviously it’s something that’s very painful for a lot of trans people (maybe not all but still) and could be a fair way to meet on some middle ground?
I think you’re missing an important piece of the puzzle here. Name changes are public information. When I changed my name here in Ohio I had to have that fact published in a newspaper (which I’m glad is no longer the case). These days it’s just kept in court documents that aren’t sealed and can be searched.
For criminal records I’m sure there’s a way to keep track across it. Like my drivers license number didn’t change when I changed my name and sex marker. My social security number didn’t change when they were informed. Idk if passport numbers ever change much less what causes it, but I do know changing my name on my passport didn’t even require me to apply for a new one, I just needed a renewal and to send proof of name change. At this point so many government departments have my name change paperwork it’s laughable to imagine trying to hide my past from them using my name change
It sounds like I might be! I didn’t know they were public info, doesn’t that defeat the purpose? lol
So could the public look up your new name and get the old info still? That’s really the furthest extent of my concerns. Just would want to make sure that people couldn’t hide bad pasts, but can still have due privacy
Not really. It was traditional to publish it out of the way of where you lived. So like you’d pick a small town’s small local paper and it’s there, but it requires looking and most people aren’t going to bother. And it’s not like we’re trying to hide our pasts completely, more, it’s painful to us so we’d like to minimize our interaction with it and the degree to which it impacts us.
People can find my deadname but it’s not easy. And by not easy I don’t mean “serious investigative journalism” I mean “pulling court records”. A journalist can do it easily, and an everyday citizen can do it with reasonable inconvenience.
And beyond all that, yeah it would be no more difficult to find my past than that of a woman who took her spouses name. Ok it would be more difficult, but that’s because my present is apparently very difficult to find online. I’m a quite private person.
Totally wasn’t meaning to imply anyone would was hiding their pasts, I totally get why trans people want to shed something they’re not aligned with, even if it’s just a name to some people, to trans people it’s a lot more than that.
I used to be called all sorts of slurs that weren’t my name and I know how wearing that can be. Forget about a whole ass identity tied to a name. I couldn’t imagine
But yeah I do get the real concern of someone changing their name to hide their past. In fact if I was using my name change to hide from debt collectors or consequences of criminal behavior I’d get in extra trouble for perjury because I had to swear to a judge that wasn’t the case under oath.
As far as I’m concerned so long as journalists can determine a candidate’s past as needed I don’t need them announcing it. And we’ve already seen a politician use name changes to hide their life this year and it wasn’t some super subtle thing.
But yeah the state of Ohio does concern me that we’re going to be particularly hostile to trans people attempting to join our legislature because people here are generally cool with us, but politicians here really aren’t and we’re very gerrymandered
