Legal Question

11,668 Views | 133 Replies | Last: 8 yr ago by StoloAg2010
BlueAg2003
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AG
So I'm sitting at the DMV currently because the wife and I (I am a woman too...most of you know this) are wanting to change our last name on our DL. We got married back in March, but finally have the time to get around to it. Our decision was to hyphenate our last names in the order of hers first. So pretend hers is Smith and mine is Jones. We've been excited this whole time to be Smith-Jones.

Fast forward to us getting here and I get my number called first. I go to my counter and am promptly told that they can't do that. They can only make my name Jones-Smith and hers Smith-Jones. That completely defeats the purpose because we wouldn't have the same name. He says it has to be maiden name first. I tell him that as a gay couple, who has the maiden name??? He argues that I now must go to get a formal name change in court, which for those who know, costs a few hundred bucks and even more time.

Gay jokes and snarky comments aside, is there anyone that can help? Is this not a little bit discriminatory? We are not able to choose the order of our names to create our married name? It's not as though we are making up something. We just want to hyphenate. Any help or legal advice would be much appreciated. It's very upsetting because we've been looking forward to this final step and we get to walk out empty-handed and feeling like we aren't being heard.
chipotle
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Thank you. I needed some entertainment this last hour.
BlueAg2003
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Glad my ****ty situation can provide you entertainment on a boring day.
The Wonderer
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Try calling a couple of different DMVs to see if you get similar responses.
agnerd
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I was going to suggest the formal name change that the DMV suggested, so I'm no help. Unless you can get the ACLU to pay for your lawsuit against the DMV, that's by far the cheapest way to achieve your goal.
Aggies Revenge
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Amazing Moves
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They were so bored with how common those names are that they figured it would be a good idea to spice it up.
dcAg
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Good luck having a normal business life. What a beating. You must be P-Whipped to no end.

Thoughts & Prayers are with you.
concac
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How is it discriminatory when it's the same policy whether you're gay or not?
Rick Dalton
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This thread made it move.
Aggies Revenge
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BlueAg2003 said:

Glad my ****ty situation can provide you entertainment on a boring day.
1) It is not a ****ty situation, it is a minor setback
2)You are not the only person to ever face a minor setback at the DMV
3)You came on GB looking for advice...bad move
4) The kinks (no pun intended) in marriage equality are going to take some time get ironed out. This is just one of them. While the courts can change things over night, bureaucracies take a little more time and effort to get sorted out. Maybe try to talk to your local rep or call the news?

Caliber
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BlueAg2003 said:

So I'm sitting at the DMV currently because the wife and I (I am a woman too...most of you know this) are wanting to change our last name on our DL. We got married back in March, but finally have the time to get around to it. Our decision was to hyphenate our last names in the order of hers first. So pretend hers is Smith and mine is Jones. We've been excited this whole time to be Smith-Jones.

Fast forward to us getting here and I get my number called first. I go to my counter and am promptly told that they can't do that. They can only make my name Jones-Smith and hers Smith-Jones. That completely defeats the purpose because we wouldn't have the same name. He says it has to be maiden name first. I tell him that as a gay couple, who has the maiden name??? He argues that I now must go to get a formal name change in court, which for those who know, costs a few hundred bucks and even more time.

Gay jokes and snarky comments aside, is there anyone that can help? Is this not a little bit discriminatory? We are not able to choose the order of our names to create our married name? It's not as though we are making up something. We just want to hyphenate. Any help or legal advice would be much appreciated. It's very upsetting because we've been looking forward to this final step and we get to walk out empty-handed and feeling like we aren't being heard.
maiden name
noun


1. the surname that a married woman used from birth, prior to its being legally changed at marriage.
So Technically, you both have maiden names... Just saying.

histag10
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okay. I know a couple who hyphenated with the maiden name last, which is weird, because it was a traditional couple, but she definitely wears the pants. So their last name is now his-hers.

Try having your social security card changed first, and using that as a document to get a new license, along with the marriage license. You will likely have less issues in a federal office than you would in whatever DMV you walked into.

Name changes in court can be costly (more than a couple hundred). I have seen them for over a grand (which is just stupid because she changed her name, paid the money, then got married and changed it again all within 6 months. Stupid.

DadAG10
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Quote:

The kinks (no pun intended) in marriage equality are going to take some time get ironed out.
Not sure this has anything to do with "marriage equality".

If Mr. Taylor marries Ms. Smith and she wanted to hyphenate, she would be Mrs. Smith-Taylor.

It would take a legal name change for Mr. Taylor to become Mr. Smith-Taylor.
Human
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When the GB was good, we had threads like this on a daily basis.
Beer Baron
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Have you done anything to have your name legally changed yet? As in, has a Judge signed something saying your name is now "Smith-Jones" and hers is "Smith-Jones?" I would think once you both have something saying that, the DMV would change it to whatever you want.

Honestly not familiar with how the name change process following a marriage typically works, either for us or for the normals.
chipotle
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Makes me happy that homosexuals finally get to deal with the dmv regarding name change issues just like the rest of the heteros. Love wins.
haircut
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Sorry to hear, OP, but COTS! Hope you get a resolution soon.
TxFig
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Why are you going to the DMV to get your name changed? Isn't getting your official name change a LEGAL step (done at a court house)?

One you have the legal documentation of your name change, the DMV doesn't have authority to say squat.
TxFig
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http://info.legalzoom.com/legally-change-name-texas-20042.html
Beer Baron
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https://www.dmv.org/tx-texas/changing-your-name.php

I think maybe you're just doing it in the wrong order. Once you've got some kind of order for your name change, it looks like you could both be Mrs. and Mrs. Consuela Bananahammock if you wanted.
BlueAg2003
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Well for a traditional couple, the woman literally walks in to the DMV and says I'm going to be "XYZ" now and it's done. No extra cost. The court order is the marriage license itself. They wave a magic wand and her last name is now "XYZ". Because we want to hyphenate and have the same last name, one of us now (me because of the order) has to go pay hundreds of dollars and spend hours to do so. If it is so easy to hyphenate for one to be Smith-Jones and are able to do so with the push of a button, why is the order of it such a problem. Her new last name would be Smith-Jones (and for the poster above, our names are much more interesting than that) and mine could only ever be Jones-Smith unless I pay money for some judge to tell me that ok.
Flogi
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Looking for attention yet again.
powerbelly
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AG
But is the husband is a poon and also hyphenates his name he would have to go through the same procedure you are dealing with.
BlueAg2003
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Haha I've never even heard of you Flogi. Yeah I'm such an attn hoor. Please.
Beer Baron
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Question: what would happen if an innie/outie couple like Histag's friends wanted to do the same thing. Would they also be stuck with mirrored names? It may just be that for them it's not really ever much of an issue.

But for real changing a name is a relatively painless process. Just fill out a form and tell a judge you're not doing it to get out of debt/criminal charges, and you're done.
DadAG10
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BlueAg2003 said:

Well for a traditional couple, the woman literally walks in to the DMV and says I'm going to be "XYZ" now and it's done. No extra cost. The court order is the marriage license itself.
Do you know this as fact, or are you just guessing?
concac
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BlueAg2003 said:

Well for a traditional couple, the woman literally walks in to the DMV and says I'm going to be "XYZ" now and it's done. No extra cost.
What if the hetero woman requests to have her surname changed to "husband's surname - maiden name"?

Is that allowed?
BlueAg2003
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Yes I know for a fact because I've had plenty of friends that did it and was just told inside that if I take her name outright or she takes mine we can do it but we can't hyphenate the same way. What freaking difference does it make? So I could walk out of there today as Mrs. Smith, but I can't walk out as Smith-Jones.
WC87
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Is the dash silent or don't be silent in Smith-Jones
Beer Baron
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RealTalk said:

BlueAg2003 said:

Well for a traditional couple, the woman literally walks in to the DMV and says I'm going to be "XYZ" now and it's done. No extra cost.
What if the hetero woman requests to have her surname changed to "husband's surname - maiden name"?

Is that allowed?
Yeah I'm thinking a hetero couple would go through the same thing if both parties wanted to change their names. They just rarely do.
histag10
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BlueAg2003 said:

Well for a traditional couple, the woman literally walks in to the DMV and says I'm going to be "XYZ" now and it's done. No extra cost. The court order is the marriage license itself. They wave a magic wand and her last name is now "XYZ". Because we want to hyphenate and have the same last name, one of us now (me because of the order) has to go pay hundreds of dollars and spend hours to do so. If it is so easy to hyphenate for one to be Smith-Jones and are able to do so with the push of a button, why is the order of it such a problem. Her new last name would be Smith-Jones (and for the poster above, our names are much more interesting than that) and mine could only ever be Jones-Smith unless I pay money for some judge to tell me that ok.


okay, what if she had her name changed to smith-jones, and then you wait a few weeks, and go back in asking yours to be changed to her last name without using your maiden name? Since her name is already smith-jones, it would seem you could have yours changed fairly easily then.


And all of this does suck, and the system isnt perfect (obviously). All i had to do is bring my current ID with maiden name, and my marriage license, and they made a copy of it and printed me a new license with my new name. Then I had to do the same with social security.
UncleStephry
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My wife had to fill out a bunch of paper work. We are hot dog/taco fwiw.

Don't expect the government to let you do anything without dragging their feet or making you fill out an endless of amount of bs.
EFE
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AG
Tell us more about lesbian sex.


In detail.
UncleStephry
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EagleFordEarl said:

Tell us more about lesbian sex.


In detail.
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