N.Y. Appellate Term Panel Rejects Medical Substantiation Requirement for Trans Name Change

A panel of the Appellate Term of the New York Supreme Court in New York County has unanimously reversed a decision from February 2009 by Civil Court Judge Manuel J. Mendez that sought to impose a medical substantiation requirement before granting a name-change sought by a transsexual applicant. At the same time, the court cautioned in its October 21 ruling in Matter of the Application of Winn-Ritzenberg, No. 09-227, that the name change did not signify a determination as to legal change of gender

Leah Yuri Winn-Ritzenberg, having concluded that his gender identity was male, wanted to change his first name to Olin, and sought assistance from the Name Change Project of the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund, which filed a petition on Winn-Ritzenberg’s behalf in the New York City Civil Court, where it was assigned to Judge Mendez. Volunteer attorneys Brenna DeVaney, Benjamin Edwards, Daniel Gonen and Janson Mao worked on the case. In an opinion that stirred outrage and consternation in the transgender community, Judge Mendez denied the petition, opinion that the court could not allow somebody born female to take up a male name without medical proof. The petition had been filed without such proof, on the understanding that New York Law freely allows people to change their names.

Decisions by the Civil Court are appealed to the Appellate Term of the Supreme Court, an intermediate appellate bench made up of designated trial court judges, whose decisions can be appealed in turn to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court. TLDEF appealed on behalf of Winn-Ritzenberg, with amicus assistance from Lambda Legal and cooperating attorneys at Debevoise & Plimpton. Daniel Gonen argued the appeal.

The Appellate Term panel consisted of Justices Douglas E. McKeon, presiding, Martin Schoenfeld and Martin Shulman. They unanimously reversed Judge Mendez. "We exercise our discretion under CPLR 5704(b) and grant the transgendered petitioner’s application for a name change corresponding with petitioner’s male gender identity," wrote the panel in a per curiam opinion. "In the absence of evidence of fraud, misrepresentation, or interference with the rights of others, the name change petition should have been granted."

"There is no sound basis in law or policy to engraft upon the statutory provisions an additional requirement that a transgendered petitioner present medical substantiation for the desired name change," the court continued. "‘Apart from the prevention of fraud or interference with the rights of others, there is no reason - and no legal basis - for courts to appoint themselves the guardians of orthodoxy in such matters,’" the court commented, citing a prior ruling, Matter of Guido, 1 Misc. 3d 825, 828 [2003].

However, "in granting petitioner’s application," the court concluded, "we do not address the separate issue of whether petitioner has changed gender for legal purposes." This parting shot signals an unfinished debate among the courts about what would be necessary to recognize an individual’s change of identity as having legal significance in those instances where the law takes account of gender, such as the right to marry in most states, including at the time of writing New York. Many courts insist that only after a full gender transition including surgical alteration can an individual change his or her legal sex, which is a matter of considerable controversy among legal scholars and transgender rights advocates.

Postscript:  The opinion was belatedly published in the New York Law Journal on October 27, which may presage a Westlaw citation.