Getting Documentation Changed

This page includes the following

• Getting Documentation Changed

  • Legal Name & Gender Change

  • Yale Preferred Name Change

  • Yale ID

  • Yale Legal Name & Gender Change

Legal Name & Gender Change

LAST DATE EDITED: 03/27/2023

For individuals in the United States, you file a court order with the state in which you claim residency; you can do this with Connecticut, since the majority of your year is spent living in New Haven! However, you can also choose to seek a court order in the state that you come from, which varies. 

Go to your state’s website or call to find out what forms you will need to fill out. Depending on the state, you may also be required to publish a notice of the name change. You will need to file the forms with a court clerk and generally pay filing fees that can be in the range of $150–$300, although it may be less or more depending on the state. And you will need to go to court to get your formal name change order. This resource provides information for each state. This ID Change Library provides information for federal and state ID changes, as well with associated fees.

Once your name has been legally changed, update your Yale records with this form.

Trans Lifeline offers micro-grants to fund people’s document changes (except birth certificates), 75% of which are reserved for BIPOC. Follow them or join their mailing list if this is a financial burden for you and they will literally just calculate and send the total money needed for your updates when you apply. A volunteer will be assigned to you to help you through the process, if you need it. Microgrant applications usually open on the 1st and the 15th of each month, with spots typically filling up in under a minute. However, someone can apply on your behalf, so applying with a friend can help your chances. While the very narrow window of opportunity can seem daunting, this change in their process has significantly cut down on wait times for folx. 

https://www.translifeline.org/microgrants

As this is edited, we also encourage you to consider your personal safety as you navigate this process. As the current situation targeting trans people unfolds nationally and internationally, it can be incredibly dangerous to seek these avenues of gender-affirmation. Keep in mind whether changing your name and gender might place you in a position of visibility, whether it be through publicly accessible court records or going through airport security.

Yale Preferred Name Change

Keep in mind that the name that you have in the Yale SIS system is different from the Yale Health/MyChart system. 

Yale SIS System

As of 2017, Yale’s Student Information System (SIS) allows students to input their preferred name, gender, name pronunciation, and pronouns. Go to the Personal Data tab of your SIS portal. The last three blocks on the page are “My Preferred Name”, “My Gender”, and “NameCoach”. 

Clicking on “My Preferred Name” will take you to a page where you can type in your preferred first name and choose whether you want it in your Yale email address and ID card. See https://registrar.yale.edu/students/name-policy-and-use to read the university’s policy on preferred name changes, usage, and privacy.

Clicking on “My Gender” will take you to a dropdown menu and text field. The dropdown menu gives the general gender options M, F, and N, and you can type in your specific gender identity in the text field. See https://registrar.yale.edu/students/gender-policy-and-use for the university’s policy on gender information, usage, and privacy.

Clicking on “NameCoach” will take you to the NameCoach website. You should be able to enter your preferred first, middle, and last names, as well as full name and phonetic spelling. Below that, there is a field where you can enter your preferred pronouns. At the bottom is a mechanism to record the pronunciation of your name. As of January 2019, you have to record the pronunciation of your name in order to save anything in NameCoach at all, so you can’t add your pronouns without also adding the pronunciation. (Please contact Trans@Yale if this is an issue for you for some reason.) The university’s privacy and use policy for NameCoach information is unclear as of February 2019 - we have not found an official Yale document on this, and the NameCoach website seems to suggest that preferred names and name pronunciations could be used at, for example, graduation ceremonies. Please contact us or Sam Byrd (samuel.byrd@yale.edu), the director of the LGBTQ office, if this is a problem for you.

Yale Health MyChart

As of March 2023, the Yale Health MyChart system is undergoing changes to adjust the preferred name function to be more accessible.

Other

There are a lot of other spots where you may find your birth name just because Yale's system is incredibly vast to navigate. Some places you might find your information still present is yalies.io, Yale FaceBook, your residential college's class photos, and a few other places that are not necessarily mentioned here. 

Yale ID

As of January 2023:

1. Change your preferred name on SIS.

2. Go to the Yale ID Center at 57 Lock Street (Yale Health)

   • Go dressed how you would like your picture to look! They'll take a new picture there for you

3. Say that you are getting a name change and you need a new ID

4. They will replace it for free!

As of October 2018:

Anecdotally as of October 2018, changing your Yale ID card to your preferred name is free. To change your ID, go to the Central ID Center at 57 Lock Street (near Yale Health). There is an option in the SIS Preferred Name portal to use your preferred name for your Yale ID, but as it notes you will still need an ID with your legal name to obtain paychecks, transcripts, etc. If you get an ID with your new name, you will not be allowed to keep the old one. You can get an ID with a new photograph but it costs $25, although one woman there told us that if you come in with a “broken” ID they will replace it and take a new photograph for free (although no one has confirmed that this works). 

Yale Legal Name Change

Anecdotally, as of summer 2019 the process for updating your recently-changed legal name in the Yale information system is relatively straightforward. To change your legal name and gender, go to the Registrar and give them a certified copy of your court order for a legal name and gender change, which should cover both changes in Yale’s system. A government-issued ID with updated name and gender with something to link old and new identities may also work for this, but this has not been verified. Beyond borrowing the copy to be scanned, the Registrar will ask to see your student ID and to fill out a short form asking for old and new name and info. According to someone at the Registrar’s office, all information should be updated in the system within a day. As far as we know, you won’t get a new updated NetID unfortunately, but your email address should be updated, with your old email serving as an alias so that people who only know your old email can still send you mail.