Get the Order recognizing your gender change and changing your name

If the judge approves your request to recognize your gender change and change your name, you will get an Order. That’s the document you will use to update your legal documents.

Before you start

When you filed your case, the clerk should have told you when to return to pick up your Order Recognizing Change of Gender and Sex identifier, for Name Change, and for Issuance of New Certificates (form NC-330).

At that time, the clerk either kept your Order form or told you to hold on to it.

If you were told to hold on to it, make sure you have it ready now.

Get a signed and filed Order

  • Get your Order from the court clerk

    Go to the clerk’s office when the clerk told you to, usually at least 6 weeks after you filed your case.

    If you have the Order Recognizing Change of Gender and Sex identifier, for Name Change, and for Issuance of New Certificates (form NC-330), take it with you. If the clerk kept it when you filed, tell the clerk they have it.

    The clerk will process your Order and return it to you, signed by the judge and filed.

  • Get a certified copy of your Order

    To change your legal ID documents, you will need at least one certified copy of your Order. The clerk can get you a certified copy. This means the clerk adds an official stamp to your Order that says the copy is a true copy of the original. Depending on how many legal ID documents you want to update, you can ask for more than one certified Order.

    There is a $40 fee for each certified copy. If you have a fee waiver, you will not have to pay this fee. 

  • Change your legal ID documents

    Take the certified copy of your Order to the different agencies that issued the IDs you have to update.  

    For example, contact the: 

    • Social Security Office near you to change your social security card and records 

    • DMV to change your driver’s license or ID  

    • Office of Vital Records to get an amended (updated) birth certificate  

    • US Passport office to change your passport 

    Your records are not updated automatically with your new name. 

    You must share a certified copy of your Order with each government agency where you need to update your ID or record. You must do the same to change a gender marker, though the rules can be different.
     

    Learn how to contact each agency where you might need to update your records.

     Agency info to change name 

    Agencies have different rules about how to update a gender marker or sex identifier.

    Agency info to change gender marker

You are done with the court's name change and gender recognition process. You use your Order to update your IDs and other legal documents.

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