The feds are supposed to rely on the state documents when it comes to stuff like legal name changes. There's no such thing as a legal name change in federal courts. There's no problems here over jurisdictions. But, if they require documents from the country of origin... and those documents are not consistent (differences in names, sex etc), that could easily pose problems in processing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hankgray
IDK what the procedure is when "the country you're immigrating from says you're John Doe and male, whereas the state of CA says your Jane Doe and female"- knowing immigration, I doubt its a contingency they planed for when they designed their procedures. Most people would simply never assume such a problem could arise.
What makes the situation confusing is we're also dealing with the state of CA, unlike most states where they have rules or policies defining legal sex status (i.e. texas goes by what chromosomes you have, NJ goes by whether or not you've had SRS, etc) CA has no such rules. You basically go in front of a judge at a hearing, present your case and the judge issues a court order proving your legal sex status- but it doesn't require SRS. But, if someone has had SRS- and can prove they had SRS, then they meet all the federal requirements for changing your sex on file with the feds. Homeland security will issue postops a female passport, SSA will update their databases- etc. I don't know if the feds (when dealing with US citizens) will care if CA has issued a gender change court order, but they will care that the individual had SRS and can prove they had SRS. Someone correct me if I am wrong here, but I seem to recall that the feds will even issue new documents for someone who cannot change their birth certificate (i.e. people born in Ohio). A postop born in Ohio can still get a female passport, can still get a femaler marker on their SSA database entry- because they can prove to the feds they've had srs.
The problem is when clerk's don't know what they're talking about/doing. This can go both ways, members here have reported getting female documents from states w/out SRS, using intentionally vague surgeon letters saying "feminization surgery" instead of "sex change surgery", but its the luck of the draw, not all clerks would fall for that... and some clerks would think that any time of gender change is impossible (Even when that's clearly not true).