Name Change Project

For many transgender people, securing a legal name change is an important step toward making their legal identities match their lived experience.

A lack of appropriate identity documents can deter people from applying for jobs, school, and public benefits, and can lead to discrimination. But securing a legal name change and navigating the court system can be a challenging experience, involving interaction with the court system and judges that is foreign to many people.

By providing transgender people with legal representation, we work to ensure that people successfully complete the process and move forward with their lives.

Applications Are Currently Paused

We are not currently accepting new applications for assistance from the Name Change Project. We are taking this pause to enable our small team to maintain timely responses to current applications and provide quality support to everyone who applies for assistance, as well as to navigate some technological logistics related to our merger and ensure everything is running seamlessly so we can provide effective services.

We plan to resume accepting applications later this summer. Please check back again to complete an application when we reopen to new applicants, and we’ll look forward to reviewing your application with the time and attention it deserves and being in touch with you. If you already applied before the pause, please know we are in the process of reviewing existing applications and will reach out to you as soon as possible.

We accept applications from residents of:

Atlanta, GA (Clayton, Cobb, Dekalb, Fulton, and Gwinnett Counties)
Chicago, IL (Cook County)
New Jersey (Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Passaic, Union, and Middlesex Counties)
New York City (All Five Boroughs)
Long Island, NY (Nassau and Suffolk Counties)
Philadelphia, PA (Philadelphia County)
Pittsburgh, PA (Allegheny County)

Not in one of these areas? Visit our ID Documents Center to learn how you can update your own documents.

How Our Process Works

Step 1: Complete our name change intake form.

All initial requests for name change assistance must be submitted via our online intake form below. A member of our team will review the intake form and respond via email on a first come, first served basis.

Only complete the intake form if you are a resident of:

Atlanta, GA (Clayton, Cobb, Dekalb, Fulton, and Gwinnett Counties)
Chicago, IL (Cook County)
New Jersey (Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Passaic, Union, and Middlesex Counties)
New York City (All Five Boroughs)
Long Island, NY (Nassau and Suffolk Counties)
Philadelphia, PA (Philadelphia County)
Pittsburgh, PA (Allegheny County)

Step 2: Determining whether you meet the criteria for assistance

We cannot help everyone who contacts us. Once we have evaluated your initial intake form, there are four possible responses:

• Decline
  Unfortunately, we are unable to help everyone who asks for our help. If we determine that you are not eligible, we will let you know via email, and we will send you self-help resources and/or referrals to other organizations whenever possible.
• Information Request
  If information is missing from an intake form or we require additional information to determine eligibility, a member of our staff will reach out to you via email to gather more information.
• Scheduling Intake
  Sometimes, potentially eligible applicants must complete a phone intake to gather additional information. These phone intakes typically take 20-30 minutes, are conducted by A4TE staff members, and are confidential.

• Attorney Assignment
  Sometimes, cases can be assigned directly to a volunteer attorney without any additional information requests and without an intake call. We will still contact you to sign a Participant Agreement, which outlines some important notes regarding our program, before you begin working with a volunteer attorney.

  Please note that completion of the intake process does not guarantee representation.

  Step 3: Referral to an attorney

  
  If an applicant is eligible for representation, the person will be placed on a waitlist for referral to an attorney for name change representation after the Participant Agreement is signed. We do not directly represent transgender, gender nonconforming, and nonbinary people seeking legal name changes. Instead, we partner with law firms and legal departments at corporations, who take on the representation of A4TE-referred participants in the Name Change Project. Once a referral takes place, A4TE’s Name Change Project services are complete.

  Please contact us at the Name Change Project with any questions.