December 18, 1992
Dear Colleagues,
I realize that the changes in my life may have made this past semester difficult for some of you. I want to thank all of you for your patience and civility.
Some of you are undoubtedly having difficulty understanding all this, but for some reason or other prefer not to talk to me about it. If in fact you do want to know more about transsexuality and how it affects others, I took the liberty of taping the December 11 episode of Picket Fences which was an excellent portrayal of the subject. I might even be so bold as to call it our Emancipation Proclamation. I dubbed a couple of extra copies for anyone who would like to borrow one. I apologize in advance for the poor quality of the taping, but my VCR is pretty old.
If you are more of a reader than a television watcher, the UCA library has a copy of the book Conundrum, an autobiography by Jan Morris. Jan was born James Morris and was for many years a reporter with the Times of London. Among other events, Jan (as James) covered the trial of Adolph Eichmann, the Suez War, and the climbing of Mt. Everest. Jan had gender reassignment surgery in 1971. I have also been informed that she wrote a later book on her life, but I do not know its title [This probably refers to Pleasures of a Tangled Life--ed].
The main purpose of the missive is to inform you that I am presently engaged in the process of changing my name to "Robyn Elaine Serven." I realize that old habits are hard to break, but I would appreciate the use of the name "Robyn." If any of you have problems with using this name, I suggest that "Dr. Serven" is a reasonable alternative, if somewhat formal. (Pronoun usage is optional, although I prefer the feminine variety).
I hope that you can all become as comfortable with me as I am with myself. It is certainly not my intention to make you uncomfortable.
Thank you again for your patience.
--Robyn Serven
For some strange reason, bureaucratic types don't know anything about the legalities of changing names. It is *not* necessary to have a court order to change one's name in any state in the US. Changing one's name can be done "common law" as was done in ancient England...by simply announcing publicly that you have a new name and will use that one from now on. That has migrated to simply going to the Social Security office and filling out the form, armed only with a notarized statement that you plan to use the new name from now on and are not changing your name with the intent to defraud. I changed my name this way in January of 1993.
When my employer decided that they couldn't legally pay me under my new name, I had to have my lawyer look up the relevant legalities, where it was discovered that the "court order" method was instituted not to supersede the "common law" method, but to allow for minors to have name changes. On the other hand, if one does a solely "common law" name change, one does have to be prepared to face the hassle of the bureaucrats who just don't get it.