Trans woman DISQUALIFIED from House race for not declaring old name

A transgender woman has been disqualified from Ohio House race ballot for failing to declare her previous name – as four LGBTQ people run to fight restrictions on rights in the state. 

Vanessa Joy, 42, was one of four transgender candidates running for state office in Ohio, largely in response to proposed restrictions of the rights of LGBTQ+ people.

She was running as a Democrat in House District 50 — a heavily Republican district in Stark County, Ohio — against GOP candidate Matthew Kishman. 

Despite receiving enough signatures to appear on the ballot, Joy was disqualified from the Ohio House race because she omitted her previous name, raising concern that other transgender candidates nationwide may face similar barriers.

Joy found out Tuesday, that a little-known state law from the 1990s that says a candidate must provide any name changes within the last five years to qualify for the ballot. 

Since the law is not currently listed on the candidate requirement guidelines on the Ohio Secretary of State’s website, Joy didn’t know it existed.

Joy legally changed her name and birth certificate in 2022, which she says she provided to the Stark County Board of Elections for the March 19 primary race. 

To provide her former name, Joy said, would be to use her deadname — a term used by the transgender community to refer to the name given at birth, not one they chose that aligns with their gender identity. 

While Joy said the spirit of the law is to weed out bad actors, it creates a barrier for transgender people who want to run for office and may not want to share their deadname for important reasons, including concern about their personal safety.

‘If I had known that I had to put my deadname on my petitions, I personally would have because being elected was important to me,’ Joy said to the Associated Press. 

‘But for many it would be a barrier to entry because they would not want their names on the petitions,’ she added. ‘It’s a danger and that name is dead.’

‘The only thing that we can do is try to fight back and that’s why that’s why there are so many trans candidates in Ohio,’ Joy said to ABC 5. 

 ‘Something that is that important should have been on the instructions,’ she said. ‘It should have been on the petition.’

When asked if she thinks the law will prevent trans people from running in the future, Joy replied, ‘Yes, I think it will — undoubtedly.’

It is not clear if this law has applied to any current or previous state lawmakers.

Joy appealed her disqualification Thursday, and is now seeking legal representation. She plans to try to change Ohio’s law.

‘We’re going to see this happening all over the place,’ she said. ‘This could be a snowball if I’m just the start of it. This is horrible news for the trans community.’ 

Rick Hasen, a professor at UCLA School of Law and an election expert, told the outlet that requiring candidates to disclose any name changes posed problems in Ohio, but generally serves a purpose. 

‘If a candidate has something to hide in their past like criminal activity, disclosing former names used by the candidate would make sense,’ Hasen said in an email.

Sean Meloy, the vice president of political programs for LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, which supports LGBTQ+ candidates, said he does not know of tracking efforts to find how many states require name changes in petition paperwork.

‘The biggest issue is the selective enforcement of it,’ Meloy said in an interview Thursday.

Over the last few years, many states have ramped up restrictions on transgender people — including barring minors from accessing gender-affirming care such as puberty blockers and hormones. 

In some states, that has extended to limitations on which school bathrooms trans children and students can use and which sports teams they can join.

Last year, Meloy said, a record number of candidates who are transgender sought and won office, and he expects that trend to continue in 2024.

Ohio lawmakers passed restrictions late last year that were vetoed by the state’s Republican governor, though many Republican state representatives say they’re planning to override that veto as soon as next week.

Meloy said that some conservatives are trying to silence transgender voices.

He cited the case of Zooey Zephyr, a transgender lawmaker who was blocked last year from speaking on Montana’s House floor after she refused to apologize for telling colleagues who supported a ban on gender-affirming care that they would have blood on their hands.

‘Now that anti-trans legislation is being moved once again,’ Meloy said, ‘this seems like a selectively enforced action to try to keep another trans person from doing that.’

Zephyr was barred from the Montana House floor after Republican lawmakers voted to silence her for rest of 2023 session.

She told her Republican colleagues they will have ‘blood on their hands’ if they ban sex change surgery for kids – which led to her being silenced in sessions this week.

The trans politician was barred from the floor, anteroom and gallery for the rest of the legislative session this year. Her ban was passed by a 68-32 vote along party lines.

The punishment of the new lawmaker caps a weeklong between House Democrats and Republicans in Montana.

During her disciplinary vote, she said in a defiant speech: ‘I rose up in defense of my community that day, speaking to harms that these bills bring that I have firsthand experience knowing about.

‘I have had friends who have taken their lives because of these bills. I have fielded calls from families in Montana, including one family whose trans teenager attempted to take her life while watching a hearing on one of the anti-trans bills.

‘When the speaker asks me to apologize … on behalf of decorum, what he’s really asking me to do is be silent when my community is facing bills that get us killed.

‘He is asking me to be complicit in this legislature’s eradication of our community, and I refuse to do so, and I will always refuse to do so.’

Zephyr addressed House Speaker Matt Regier directly and said she was taking a stand for the LGBTQ+ community, her constituents in Missoula and ‘democracy itself.’

She accused him of taking away the voices of her 11,000 constituents and attempting to drive ‘a nail in the coffin of democracy’ by silencing her.

Zephyr said that she was not being hyperbolic when she said ‘there is blood on your hands.’

The House Speaker had previously said he would not allow her to speak until she apologized, which Zephyr refused to do.