MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s conservative majority ruled Thursday that a transgender woman cannot change her name because she is on the state’s sex offender registry and the law does not allow people on the registry to change their names.
The court’s 4-3 decision upholds the rulings of two lower courts, which rejected the woman’s requests to change her name and avoid registering as a sex offender.
Not a surprising result from our current state Supreme Court. This wasn’t a terribly sympathetic case given the current debate over trans rights across the board. Probably would have been better to have a case which was based on religious freedom, such as someone wishing to change his/her name in conjunction with some type of religious event.
As if state doesn’t have the ability to post the name change on the registry. Wisconsin already lists the known aliases of an individual.
Therefore the law which prohibits name alterations does so without sound reasoning. The law merely the imposition of unnecessary affirmative restraint.