Worthy of note from our meeting, NONE of the letters and interactions with the administration thus far include ANY mention of any cases which specifically say that refusal to change my name and gender might be something "optional" for them -- no quoting Bill Lockyer, etc., so technically they haven’t really used this as one of their many ever changing excuses.

   And secondly of note, we don’t formally know FOR SURE what their core reasons for the denials are as they keep changing their policies with me and the reasoning for those policies with me, but that’s a main thing you were going to look into. In the meantime, I’ve been brainstorming about possible halfway points, so they can conform to the law, but not sacrifice sacred (yet ever changing) policies. Perhaps it could be negotiated that they:

• Revert to their old claim saying that they would be okay with me providing proof of my name change in the records in the forms of my FAFSA and Sallie Mae docs, but that I also add some other document such as a bank statement or life insurance policy in my new name.

• That they expand their acceptable document policies to say that they will accept not just a SS card, or a DL, or a court order, but would also gladly accept any combination of TWO forms of non-government issued documents (a bank statement, a quarterly stock earnings report, a life insurance policy, a credit card statement, etc. -- each of which simultaneously bearing the new name and the SS number).

• That they expand their acceptable document policies to include not just one of the ones mentioned about but also include a very brief sworn affidavit (which they would formally issue) that would formally recognize their obedience to name and gender change law, but provide them a sworn statement of "proof " that a person’s name and/or gender have changed (this is sort of like what the DMV does and is something like what I provided to one of my banks as "proof").

I actually see the last as possibly the best as it would very formally spell out their balanced conformity to the laws (preserving my constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms of self-determination AND in a post-911 world, receiving a form of "proof" though none is required by law -- allowing them to keep some kind of security policies in place). So BOTH of us could have our cake and eat it too. My personal freedoms as a sovereign would be upheld, and their security issues would be addressed. And now that the computer system allows them to keep track of multiple names, they would also have not just hard files of affidavit’s on hand, but easy to access electronic records revealing that a change of records did occur (if another entity asks them about it).

I guess though that if security wasn’t the core issue you’ll find out soon enough.

Talk to you soon,
Olympia