This weekend has given me a some time to contemplate on this matter. I yesterday went to one of the graduation ceremonies at the Claremont Colleges where I have been an active member of a transgender association there.
    While at the ceremony, a reverberating theme of all the speakers seemed to be that of taking the fight for equality and civil rights beyond the doors of the university. I was so moved.
    I realize on Thursday when we met that we spoke of possible compromise and I wrote of it in a follow up email to you, but I know you had not read very thoroughly my 2nd and 3rd letters to the university. The second letter especially explains in very thorough detail how conscious, at will, self-determination and control over one’s own life and their characteristics is a human right and equality issue and is protected under the US and state constitutions. Control over one’s self is not something unto which one must obtain a license or permission, it is a protection guaranteed to us.
    That second letter too represents many long, long days in the main downtown LA County Legal Library pouring over cases and codes, making photo copies, sheppardizing cases to be sure that they were not overturned and looking for cracks that the university might use as excuses. I have devoted the past two years to this task of understanding this issue and crafting that understanding in a letter to help the university understand it too. That letter was my second letter. The third letter also represents a great amount of research and analysis, but not as much as the second.
    And of those possible cracks that I did find, let me tell you, they are very, very few and far between, and as they are so very scarce, I know that the university would be very hard pressed to find them and construe them as such. Even with the opinion of Bill Lockyer. In a early draft of my second letter I included an analysis of what he had to say:

The question of whether a common law name change was legal in the State of California was posed by California Assembly Member Ted Lempert and the State Attorney, Bill Lockyer, issued a publically published response in the affirmative. Firstly, he defined what the common law right is:

The phrase “common law change of name” refers to the adoption and use of a name different from the one by which a person was formerly known, without resort to judicial process or other intervention by the state. The usage reflects the fact that at common law, all persons had, and in most common law jurisdictions including California, continue to have a right to change their given names and surnames at will. In modern times the phrase generally denotes the right of a person to use whatever name he or she chooses, as long as the purpose is not “to defraud or intentionally confuse.” (Weathers v. Superior Court (1976) 54 Cal.App.3d 286, 288.)

This is so very clear, “at will.” And in my case, I am not trying “to defraud or intentionally confuse.” And though he does affirm this law, he goes on to spell out his opinion about possible objections to this right. After quoting a statement made by the Minnesota Supreme Court, the State Attorney said, “A common law name change, in other words, carries with it no mandate to those with whom one comes in contact to accept at face value the nexus between the new name and the individual who assumes it.” By such a statement you might be able to rationalize a refusal based on you not being able to mentally make that conceptual leap---that my name is indeed changed, that that “nexus” is simply incomprehensible to you “at face value”---but given that all personal and financial aspects of my life are changed to my new name, except with several government agencies, including yours, and given that state codes are clearly replete with the demand that state agencies recognize the change by common law, it is fully your obligation to change it upon my request.

End quote.

It has gone far beyond “face value” and the nexus is clear, especially as they have seen all of my financial aid documents in my new name and gender and met, know me now, and interact with me as Olympia (except that they won’t change it in the records).
    And looking beyond those possible cracks (which are only superficial), when one looks at the big picture of all the cases together, self-determination is a right of existence. It is part of being alive, and self-aware, and knowing yourself, and choosing your life and course of happiness in it. Especially the federal cases of In Re McUlta and Jech v. Burch are profoundly moving and inspiring to me in this way and I quote them extensively in my second letter and some in the third.
    As you examine my situation with the administration, I urge you to thoroughly read my letters to understand the basis for what I am asking of them.

Thank you,
Olympia
 

P.S.  I tried to fix the pdf scan of their latest letter to me, hopefully it will print now. It’s at
http://www.olympiatveter.com/docs/3rd_letter_from_univ.pdf.